Elliott Smith Reissues Due in April, Free Download of Unreleased "Cecilia/Amanda" Out Now

Elliott Smith's 1994 debut album Roman Candle and 2004 posthumous LP From a Basement on the Hill will both be reissued by Kill Rock Stars, the label home of Smith's other independent releases, on April 6th, 2010. To celebrate the releases, Kill Rock Stars is offering up a free download of an unreleased Smith track called "Cecilia/Amanda," a song that was titled "Time is Ours Now" when recorded by Smith's high school band Stranger Than Fiction. This unearthed version from 1997 features new lyrics and was recorded at Jackpot! Recording Studio by Larry Crane, who also oversaw the remastering of Roman Candle reissue. Download "Cecilia/Amanda" now over at KRS.

"The intention that I had was to make the album more listenable," Crane says of remastering Roman Candle. "I felt that a lot of the guitar 'squeaks' were jarring and very loud, and that many of the hard consonants and 'S' sounds were jarring and scratchy sounding. I felt by reducing these noises that the music would become more inviting and the sound would serve the songs better." The reissue, which will also mark the first time Roman Candle has been released on vinyl on the U.S., keeps the original mixes intact.

Rolling Stone's panel of writers, artists and industry folk voted Smiths' 2000 swan song Figure 8, the last album Smith released before his suicide in 2003, onto our list of the 100 Best Albums of the Decade. To see RS entire list of the Top 100, check below:
• 100 Best Albums of the Decade

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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