thumb|200px|Elliott Smith
'''Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith''' (6 Agustus 1969-21 Oktober 2003) merupakan seorang penyanyi berkebangsaan Amerika Serikat sampai kematiannya pada tahun 2003 akibat dua tusukan pada dadanya. Otopsi memperkirakan bahwa luka tusukan tersebut kemungkinan besar sengaja dibuat sendiri olehnya dan menjadi kontroversi tentang kemungkinan bunuh diri. Dia memainkan piano, gitar, harmonika, dan bas. Berkarir di dunia musik sejak 1993.

== Diskografi ==
{| class="wikitable"
!Dirilis tanggal
!Album
!Label
|-
|14 Juli 1994
|''Roman Candle''
|Cavity Search Records<br />Domino Records
|-
|21 Juli 1995
|''Elliott Smith''
|Kill Rock Stars<br />Domino Records
|-
|25 Februari 1997
|''Either/Or''
|Kill Rock Stars<br />Domino Records
|-
|25 Agustus 1998
|''XO''
|DreamWorks
|-
|18 April 2000
|''Figure 8''
|DreamWorks
|-
|19 Oktober 2004
|''From a Basement on the Hill''
|ANTI-Records<br />Domino Records
|-
|8 Mei 2007
|''New Moon''
|Kill Rock Stars<br />Domino Records
|}

== Pranala luar ==

=== Resmi ===
* [http://www.sweetadeline.net SweetAdeline.net] - Official Elliott Smith website
* [http://www.sweetaddy.com SweetAddy.com] - Official discussion forums
* [http://www.cavitysearchrecords.com/elliottsmith.html Cavity Search Records]
* [http://www.killrockstars.com/artists/viewartist.php?id=493 Kill Rock Stars]

=== Non-resmi ===
* 
* [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/elliott_smith.html BrainyQuote] - Elliott Smith quotes
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3203923.stm BBC obituary]

{{Infobox musical artist
|Name = Elliott Smith
|Background = solo_singer
|Img = Elliott Smith live NYC.jpg
|Img_capt = Elliott Smith performing in New York City, January 2003.
|Img_size = 200 pixels
|Landscape = yes
|Birth_name = Steven Paul Smith
|Origin = Portland, U.S.
|Born = <br /><small>Omaha, U.S.</small>
|Died = <br /><small>U.S.</small>
|Genre = Indie rock<br />Acoustic rock<br />Indie folk
|Occupation = 
|Years_active = 1991–2003
|Instrument = Vocals <br /> Bass <br /> Drums
|First_album = ''Roman Candle
|Latest_album = 
|Notable_albums = 
|Notable songs = "Miss Misery"
|Label = Virgin <br /> Cavity Search <br /> DreamWorks <br /> Epitaph<br /> Domino
|Associated_acts = No. 2
|URL = [http://www.sweetadeline.net Official website]
}}

'''Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith''' (American Omaha, Portland, bass, drums and multi-tracking to create vocal harmonies. 

After playing in the rock band Cavity Search and Miss Misery", included in the soundtrack for the film ''Oscar in the Best Original Song category in 1997.

Smith battled with depression, self-inflicted.<ref name="RSinconclusive"></ref> At the time of his death, Smith was working on his sixth studio album, ''From a Basement on the Hill'', which was released posthumously on October 19, 2004.

==Biography==
===Early life===

Steven Paul Smith was born at Clarkson Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Bunny Welch (née Bunny Kay Berryman), was a music teacher at an elementary school, and his father, Gary Smith, was a University of Nebraska medical student at the time. His parents divorced about a year later, and Smith moved with his mother to live in Duncanville, Texas. Much later in his life, Smith got a tattoo of a map of Texas on his upper arm and said "I didn't get it because I like Texas, kinda the opposite. But I won't forget about it although I'm tempted to 'cause I don't like it there."<ref name="Shuttp6">Shutt, 2002. p. 6</ref>

