From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V7 #128 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Monday, October 25 2004 Volume 07 : Number 128 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [MLL] Elliott's Blues [Recordings@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 21:15:03 -0400 From: Recordings@aol.com Subject: [MLL] Elliott's Blues Thanks for your remarks Carsten! The songs on Basement are great, but it's impossible not to read suicide and self-doubt into every line, justified or not. A lot of Elliott's words and phrases give me the chills, and not the good kind. But I have felt that way about every one of his albums - this is just the first time he's actually been dead, so these thoughts feel more justified.... or not? What if he didn't do it? In another way, Basement is actually a LESS depressed album than Figure 8. The sound quality is an interesting wrinkle. Though Elliott Smith and Either/Or were hometaped, Elliott was a master at his medium, and his homegrown songs were good enough to be used in a major motion picture, Good Will Hunting (though wth additional cleaning up by a mixer I sometimes work with.) The DReamworks albums also had great songs, but the sound quality was stunning, espcially given Elliott's choice to use 24-track tape and not digital files. Given all this, why did Elliott abandon his care for the sonic quality of his work on Basement? He already knew how to make his work sound good. For instance, why use amplified acoustics when mic-recorded sound so much better? Why overmodulate all the instruments so that you're left with a big dripping canvas instead of the fine-line work he always delivered before? I love the songs so I like this album, and I respect the decision to record this way, but I don't understand it... except perhaps as Elliott's way to purge himself before delivering anymore pristine "Major Label" product. Similar to what Kurt did with In Utero, but raw though that album is, it still showed care and attention to detal that I don't see in Basement. Kurt actually did approve a clean-up job after the fact. Someone might say: "Well, Elliott wasn't finished," but I think he was close, and I don't think the tracks he recorded could ever sound much different than they are. Blah blah... can you tell I'm a sound technician? (also a songwriter in my own mind, but I find it hard to say that out loud with Elliott's songs around.) D ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V7 #128 **********************************