Elliott Smith is a legendary songwriter whose work earned him an Academy Award nomination (“Miss Misery,” which was absolutely robbed in 1998 by the hacky “My Heart Will Go On.”) His music and lyrics have also inspired artists from Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers to Frank Ocean and Mac Miller. Smith’s six studio albums are a masterclass in songwriting, spinning despair into sonic gold. We can also say that Elliott Smith does not have a single bad album, ranking these from “Worst to Best” is most like “Least Best to Best Best.” Prepare yourself for a stroll through a somber discography, which, if played loud enough, might prompt those around you to check in, leading you to reassure them ‘it’s okay, it’s alright, nothing’s wrong.”
6. Roman Candle (1994)
This album represents Elliott Smith’s first foray into solo artistry, a sparse and unembellished introduction to his musical journey. This album, stark and intimate, unfolds like a series of confessions whispered in solitude. With its minimalist approach, Smith strips back the layers to reveal the essence of his songwriting—delicate guitar work paired with his earnest, soft vocals. Each track provides a window into his introspective world, laying the groundwork for the intricate narrative voice defining his later works. While “Roman Candle” shines with raw brilliance in moments, it’s more a hint of the artist’s future potential than a peak. This foundational album is a crucial chapter in understanding Smith’s evolution, showcasing his burgeoning talent yet hinting that his most profound work was still on the horizon.
Play it Again: “No Name #3,” “Last Call”
Skip it: “Drive All Over Town”
5. XO (1998)
“XO” is Elliott Smith’s ambitious major label debut, a significant turning point in his discography that finds itself at number five. This album is a fusion of his lo-fi beginnings with a more polished and expansive sound, signaling a new chapter in his musical journey. Smith delicately balances his acoustic roots with richer, more complex arrangements, creating an intricate and deeply personal tapestry. “XO” showcases his ability to evolve without losing the core of his introspective essence, offering a collection of textured and layered songs, yet unmistakably Elliott. Despite its standout moments and broader soundscapes, “XO” doesn’t consistently reach the peaks of his later work, positioning it as a pivotal but not the definitive chapter in Smith’s evolution. It hints at his potential to compose well-produced rock songs, laying the groundwork for his upcoming albums.
Play it Again: “Baby Britain,” “Waltz #2 (XO)”
Skip it: “A Question Mark”
Honorable Mention: New Moon (2007)
“New Moon” delves into Elliott Smith’s vault, presenting a treasure trove of unreleased tracks and B-sides that offer a unique glimpse into his artistic journey. This collection, not officially part of his main studio catalog, serves as a deep dive into the raw, unpolished undercurrents of Smith’s songwriting. It’s akin to discovering a hidden drawer of sketches, each resonating with the authentic essence of his creative process. These tracks, spanning from 1994 to 1997, provide a poignant look at Smith’s evolving artistry, capturing moments of vulnerability and emotion. “New Moon” is a testament to Smith’s enduring talent, showcasing a side of him that’s both delicate and rugged and shows the intimate acoustic charm that defined his early work.
Play it Again: “Whatever (Folk Song in C),” “New Monkey”
Skip it: “Seen How Things Are Hard”
4. Figure 8 (2000)
This album marks Elliott Smith’s evolution into a realm where his intimate acoustic origins meet a more ambitious, rockstar-like polish. His second major label release is praised by fans and critics for its rich tapestry of sound—melding diverse instrumentation with intricate arrangements. It signifies Smith’s transition, merging the heartfelt storytelling of his past with a grander, more intricate musical canvas. “Figure 8” captures Smith at a point where his artistry burgeoned into something more expansive while maintaining the emotional core that is quintessentially his. Despite its broader scope and Smith’s venture into ‘rockstar’ territory while retaining his distinctive songwriting charm, the album doesn’t quite reach the pinnacle of his discography. It’s a significant chapter in Smith’s musical journey, showcasing an unmistakable evolution and a step towards a more elaborate sonic landscape. Also, I always laugh at the thought of thousands of people accidentally listening to “Somebody That I Used to Know” from this album while trying to listen to Goyte’s smash-hit of the same name.
