This is the Pitchfork Review. I'm Jeremy Larson, the reviews director, and today we're going to talk about a musical excavation of sorts, the kind where a beloved artist draws a cult following.

And after the artist's early death, those diehard fans begin a decades-long quest to find more and more of his music.

And to everyone's surprise, they find it.

I'm, of course, talking about Elliot Smith, the Oscar-nominated singer and songwriter known for his intimate,

almost confessional lyrics who died in 2003.

And to talk about this mystery, the trove of music recorded in his high school career and

shortly thereafter, and how these things help reinforce or unmake the myth of Elliot Smith.

I'm here with Features editor Ryan Dumbull and contributing editor Jason Green.

How are you both doing?

Great.

I'm doing good.

Yeah.

Just to sort of set the table, Ryan, can you just give us the brief elevator pitch of who

Elliot Smith was and why he was so important to so many people?

Yeah.

So Elliot Smith was a singer-songwriter who made music that was so intimate and felt so personal and so hushed

and so close to your ear that you almost felt embarrassed to listen to it.

Or you almost felt that this person was instantly your friend, was instantly new, your most

innermost feelings and was expressing them in a way that you could

only hope to at some point in your life.

Right.

And he became famous at a time when there was a lot of loud music and alt rock happening.

...