Learning From Elliott Smith, 20 Years After 'Figure 8'

Shortly after the release of his fifth studio album, Figure 8 — the last record he'd finish in his lifetime — Elliott Smith told a Boston Herald writer why he was so drawn to that titular image. "I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection," he said. "But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in a twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can."

That tension — between polish and texture, between pop and punk rock, between best-kept-secret and unlikely superstar — never quite found a steady equilibrium throughout Smith's glorious, tumultuous career. The fame he began to attract, unwittingly, in the late '90s (culminating with his tender and unforgettable 1998 Oscar of 's "Miss Misery") made that balance even more difficult to achieve. But Smith never crafted quite so immaculate an object of Beatlesque beauty as he did with his ornately melodic 2000 release, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on April 18. Autumn de Wilde's iconic cover photo has become the most enduring image of Smith, a be-hoodied everyman standing before a swirling, psychedelic mural. In the 2014, she recalls summing up to him the idea behind the shot: "What if you are as everyone sees you, and you don't realize that the world is exploding in color behind you?"