Play it Again: “Junk Bond Trader,” “Son of Sam”
Skip it: “Bye”
3. From a Basement on the Hill (2004)
“From a Basement on the Hill” stands as Elliott Smith’s poignant posthumous release, a window into the uncharted territory he was beginning to explore. This album merges the raw emotional intensity of his earlier works with a daring, experimental edge, marking a shift to an even more bitter and cynical vibe. It’s an album that vibrates with urgency and innovation, capturing Smith at a potential turning point in his artistry. Each track resonates with a sense of what could have been as Smith delves into a blend of familiar sounds and new, experimental directions. “From a Basement on the Hill” is not just a collection of songs; it’s a bittersweet testament to Smith’s evolving genius, offering a tantalizing glimpse of a future tragically left unrealized. While it showcases his talent in raw, unfiltered glory, it also leaves us pondering the masterpieces that might have followed, positioning this album as an essential, yet hauntingly incomplete, chapter in his legacy.
Play it Again: “Kings Crossing,” “A Fond Farewell”
Skip it: “Ostrich and Chirping” (unless you’re curious about the title’s literal sounds).
2. Self-Titled (1995)
The runner-up spot is deservedly claimed by “Elliott Smith,” an album that not only cements his status as an acoustic singer-songwriter par excellence but also distills the essence of his artistry. This eponymous release serves as a profound exploration of Smith’s ability to weave deeply personal narratives with nothing more than his voice and a guitar. Each track showcases his songwriting at its most raw and pure, with gentle strums and passionate vocals that connect directly to the listener’s soul. The album’s intimate, unvarnished honesty offers a quintessential Elliott Smith experience, presenting a collection of songs that are as hauntingly beautiful as they are starkly honest. It is a seminal work in his catalog, a must-listen for long-time fans and newcomers, encapsulating the raw emotional depth and minimalistic beauty that define his legacy.
Play it Again: “The Biggest Lie,” “The White Lady Loves You More”
Skip it: None.
1. Either/Or (1997)
Elliott Smith’s magnum opus, a testament to his profound artistry and emotional depth. This seminal album gained mainstream attention with its inclusion in the “Good Will Hunting” soundtrack, which not only brought Smith’s music to a broader audience but also immortalized tracks like “Between the Bars” and “Say Yes” in cinematic history. “Either/Or” is Smith’s most accessible yet deeply poignant work, blending his signature intricate guitar play with reflective lyrics to craft songs that resonate with a haunting beauty. The album’s raw, expressive power and impeccable songwriting highlight Smith’s genius at its peak, offering tracks demonstrating his unparalleled ability to weave intricate emotional narratives with simple, evocative acoustic arrangements. “Either/Or” is not just an album; it’s a masterclass in storytelling, a beacon in the indie folk genre, and the quintessential representation of Smith’s enduring legacy.
Play it Again: “Ballad of Big Nothing,” “Rose Parade”
Skip it: None
April is an ethical journalist with a lot of integrity dedicated to telling the truth. She is currently unemployed.
Splinter is old, wise, and a master of both ninjitsu and the mystic arts. He knows huckstery snake oil pitches and thinly veiled fascism when he sees it.
After an experiment gone wrong, Brick Bradley becomes the super-strong Bugman anytime he gets angry. You would think being a rage monster would make him a natural Peterson acolyte, but the man has a lot of insect DNA, and Insects tend to form matriarchal societies, which Dr. Peterson considers unnatural. Hey, wait a minute…
These guys are from Dimension X where they lived under the tyranny of Crang the warlord for years. They’ve seen conservative thought leader’s endgame first hand and they have no interest in seeing it again.
A lot of frogs are trans, especially frogs who adhere to a punk ethos. The Punk Frogs won’t even watch the Harry Potter movies anymore let alone Fox News.
