Elliott Smith released Either/Or, his most celebrated album, in 1997. It hewed closely to his self-titled album in style and sound, but his songwriting reached a new peak.

Several songs from this album (including today’s SOTD) showed up on the soundtrack of Gus Van Sant’s film Good Will Hunting. Smith also wrote an original song titled ‘Miss Misery’ for the film and was nominated for an Oscar.

One of the most surreal moments of the ceremony had Elliott Smith dressed in a white tuxedo joining hands with Celine Dion (who had performed the theme from Titanic) to take a bow in front of tens of millions of people worldwide. He described it later as like “[walking] around on the moon for a day.”

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