Yet, Either/Or still stands as one of its era’s most perdurable albums, and it might be due to its combination of intimacy, fragility, and strong songwriting. In all these senses, it’s a record removed from its time. As far as measurable statistics go, it would seem as though nobody was listening to the album at the time - Either/Or did not chart. As for its sound, Either/Or ’s 12-song run rarely relies on loud instrumentation even the electric guitars tend to be gentle and defusing.

When Either/Or dropped, nobody sang along to it, and legend has it that the singer’s live shows had fans petrified in silence. According to indie folklore, Smith achieved neither. Grunge, a term brushed off by its very protagonists, is still filling stadiums and pushing its fans to sing along to saddening lines such as “All the love gone bad / Turned my world to black,” from Pearl Jam’s “Black,” released in 1991.īut when the 28-year-old Portland-based Elliott Smith released his third album Either/Or in 1997, he probably didn’t expect to fill stadiums or add a new page to the loud guitar interplay of grunge. The appeal of this triangle endures: 30 years later, the late Kurt Cobain is still the main subject of documentaries, books, best-of compilations and even hilarious lawsuits. Some of the most documented chapters in rock music - and many of the genre’s most celebrated stars - belong to this time and place.

The Pacific Northwest, the nineties, and early-adulthood angst are an inseparable Holy Trinity of sorts.

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