Smith endured a difficult childhood<ref name = "SPIN"/> and a troubled relationship with his Methodist Church. Smith felt that going to church did little for him, except make him "really scared of hell".<ref>Nugent, 2004, pp. 12–14</ref> In a 2001 interview, he stated, "I don't necessarily buy into any officially structured version of spirituality. But I have my own version of it".<ref>[http://www.sweetadeline.net/bio2.html sweet adeline | biography - page 2<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

At the age of nine, Smith began playing the piano, and at ten began learning guitar on a small acoustic guitar bought for him by his father.<ref name="UnderTheRadar2"></ref> At this age he also composed an original piano piece, "Fantasy," which won him a prize at an arts festival.<ref name="Shuttp2">Shutt, 2002, p. 2</ref> Many of the people on his mother's side of the family were non-professional musicians; his grandfather was a Dixieland drummer and his grandmother sang in a glee club.<ref name="Shuttp2"/> 

At 14, Smith moved from recording for the first time, borrowing a four-track recorder.<ref name="Shuttp2"/> During high school, Smith played clarinet in the school band and also played guitar, piano and sang in the bands Stranger Than Fiction,<ref name="ShuttP3"/> A Murder of Crows<ref></ref> and The Greenhouse,<ref name="pushby"></ref> billed as either Steven Smith or "Johnny Panic". He graduated from Lincoln High School as a National Merit Scholar.<ref name="Shuttp4">Shutt, 2002. p. 4</ref>

After graduation, Steven Smith began calling himself "Elliott", saying that he thought "Steve" sounded too much like a "jock" name, and that "Steven" sounded "too bookish".<ref name="Shuttp4"/> Biographer S. R. Shutt speculates that it was either inspired by Elliott Avenue, a street that Smith had lived on in Portland, or that it was suggested by his then-girlfriend. A junior high acquaintance of Smith speculates that it was so as not to be confused with Steve Smith, the drummer of Journey.<ref></ref>

===Heatmiser===

Smith graduated from bachelor’s degree in philosophy and legal theory."<ref name="UnderTheRadar2"/>

While at Hampshire, Smith formed the band Dead Air'' (1993) and ''Yellow No. 5'' EP (1994) on Frontier Records, and were then signed to Virgin Records to release what became their final album, ''Mic City Sons'' (1996).

Smith had begun his solo career while still in Heatmiser, and the success of his first two releases created distance and tension with his band.<ref name="UnderTheRadar"/> Heatmiser disbanded prior to ''Mic City Sons''' release, prompting Virgin to put the album out inauspiciously through its independent arm, XO''.

===''Roman Candle''===

{{Listen
|filename=Elliott Smith - Condor Ave (sample).ogg
|title="Condor Ave" 
|description=Sample of Elliott Smith's "Condor Ave" from ''Roman Candle'' (1994), reported to have been written when he was around 17 years old,<ref name="ShuttP3"/> showing Smith's early songwriting style and lo-fi sound. 
|format=Ogg}}

His first release, ''Roman Candle'' (1994), came about when Smith's girlfriend at the time convinced him to send a tape of "the most recent eight songs that [he’d] recorded on borrowed four-tracks and borrowed guitar" to grunge thing that was popular. [...] The thing is that album was really well-received, which was a total shock, and it immediately eclipsed [Heatmiser] unfortunately."<ref name="UnderTheRadar"/>

Smith felt his solo songs were not representative of the music Heatmiser was making: "The idea of playing [my music] for people didn't occur to me... because at the time it was the Northwest – Nirvana – and going out to play an acoustic show was like crawling out on a limb and begging for it to be sawed off." <ref></ref>

The instrumentation of the recordings was primarily acoustic guitar, occasionally accompanied by brief electric guitar riffs or a small drum set played with brushes. Only the final track, an instrumental titled "Kiwi Maddog 20/20" (a reference to the bum wine MD 20/20), had full band instrumentation.

