Welp, I finally did it. I finally listened to Phoebe Bridgers. I had avoided it for a long time but recently read an interview from a while back where she claimed that Elliott Smith was probably her biggest influence, musically. I've heard that from other hacks before and was always disappointed in how they only pull the most generic tropes from his music. So I give ol' Phoebe a try.
It's the same thing. Over and over again. Just because you write songs about relationships going sour in minor keys does not mean your music is "heavily inspired by Elliott Smith". Rather, your music is inspired by an extremely shallow interpretation of Elliott Smith.
Let's get some facts out of the way, all of which cannot be debated. As far as "indie musicians" go, Elliott Smith was S-Tier, a true master at playing folk/pop guitar. Dude could also play piano, drums, and bass very well. The point being, Smith was no hack, he was a extremely proficient musician in every single sense of the word. People often gloss over his musicianship when talking about his career, instead focusing on the "legend" of Elliott Smith: the sad subject matter, the suicide attempts, the drug abuse, etc.
Conor Oberst was the same way. At no point in his career did Oberst even begin to approach the musicianship and nuanced songwriting chops of Smith, despite telling anyone who would listen how inspired he was by Smith back in the "Lifted" days.
I don't think I've ever seen such a brilliant artist have so many shitty disciples, advocates, and acolytes.
>I don't think I've ever seen such a brilliant artist have so many shitty disciples, advocates, and acolytes. prince and kanye have many more shitty artist who took influence from their work
Ryder Roberts
>Look for music similar to Elliott Smith >Get recommended sad niggas strumming 4 chords Yes, these people miss the point big time, that the musicianship of Smith is derived from 60s pop music with quick chord changes that imply a melody, and always looking for the twist and the modulation that will take the song from boring to interesting. He is much more closely related to something like Odessey and Oracle than Oberst.
He's got great lyrics but I think one of the reasons his albums are so great to listen to is that the guitar is always well mixed. Even back on Roman Candle it has a lovely ear-filling sound, with the lower, middle and ultra-high registers all adding to the texture. I don't listen to a lot of acoustic guitar music so I don't know if there are other artists with the same thing going on
Luis Davis
This lol. One of the more big brain threads on the board in recent memory. Needle in the Hay is a good song but it’s a shame it’s his most popular when stuff like Alphabet Town and St. Ides are leagues above
Carson Watson
Can you guys explain what else sets elliott smith apart from other musicians? I don't have a great ear nor know much theory.
Also, musically, what do you think his greatest songs were? I think his best are ones like Memory Lane, Let's Get Lost, I Don't Think I'm Ever Gonna Figure It Out, and Whatever. Keep this thread alive please I like seeing people talk about Elliott
Jacob Hernandez
I enjoy Elliott Smith while writing songs about failing to find love while drinking myself to death. Is that genuine "inspired by?"
This is a phenomenally vacuous post. you write so much but say so little, and you clearly also do not make music.
Wyatt James
phoebe bridgers main influence is taylot swift
Jordan Watson
he's overrated sure he's good but you make him sound leagues better than he is
Luis Sanchez
Last hour, no name #3, miss misery, going nowhere, see you later, wouldnt mama be proud….I could list songs of his all day. They’re almost all brilliant works. It’s kind of retarded how good he was, the best pop songwriter of all time in my opinion. People like to discredit him because of muh emo depressive lyrics
If you don’t understand how objectively he’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time then you CANNOT be helped. You go in the trash
Jayden Clark
He was a Beatles and 60s disciple as I described, meaning his songs were compressed to pop perfection, rarely over 3 minutes and he always tries to surprise and delight the ear with unexpected chords outside the key, but it always sounds natural. Never a dull moment. I think these 2 songs show off this well. Both are barely over 2 minutes and 30 seconds but every second is well earned. His music is like eating a nutritious home cooked meal with ingredients from your own garden. youtube.com/watch?v=AtUe9C0SLFY youtube.com/watch?v=8FF1zDOit0Q
Wyatt Lee
Well said, the thing that most of the people “inspired” by Elliott smith seem to miss is his masterful chord vocabulary and expression which you described perfectly
Blake Jenkins
I think you're overselling Smith's abilities by a lot. He's like Jason Pierce but with mopey folk-rock/pop instead of psychedelica, he's a great composer but he's far from a virtuoso on the guitar (or any other instrument). While the music behind the mopery is the genius of Elliot Smith I don't see how that invalidates the concept of a singer-songwriter being influenced by him because they place more emphasis on his songwriting.
Connor Sanders
Elliott Smith is actually lazy garbage for teenagers.
Brody Sanders
How can you say he’s overrated when he’s a virtuoso songwriter and finger style guitar player. Yes his chops were that good Smooth brained take
Oliver Bell
>he’s a virtuoso [...] finger style guitar player. He definitely was not and if he was then be never put it on record. Post what is, in your opinion, his most complex guitar arrangement.
Owen Scott
I'm an Elliott apostle but I agree with you that he wasn't virtuosic but he was very, very good. Most of his stuff is achievable when you get proficient at travis picking but can still be very hard. This tripped me up majorly when I learned it youtube.com/watch?v=REZ1wQqGjEg And this tremolo picking is very hard youtube.com/watch?v=dEscwi6OZWk
Blake King
not him, but listen to this song and how he builds every guitar line. Man was an absolute genious
He genuinely was one of the greatest and was a superb songwriter. The guy had 7 albums and all of them are great.
Colton Martinez
Man released 5 albums without a bad song, died, had enough recorded material to fill out two double length albums, and still has enough unreleased and only-played-live-songs to fill out another one. GOAT imo
