Artist Rating: 92%
Peak Album Score: 25
Average Album Score: 22
Development Score: 8
- While it's a bit unfair to judge considering Sketches wasn't finished, Jeff was certainly branching out successfully into new styles and feels for his second album, and seems not to have lost any of the beauty whatsoever.
- While it's a bit unfair to judge considering Sketches wasn't finished, Jeff was certainly branching out successfully into new styles and feels for his second album, and seems not to have lost any of the beauty whatsoever.
Originality Score: 8
- He definitely borrows some stylings from Led Zeppelin, and some songs from Leonard Cohen, Benjamin Britten, and James Shelton. But the amalgam, the energy, and the songwriting ingenuity is new, (and man is he good at covering stuff).
Personal Bias Score: 29
- Although it's hard to really fall for an artist through such a small canon of works, Buckley exhibits such radiant charisma and talent on his one album that it's simply impossible not to get sucked in.
I feel uncomfortable giving such a high rating to an album thirty-percent composed of covers, but Grace is too great, too magical, to deserve anything less. Buckley's voice is easily one of the best in the rock canon, with a strangely quivering power (Contradiction? Maybe, I don't care.) that soars above everything else. But he's not just a pretty voice; the songs here are really good, with some of the most genial structures and progressions I've heard in a long time. The title track has a huge, rocking energy, shows off Buckley's voice at its best, and still manages to drown the listener in hooks. "So Real" is the 'ugly' one of the bunch, but may just be my favorite: the verse's guitar part is simply disturbing, and the chorus may be Buckley's most memorable. "Lover, You Should've Come Over" is a swaggering love song with some more wonderful chord changes and vocal hooks. "Hallelujah" might be the best cover of all time, and hell, everything here can be described in the same terms as above. Except "Corpus Christi Carol", a piece from a Britten opera that's performed well but is nonetheless out of place. Even then, his voice is shimmering and beautiful. Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine that Buckley contributed as much ingenuity to that one as he did to "Hallelujah" and the smoking cover of "Lilac Wine". This may or may not be the greatest album of the 90's (it's got some pretty rough competition), but it's certainly the most inspired.
- Highlights: "Mojo Pin", "Grace", "Last Goodbye", "So Real", "Hallelujah", "Lover, You Should've Come Over"
Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1998) - 91%
Sadly, Buckley drowned during the making of his second album, but a first draft had apparently already been recorded before then, so this is what we're left with. The material, at least at this stage, isn't quite as mind-blowingly good as Grace on the whole, but parts certainly are, and who knows how much farther it would've gone if finished, right? Anyway, the opening two songs easily match Grace, "The Sky Is a Landfill" a thick, hard-rocking epic reminiscent of "Dream Brother" and "Eternal Life" a bit, but probably better, and "Everybody Here Wants You" is really nothing like anything Jeff has done before - kind of a slow-burning soul thing, in a way similar to D'Angelo, but more melodic (sorry). Much of the rest of the album is noticeably a little underdeveloped, but the ideas are there - "Nightmares by the Sea" has a great dark vibe going, "Witches' Rave" sports a great contrast between the bouncy verses and the haunting chorus refrain ("I can't help from looking outside for a guarantee"), "New Year's Prayer" a cool eastern flavor. Anyway, everyone who loves Grace (which should be all humans) and wants more should go here first.
- Highlights: "The Sky Is a Landfill", "Everybody Here Wants You"
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