“Across the course of his troubled and tragically short life, he left behind a back catalogue that is as insightful as it is utterly captivating”: The 5 essential Elliott Smith songs to start with

Elliot Smith onstage at Field Day Music Festival, 2003.

When it comes to charting the epicentres of great indie music over the last decades, Portland Oregon comes well up on the list. The ‘Rose City’ has yielded a whole host of inspirational names, from Decemberists, Modest Mouse and Blind Pilot to The Shins, Sleater Kinney and Esperanza Spalding.  

Then, of course, there is Elliott Smith, a uniquely gifted singer-songwriter with a distinctly melancholic sound. Across five hugely influential studio albums and one posthumously compiled studio album, Smith melded folky Beatles-style melodicism with lyrics that defied convention. His sound was unassuming yet his songs exuded songwriting craftsmanship.