Review: the April 1997 CMJ Sampler

On May 8, the label that helped launch Smith's career will release New Moon, a two-disc collection of songs recorded in 1995-1997, the period concurrent with the making of Smith's classic KRS albums Elliott Smith and Either/Or. - Pitchfork

One of the most significant records of the 1990s for me: the CD that came with the CMJ New Music Monthly in April of 1997. There were tracks like“Where You Get Love” by Matthew Sweet (I was already a fan), Blur’s “Song 2” (like so many Americans, this was the first Blur song I heard, though I now own all their albums), and White Town’s “Your Woman” (Let us pause to acknowledge, despite its utter lack of staying power, the greatness of this song and its refracted Star Wars-style hook). Buried on the CD between a Christian indie rock band called Driver 8 and some kind of bizarre, vaguely evil collective called World/Inferno Friendship Society is the song“Rose Parade” by Elliott Smith. This was the late 90’s and Smith had already put out a few records (had he?), but I didn’t know anything of this, hadn’t heard of labels like Kill Rock Stars or Sub Pop, wouldn’t have recognized band names like Quasi or Heatmiser.

I only heard “Rose Parade” once or twice for the first few months after I’d bought the magazine. I didn’t usually get that far (track 20 of 21) in one sitting. But I had heard it, and there was something that struck me about it, something different than the kind of music I was used to hearing. It was very quiet, not really rock music at all (but certainly not folk), and had kind of an AM-radio feel to it—a comfortable fuzziness, a low buzz. I listened to a lot of AM radio to lull me to sleep, so I had a place in my heart for it. I didn’t know much about buzzwords like DIY and indie and lo-fi and four track, but I knew that this something smaller and quieter than what I knew of rock and roll, and probably something beautiful and good.