Top 40 '90s albums, #22: Elliott Smith — XO

Elliott Smith, a voice gone too soon, released arguably his best album at the end of the 1990s: XO is an album that bridges the artist’s career. It’s an album with lush instrumentation, but if you listen to just the first 90 seconds, you’d be excused for thinking it was just a guy and his guitar. (It’s not that. Also, 90 seconds? You can make it through a full song.) When the piano and drums come in, you know this isn’t just a repeat of Either/Or — it’s ambitious. It’s big. It’s an album that knows how good a songwriter Elliott Smith was.

XO is a beautiful, delicate album at times; you need only listen to “Waltz #2 (XO)” and “Waltz #1” to see a tenderness to the writing, and “Pitseleh” is such a tremendous showcase of his talent. It’s a confident album, too: “Baby Britain” is piano-driven pop song that’s a clear tribute to his influences, “Independence Day” pulls out some great harmonies, and “I Didn’t Understand” is Smith acapella.

Smith was a deeply moving songwriter, and there have been plenty of times in my life when his music has been a companion. XO is an excellent album, but today, it’s sometimes hard to look past the context, the tragedy, everything. It doesn’t find its way into my rotation too often these days, but relistening over the past week as I figured out how to write about this one (even so briefly) has been a (perhaps melancholic) delight.