Leo is the leader of the Ninja Turtles, a morally driven idealist not easily swayed by the fear-based rhetoric of neo-cons. He wields dual katanas into battle but somehow manages not to kill anyone, which requires a strong sense of control and mindfulness. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his weak points. He did study the art of the pick-up under Sensei Mystery, and he had a really embarrassing fedora phase.
Carter is not easily influenced by anyone. He rides a motorcycle and plays by his own rules. When your name is Carter, you kinda gotta be like that.
As an ambassador to the planet Shell-Ri-La, Kerma has received mounting criticism over the years for attempting to bring his peace-loving (cough cough SOCIALIST) ways here to earth.
Photos of Irma from the time she became 50 feet tall and wreaked havoc on the city are often pointed to by Ben Shapiro, who claims “This is the future liberals want!”
This samurai rabbit is all about honor, and would never align himself with an impeached president.
Once a replacement for Shredder, Lotus renounced her evil ways and became an ally of the Turtles. As a mercenary, however, she is a 2nd Amendment hard-liner, and was pulled into the murky trenches of the far-right on that one issue alone. In 2019 she employed Dana Loesch to attack her once a week, just to keep her edge up.
Due to the fact that he contains the consciousness of all four Turtles at once, Metalhead suffers from a variety of mental illnesses and is prone to dissociative episodes, making him Fox News’ prime demographic.
Slash is not too bright and comes from an abusive household. Bebop and Rocksteady mutated him into being just to do their chores. He’s the exact sort of disenfranchised lost soul the far-right loves to prey upon.
Raphael is cool, but rude. He’s a contrarian by nature, a rebel without a cause who challenges authority in all of its forms, the kind of guy who is quick to point out “the wokes are just as crazy as the MAGA crowd” and thinks the left just doesn’t understand Rogan.
He’s a cop first and a cool robot second. ACAB, yes, including REX-1.
Take a closer look, he’s Steve Bannon. You see it now, right?
You know how in the movies Mobsters are always watching Anderson Cooper on TV? No? Exactly.
In a genre known for boundary-pushing album covers—Cannibal Corpse is only the tip of the iceberg on this—somehow this is among the most horrifying. What could be more grim than early ‘90s televangelism? The music is good, of course, with some especially killer drumwork, and an increased emphasis on melody, which, depending on what aspect of death metal you find most appealing, could be a good or bad thing. The riffing doesn’t seem quite as inspired or sinister as on the previous two albums, though admittedly, those albums were tough acts to follow. Also, there’s something weirdly off-putting about Chuck using a sexist slur on the opening track. We know, we know, it’s ridiculous to get prissy about mild profanity on a fucking death metal record, but it just comes off wrong.
We’re pretty sure our readers are going to be cool with our bottom ranking, but we’re pretty sure we’re gonna get roasted on this one. This is a lot of people’s #1. It’s a perennial fan favorite. And it’s an important step toward Death becoming more technical and progressive, stylistic shifts that they’ll execute much more interestingly on subsequent albums. This one just doesn’t feel all that memorable or interesting by comparison. Darn good album? For sure. Top tier Death? Sorry, we just don’t see it.
And the spicy takes continue. This is also a beloved Death album, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, aren’t they all? Is there a single one that doesn’t have its share of devotees ready to go to the mat for it? But then, isn’t that true of all art? Somewhere, there must be people who sincerely think “St. Anger” or “Illud Divinum Insanus” (yup, we’re gonna namecheck those trainwrecks twice) is the apex of artistic expression and audio engineering, right? What is art anyway, really, when you think about it? For that matter, what is art appreciation but the mere illusion that anything has an inherent aesthetic value at all? Have these ponderous questions sufficiently distracted you from the fact that we ranked “Symbolic” in the bottom half? Nope, guess not, y’all still look pretty pissed off. Shit.
