Mojo Rising: Elliott Smith
Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1998
IS THIS a fairy tale or a corporate rock nightmare? Taciturn 28-year-old indie songster is taken up by maverick movie director and wakes to find himself onstage at the Oscars, wedged between Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood. Songsters nominated ditty fails to beat out the timeless 'My Heart Will Go On' for Most Titanic Song of 1998, but all of La-la land wants to show its down with the lo-fi-SimonnGarfunkel woundedness of 'Miss Misery'. One minute the kid is hunched over a mic in a club in Portland, Oregon, the next hes circling Hollywood in Harvey Weinsteins Gulfstream IV. Surreal or what?
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