The Elliott Smith Either/Or vinyl is one of the most requested titles we handle at B Side, and for good reason: this is the record that introduced most of the world to what Smith was capable of before the major label years arrived. Released on Kill Rock Stars on February 25, 1997, it came out just as Heatmiser, the band Smith had been splitting his time with, was dissolving. He was free to go fully inward, and the result is an album that still sounds like it was recorded in the room next to you.
Elliott Smith and the World He Built
Smith was born in Omaha but it was Portland, Oregon that shaped the sound people associate with him. His approach was deceptively simple: fingerpicked acoustic guitar, layered vocals tracked so quietly they feel like they are coming from inside your own head, and a production sensibility that favored intimacy over polish. He basically wrote the operating manual for lo-fi indie songwriting in the 1990s, and the artists working in that space today, from bedroom pop to confessional singer-songwriter, are drawing on groundwork he laid. Either/Or arrived third in his catalog, after Roman Candle and Elliott Smith, and it functions as the clearest statement of everything he had been building toward.
Why the Elliott Smith Either/Or Vinyl Matters
Either/Or was recorded across several locations, primarily in Portland, and produced by Smith alongside Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. That production team understood the assignment: keep it close, keep it honest, do not let the studio clean away what makes the songs work. The result is an album that sounds more personal than most records with ten times the budget. Kill Rock Stars, the Olympia-based independent label, had the instincts to put it out at a moment when that kind of record could still find its audience without a corporate machine behind it. The catalog number here is KRSR 269.
What You Are Getting
This is a Kill Rock Stars pressing, catalog KRSR 269. If you are building a serious collection of 1990s independent American rock, this title belongs in it, full stop. The label connection alone matters: Kill Rock Stars was operating at the center of the Pacific Northwest independent scene during this period, and their releases carry weight both sonically and historically. Vinyl is the right format for this record specifically because Smith’s production choices, the breath in the vocals, the slight room sound behind the guitars, translate onto analog with a warmth that digital formats tend to smooth over. This is a record worth owning physically, worth playing loud enough to hear everything he buried in the mix.