Smith's debut solo performance was at the now-defunct Umbra Penumbra on September 17, 1994. Only three songs from ''Roman Candle'' were performed, with the majority of the ten-song set comprised of B-sides, Heatmiser tunes, and unreleased tracks.<ref></ref> Soon after this performance, he was asked to open for Mary Lou Lord on a week-long U.S. tour. Several more short tours followed, and Smith helped her record one of his songs "I Figured You Out", which he once called "a stupid pop song [written] in about a minute" that he discarded for "<nowiki>[sounding]</nowiki> like the fucking Eagles."<ref>[http://youtube.com/watch?v=EbtzSEepz28 Live performance] (1997) at Stinkweeds in Tempe, Arizona.</ref>

===''Elliott Smith'' and ''Either/Or''===

{{Listen
|filename=Elliott Smith - Pictures of Me (sample).ogg
|title="Pictures of Me" 
|description=Sample of Elliott Smith's "Pictures of Me" from ''Either/Or'' (1997) showing his style of vocal harmony through multi-tracking. The track also showcases the album's expanded instrumentation, with all instruments being played by Smith.
|format=Ogg}}

In 1995, the self-titled album ''Elliott Smith'' was released on Roman Candle'', but not without hints of growth and experimentation. Though the majority of the album was recorded by Smith alone, friend and Spinanes vocalist Rebecca Gates sang harmony vocals on "St. Ides Heaven", and Heatmiser guitarist depressed person," and said that he later made a conscious move toward more diverse moods in his music.<ref></ref>
thumb|left|Elliott Smith performing live in New York City, 1997.
In 1996, filmmaker Lucky Three: an Elliott Smith Portrait''. Two of these songs would appear on his next album, ''Either/Or'', another Kill Rock Stars release that came out in 1997 to favorable reviews.<ref></ref>  The album found Smith venturing further into full instrumentation, with several songs containing bass, keyboards and electric guitars, all played by Smith.  The album title was derived from the two-volume book of the same name by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, which deals with such themes as existential despair, dread, death and God.

By this time, Smith's already-heavy drinking was now being compounded with use of anti-depressants.<ref></ref> At the end of the ''Either/Or'' tour, an intervention was staged by close friends of his in Chicago,<ref></ref><ref name="SPIN"/> but it proved ineffective.<ref name="SPIN"/>

===Miss Misery and the Oscars===
In 1996, Smith was tapped by director and fellow Portland resident Either/Or''). The film was a commercial and critical success, and Smith was nominated for an author= Kagler, Marcus and Redfern, Mark |year= 2003| title=Better Off Than Dead, Elliott Smith Comes Clean |publisher= ''[[Under the Radar (magazine)|Under the Radar'' | url=http://www.undertheradarmag.com/es.html
 | accessdate=2007-10-14}}</ref>
<!-- FAIR USE of Elliottsmithoscars.jpg: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Elliottsmithoscars.jpg for rationale -->
thumb|right|Elliott Smith performing "[[Miss Misery (song)|Miss Misery" at the 1998 Academy Awards.]]
On Titanic''. Smith did not voice disappointment about not winning the award.<ref></ref>

Smith commented on the surrealism of the Oscars experience: "That's exactly what it was, surreal... I enjoy performing almost as much as I enjoy making up songs in the first place. But the Oscars was a very strange show, where the set was only one song cut down to less than two minutes, and the audience was a lot of people who didn't come to hear me play. I wouldn't want to live in that world, but it was fun to walk around on the moon for a day."<ref name="bostonglobe"></ref>

===''XO'' and ''Figure 8''===

In 1998, after the success of ''Either/Or'' and "Miss Misery", Smith signed to a bigger independent record label, depression, speaking openly of considering suicide, and on at least one occasion made a serious attempt at ending his own life.<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref name="SPIN">Gowing, Liam. "Mr. Misery". ''SPIN''. Volume 20 number 12. December 2004.</ref>. While in North Carolina, he became severely intoxicated and ran off a cliff. He landed on a tree, which badly impaled him but broke his fall.<ref name="SPIN"/> When questioned about his suicide attempt, he told an interviewer, "Um, yeah – I jumped off a cliff. But it didn't work."<ref></ref>   Christopher Cooper, head of Cavity Search Records (which released ''Roman Candle''), said about this time in Smith's life: "I talked him out of thinking that he wanted to kill himself numerous times when he was in Portland. I kept telling him that he was a brilliant man, and that life was worth living, and that people loved him."<ref></ref>

