alexrager:
You get to choose one band/artist to put out a new record every year for the rest of your life. The material on said albums would sound wholly original and be on par with their best stuff. Who would you choose and why?
Jeff Buckley. No question.
Even though AFI are my favourite band ever and I love Feeder and I love Alkaline Trio and Glassjaw are more than just a passing fancy in my heart. It would have to be this guy, providing I suppose you could get a time machine and fish him out of the Mississippi before he drowned.
Grace was an incredible, incredible album and considering it was the only album that was released while he was alive (and therefore around to be happy for it to be released) AND it was his debut album… the prospect of more amazing songs out of him every year would probably render me mute for a good few years with utter glee.
Even Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk - a double album, half full of finished tracks that he just wasn’t satisfied with and then half what are essentially demos is amazing. Then you factor in all the recorded live stuff that been put out - no question, if Jeff was still alive and releasing music, it would be the most beautiful music ever performed. This is the guy who, after seeing him perform, influenced Thom Yorke’s vocals on Fake Plastic Trees. Without Jeff Buckley, we wouldn’t have Muse in the way they are. Without Jeff Buckley (and his death, I suppose), we wouldn’t have Massive Attack’s Teardrop.
And not only has Jeff influenced COUNTLESS amazing bands and singers and indirectly brought about some of my favourite songs, his influences - woven seamlessly into the fabric of his music, opened me up to whole genres of music I had never considered listening to.
So yeah. Jeff Buckley. Without a doubt.