It’s the first Death studio album and also the first death metal album. Accept no substitutes. And if you’re a metalhead under the age of 50, just think of what a roundhouse kick to the face this album must have been if you’d been mainly listening to thrash and NWOBHM when you first picked this up. Surely, nothing could be heavier and/or more influential after the bar set by “Powerslave” and “Reign in Blood” and “Peace Sells” and “Master of Puppets” in the mid-’80s, right? Haha, nope, wrong. Pretend for a moment that you’re a 16-year-old kid who picked this thing up at your local record store on a whim: it starts off pleasantly enough, with a nice, slow groove to make you comfortable. Then Chuck comes in with the growling vocals and you’re like “OK, that’s different.” And then it just explodes into a whole new genre of music.
Do you like tempo shifts? Then this is probably your #1. “Sound of Perseverance” is Death’s most technical and prog-forward album, but the cool thing is that that doesn’t mean it sounds like Yes or King Crimson playing BC Rich guitars through a collection of HM-2 pedals, nor does it come across as wonky Gorgutsian theory-nerd stuff. There’s no barrier to entry on this in the way there is for a lot of bands’ more abstract and technical releases. This is just Death doing their thing: solid songwriting, in-your-face performance, and a rhythm section you could set your watch to. You can 100% dig it on that level. The musicianship here is top-notch, but in an understated and modest way, without the pretension and self-importance of metal at its techiest. Special acknowledgment must go to “Spirit Crusher,” a deceptively simple mid-tempo number in which Richard Christy nails one of the most weirdly inventive drum transitions imaginable.
Released barely a year after the debut, it’s clear that with this album, Chuck & co. were bursting with ideas—not to mention an affinity for the kind of breakdowns that every deathcore band of the last ten years has homogenized into over-compressed sonic mush—and they channeled those ideas into this absolute monster of a death metal classic. Like a lot of the greats of the genre, their sophomore album pretty much leaves the thrash influence behind and fully embraces the burgeoning Floridian death metal/Morrisound aesthetic. Slightly more sophisticated than “Scream Bloody Gore” in terms of composition and production, but still so brutal and raw that it holds up with the heavyweights of the era like “Altars of Madness” and “Deicide.” When it comes to in-your-face aggression, those latter two might sound more evil and relentless, but “Leprosy” takes top honors for cohesiveness, an early step toward proggy technicality, and overall execution. Also, little known fact, it held the world record for “Pinkest Metal Album Art” for many years until it was finally beaten out by 
This one seems to fly under the radar sometimes, and we honestly think that might have something to do with the understated cover art. No dead-eyed lepers in a Mad Max wasteland or demonic mountaintops or “Tales from the Crypt”-style Halloween imagery or bug-eyed Evangelical lunatics committing elder abuse this time around. But never mind the album art (which is killer in its own right): this album is, to allude to a totally different sort of metal band, “more Human than Human.” Everything that made “Human” a triumph and a fan favorite—the flawless musicianship, the who’s-who-of-metal lineup, the jazz fusion flourishes, the stunning basswork, the thought-provoking lyrics—is even better on “Individual Thought Patterns.” Right out of the gate with album opener “Overactive Imagination,” this record goes from 0 to 100 in no time flat. This is basically Death’s “…and Justice for All.” It’s got a consistently satisfying “Harvester of Sorrow”-esque gallop, the lyrics are angry but poetic, the song structures are heavy as hell but deceptively intricate, and the bass could stand to be a tad higher in the mix. Oh, and like Justice, it’s the single best album in its band’s respective discography. We said what we said.
Can an album cover get less than zero? Because what the shit is this? I mean I sorta get it with “Battle Hymns” as it was their first album and they probably hadn’t learned that all anyone wants from this band is hot, sweaty beefcakes on the covers. But 4 albums in, there is no excuse for “Sign of the Hammer.” More like “Sign of the Not Gonna Listen to This Album Unless They Change the Art and Put a Hot Ass Dude Holding an Axe on There.”
Now you might look at this cover and think “super ripped sweaty beefcakes and boobs?!?! How is this not number one?” But here’s the thing. If you’re gonna show nudity, show nudity. Boobs are great. We all love boobs. But why the hell are the dudes with swords wearing pants? We get that they’ve got those dope codpieces, but not one of them is hanging dong?!? Horseshit. At least let one testicle hang out of the side. And you know what’s the worst part? We guarantee there was a conversation about it. At least one guy in that band was like “why aren’t the sweaty beefcakes showing their dingle dangles?” And deep down everyone involved knew what should happen. But nobody stood up and did the right thing. And that’s how fascism takes power.