Smith's first release for DreamWorks was later that year. Titled ''XO'', it was produced by the team of Chamberlins and elaborate string arrangements and even a On October 17, 1998, Smith appeared on ''Saturday Night Live'' and performed "Waltz #2." His backing band for this appearance was John Moen, Jon Brion, Rob Schnapf and Sam Coomes.
<!-- FAIR USE of Elliottsmithfigure8era.jpg: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Elliottsmithfigure8era.jpg for rationale -->
thumb|left|Smith in a press photo circa 2000.
In response to whether the change to a bigger record label would influence his creative control, Smith said: "...sometimes people look at major labels as simply money-making machines, they're actually composed of individuals who are real people, and there's a part of them that needs to feel that part of their job is to put out good music."<ref></ref> Smith also claimed in another interview that he never read his reviews for fear that they would interfere with his songwriting.<ref></ref>

{{Listen
|filename=Elliott Smith - Son of Sam (sample).ogg
|title="Son of Sam" 
|description=Sample of Elliott Smith's "Son of Sam", the first single from ''Figure 8'' (2000) showing Smith's continuing development of a "more sonically detailed"<ref name="AMGfigure8"></ref> and lush sound.
|format=Ogg}}

''Figure 8'', which was released in 2000, featured the return of Rothrock, Schnapf, Brion, and Waronker, and was partially recorded at Abbey Road Studios in England. The album garnered generally positive reviews<ref></ref> and peaked at number 99 on the ''Billboard 200''.<ref></ref> The album garnered praise for its power pop style and complex arrangements, described as creating a "sweeping kaleidoscope of layered instruments and sonic textures."<ref name="AMGfigure8"/> However, some reviewers felt that Smith's trademark dark and melancholy songwriting had lost some of its subtlety, with one reviewer likening some of the songs to "the self-pitying complaints of an adolescent venting in his diary."<ref></ref>

Album art and promotional pictures showed Smith looking cleaned-up and put-together. An extensive tour in promotion of the record ensued, including television appearances on ''Late Night With Conan O'Brien'' and ''The Late Show With David Letterman''. However, Smith's condition began to deteriorate as he had become addicted to heroin either towards the end of or just after the ''Figure 8'' tour.<ref name="SPIN" />

===Final years and recording of ''From a Basement on the Hill''===
A follow-up to Smith's 2000 album was originally planned to happen with alcohol abuse.<ref name="basement2"></ref> Their friendship promptly ended, and Smith scrapped all of their work up until that point. He later said: "There was even a little more than half of a record done before this new one that I just scrapped because of a blown friendship with someone that made me so depressed I didn't want to hear any of those songs. He was just helping me record the songs and stuff, and then the friendship kind of fell apart all of a sudden one day. It just made it kind of awkward being alone in the car listening to the songs."<ref name="UnderTheRadar" />

When Brion sent a bill for the abandoned sessions to DreamWorks, executives crack per day, would often talk about suicide, and on numerous occasions tried to give himself an overdose. Steven Drozd (of The Flaming Lips) and Scott McPherson played a few drum tracks, Sam Coomes contributed some bass and backing vocals, but almost every other instrument was recorded by Smith. 

One of the few highlights for Smith in 2001 was inclusion of his song "Needle in the Hay" in The Mutato Muzika Orchestra's version of the track instead.<ref>{{cite web |author= Miller, Nancy |title= "Life Aquatic" director reveals his muses |date= publisher= ''[[Entertainment Weekly'' |url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1008489_2,00.html
 |accessdate= 2008-05-22}}</ref> Anderson would later say that Smith "was in a bad state" at the time.<ref>{{cite web |author= Miller, Nancy |title= "Life Aquatic" director reveals his muses |date= publisher= ''[[Entertainment Weekly'' |url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1008489_2,00.html
 |accessdate= 2008-05-22}}</ref>