Elliott Smith: From a Basement on the Hill (2LP) [KILL ROCK STARS]

Why you'll love it

This 20th anniversary remaster comes from brand new transfers of the original 1/4" tape mixes, as a 2LP set in a mirror-board gatefold jacket. It became Smith's highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching No. 19 on the Billboard 200.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 20th anniversary remaster
• New transfers from the original 1/4" tape mixes
• Mirror-board gatefold jacket
• Stereo mix

About the album

Elliott Smith spent three years on this one, from 2000 to 2003, filling reels and hard drives with more than 50 songs and aiming for a double album. He died in October 2003 before it was finished. His family asked his longtime producer Rob Schnapf and his former partner Joanna Bolme to sort through the tapes, and the 15 songs they finished became his sixth and final album, out almost a year later.

It's a bigger, louder Smith record than you might expect: "Coast to Coast" opens with a wall of guitars and drums, "Pretty (Ugly Before)" carries one of his loveliest melodies, and "Twilight," "Let's Get Lost" and "King's Crossing" show how far he'd pushed the sound past Either/Or and XO. Pitchfork found it "perfectly coherent and cohesive," with no sense of being pieced together from half-finished parts.

Metacritic counts it among its highest-rated albums, with a score of 88 from 37 reviews. Larry Crane and Adam Gonsalves of the official archive team handled this remaster, and the songs sound closer than ever. We keep a copy behind the counter for the quiet hours, purely for quality control, you understand.

Also at Kops: more Elliott Smith on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter

Tracklist

Listen

On Kill Rock Stars (cat# KRS708), a reissue of the 2004 album.