I’ve sat staring at the blinking cursor for about twelve minutes trying to decide how to start this post off. Because what can you say about Grace?

What do you center it around? The guitar work that ranges from diamond-bright Television arpeggios to Led Zeppelin riffs* as heavy as their weight in gold to Smashing Pumpkin chainsaw fuzz, all the while sitting neatly between jazz and classical playing?

The songwriting, that at times evokes more emotion in a single line than most artists conjure across three songs?

Or do you talk about that voice? That lilting, soaring, fragile-yet-unbroken, impossibly rich voice that transcends the traditional human vocal range and inspired Thom Yorke’s delivery on Fake Plastic Trees?

Which of these most encapsulates Jeff Buckley?

To hell with that. ALL of those are Jeff Buckley. Every piece. The glassy guitar playing winding counter melodies under a nearly operatic tenor that cries out “Lover, you should have come over.” And Grace was his masterpiece, his only studio record among a string of live collections and EPs, his most ambitious statement he would ever make before his death during the recording of its follow up. But Grace is a singular work that exists outside of the tragedy of Buckley’s short life. It transcends the alt rock scene of the early 90s while adopting the best parts of it. Which is a lot for an album that most people bought just for the Cohen cover.

 

*his love for Zeppelin is no secret–he drowned shortly after jumping into the river singing Whole Lotta Love