Elliott Smith: A Best Of...?

A friend recently played me highlights of his own, personal, best of Elliott Smith. 24 tracks. Lots of things had to be cut obviously.

Things that came out of our little chat:

* I still don't know the first album very well. The nameless songs drive my head in.
* Neither of us own any Heatmiser.
* My friend liked the rockers a fair bit more than I do.
* It took us a while to really appreciate Basement... for what it was without thinking of Elliott Smith's passing.
* Ballad Of Big Nothing can be performed in standard tuning, in C.

Of course, the real best of will come out, and soon. Someone's looking at the licensing I'm sure. There's enough minor hits to jusitfy it - Waltz #2, Son of Sam and of course Miss Misery herself. Throw in a couple of the random covers that ended up on soundtracks, the odd Heatmiser track, and presto! And let's face it, the world is not about to run out of skinny, angry, depressed 19 year olds. And god dammit, there's worst things that are discounted to $20 come christmas. Truck this stuff out by the tonne. Get the kids away from their bloody Simple Plan and find some real pain. And even though I have all the tracks I'm sure I'll be picking up a copy too.

Aside: I had a quick browse of Sweet Adeline to write the above ramble. Good to see it's still going. I used to visit this site every day. I also came across a great site of Elliott b-sides on mp3.

SITE: Sweet Adeline
SITE: Elliott Smith B-Sides

MP3: Elliott Smith - Trouble
- From the soundtrack to the film Thumbsucker (Hollywood, 2005). This is a cover of a Cat Stevens song recorded during the Basement... sessions.
MP3: Elliott Smith - Ballad Of Big Nothing
- From the album Either/Or (Kill Rock Stars, 1997)