Either/Or

因为“Between the Bars”这样不舍言说的音乐，我接触Elliott Smith的第一张唱片。Elliott Smith的第三张专辑见证了Smith作为一个全能的乐手表露出来的更多的野心。虽然他仍然自己演奏所有的乐器，但是他所作的已经不仅仅是演奏所有的乐器了。这张专辑中的几首歌曲模仿了六十年代以来流行乐队的一些代表作的旋律。但是最吸引人的，仍然是他那宁静的忧郁的嗓音，虽然演奏的歌曲非常的吸引人，演奏的技巧非常的巧妙.音乐上谦卑的安排与简陋的录音设备更加的相称。 Between the Bars很好的体现了Smith的力量。他用他非常低的嗓音传达了深夜弥漫的酒精和反思，同时他温柔的弹奏创造了一种小音调的氛围衬托此时的神秘；Angeles同样也像是在天空中漂浮着的——Smith轻轻拨出的音符轻快的跳跃在键盘单一和弦的周围，就像在水面上只有听觉的小鱼游向孤独的灯塔。歌词是对于Los Angeles后资本主义工业化梦想的一种黑暗的和痛苦的反抗。

Elliott Smith's third album sees his one-man show getting a little more ambitious. While he still plays all the instruments himself, he plays more of them. Several of the songs mimic the melody mastery of pop bands from 1960s. The most alluring numbers, however, are still his quietly melancholy acoustic ones. While the full-band songs are catchy and smart, Smith's recording equipment isn't quite up to the standards set by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. The humbler arrangements are better suited to the sparse equipment. "Between the Bars," for example, plays Smith's strengths perfectly. He sings, in his endearingly limited whisper, of late-night drinking and introspection, and his subdued strumming creates a minor-key mood befitting the mysteries of self. "Angeles" is equally ethereal -- Smith's acoustic fingerpicking spins out notes which briskly move around a single atmospheric keyboard chord, like aural minnows swimming toward a solitary light at the surface of the water. The lyrics are a darkly biting rejection of the hypercapitalist dream machinery of Los Angeles (it would make a great theme song for Smith's label, Kill Rock Stars). Ironically, "Angeles" was included on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, which won Smith the acclaim of Hollywood's biggest, brightest, and best connected voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Smith's stock in L.A. soared after he took his bow at the Oscars with Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood. It might have been more interesting had he sung "Angeles."