No. England gets no hails. We do like the sorta comic book style of the cover art and it’s definitely moving in the right direction, but still no. Manowar’s whole thing is being from New York and dressing like “Game of Thrones” Chippendales. We don’t need to bring Royal Family nonsense into it.
Teasing is great. We all love a tease, especially when the tease is this vascular. But we don’t like Manowar covers because of the tease. We want a full-on, hot sweaty beefcake. And while there is some of that, we’re just not seeing enough. Definitely appreciate that it’s a closer shot than usual, so we can get some beefcake details, otherwise known as beeftails. But other than that this cover is meh. Who knows? Maybe it folds out into a dope, hot, sweaty poster. But we’ll never know, because we’ve moved on to other albums.
Both of these covers would be waaaaay cooler without the flag nonsense. Imagine seeing a hot sweaty beefcake in real life and thinking “Dope. That is a hot, sweaty beefcake, which I support.” And then they pull out a broad sword and you’re like “Hell yeah. Didn’t think this could get cooler, but then it did.” And then in the most non-Chad move of all time, they then pull out an American flag. Yikes. Nothing wrong with being from the States. Some might even say Hard Times is based in the States. But we don’t wanna have to be worrying about where this dude was on January 6. Keep your nationalism out of my hot sweaty beefcakes.
You know when your friend started referring to exercise as “gains”? That’s the whole vibe of this cover. Meanwhile there are no gains to be seen, despite the fact that it feels like they probably won’t shut the fuck up about it. And to be clear, we don’t body-shame at The Hard Times. But what the hell is this? We don’t want an actual photo of the band. We want greased up, hot, sweaty beefcakes, regardless of body-type. At least the dude on the left understood the assignment. Everyone else is giving off the vibe of that feeling when you thought something looked great in the store dressing room but now you gotta wear it to the dinner party and you realize it’s kinda ridiculous. Not the guy on the left though. When he bought his fur thunderoos, he knew exactly what he was getting into, and there is no way in hell he’s not showing them off.
This would probably be number 2 if it wasn’t for the use of the word “triumph.” Just literally any other word not associated with the rise of fascism and all we’re focusing on is this fictional, faceless hot sweaty beefcake who thankfully has dropped his flag-waving nonsense from some of the other albums. Call this album “Gains of Steel” and we’re all in.
Here we go. This is getting good. This feels metal, without any of the weird vibes of some of the previous covers. And it’s scary metal. Dark and grim. There’s like a snake and a dragon-looking thing. But still, as always, hot, sweaty beefcakes. The sweatiest. And they have weapons. That’s probably the band surrounding the center beefcake, which is sorta cool. But it’d be a lot cooler if they were wearing less clothes. Not in an “objectification” but more in a “we’re here for the hot, sweaty beefcakes” way. Which we’re pretty sure is different.
This. This is it. This is what we want. Before social media, it was very hard to see how someone else viewed themselves. Unless that someone else was Manowar. Because this album cover is exactly how they see themselves. Wish-fulfillment is kinda the whole Manowar thing. Which is another reason this cover works so well. It’s the actualization of everything Manowar is going for. It’s over-the-top, and seemingly not in a self-aware way. It’s four dudes paying an artist to paint them as the D&D warriors they always wanted to be and also maybe actually think they are. In chaps. Can we talk about the chaps? Because two of them are wearing chaps. That’s a real choice. And this is a painting. So there was time to see what the artist was doing and say “No, no. It’s absurd to be wearing chaps.” But instead these guys saw that and thought, “Goddamn I look awesome.” And that, in and of itself is in fact awesome. It’s “The Room” in an album cover. You don’t have to like anything about it to appreciate that what it is. Because what it is, is four hot, sweaty beefcakes.