There's little use in debating whether or not Jeff Buckley's legacy is best served by a seemingly endless stream of posthumous releases. Buckley's music and persona are cemented in the pop music canon even before the repackaging, re-sequencing, or re-mastering. And given that Buckley only released one proper LP in his lifetime, it makes sense that these reissues-- including the latest, So Real-- offer little in the way of either consistency or deeper perspective.
Playing more like a label-mandated promotional release for an up-and-coming artist than a thorough retrospective of one of rock's contemporary greats, So Real showcases the arc of Buckley's career in a chronologically scattered and not-particularly-enlightening way. Buckley's three best-known releases-- the Live at Sin-e EP, Grace, and the unfinished Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk-- each encapsulates a distinct moment in Buckley's career, and together constitute a fairly complete snapshot of his musical goals and aspirations. This compilation, however, demonstrates no such personal depth, showcasing Buckley's talents while omitting his inspired missteps.
There's very little new that can be said about the cuts taken from Grace and Live at Sin-e. The choices are even pretty obvious: "Lover, You Should've Come Over", "Grace", "Last Goodbye", and "Hallelujah" from the former; "Mojo Pin" and "Je n'en Connais Pas La Fin" from the latter. Mediocre outtake "Forget Her" and a sped-up "road version" of "Eternal Life" are culled from the still-freshly-released "Legacy Edition" of Grace. The only at all questionable omission here is that of "Morning Theft", a fan favorite and by far one of the strongest tracks on Sketches.
The three tracks chosen to represent Sketches-- "The Sky Is a Landfill", "Everybody Here Wants You", and "Vancouver"-- all speak to the largely unacknowledged influence of D.C. art-rockers Shudder to Think on Buckley's later work. After the release of Grace, Buckley spent some time playing bass in Shudder guitarist Nathan Larson's underrated Mind Science of the Mind project, and the influence is apparent in Sketches' flashes of inspired, angular weirdness. Listening to "The Sky Is a Landfill", in particular, it's clear that Buckley was beginning to explore a more discordant and subversive approach, even if he hadn't quite figured out how to execute it. One can see why Buckley wished to re-record the songs that were released as Sketches-- while his vocals are in prime form, his band lacks the cohesive, communicative energy that makes Shudder's Pony Express Record so amazing.
You can hear Buckley growing more lyrically adventurous too, with similarly mixed results. The straightforward, lovelorn words of "Last Goodbye" and "Lover, You Should've Come Over" perfectly suit that era of Buckley's material. The more impressionistic lines of "The Sky Is a Landfill" and "Vancouver" are a striking contrast; ambitious, overreaching, and occasionally very awkward and clumsy. No matter how many live albums, B-sides, and covers surface, the unbelievably sad truth remains that the record Sketches hints at-- a more sinister, dissonant and explosive take on Buckley's heart-on-sleeve romanticism-- will never be heard.
The inclusion of a single previously unreleased track (a fairly predictable cover of the Smiths' "I Know It's Over") hints that this compilation is meant for completists as well as newcomers. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much to offer either. Buckley's legacy is necessarily imperfect, inconsistent, frustrating, and exhilarating, and the "best-of" treatment ultimately does nothing to bring out the best in his work.
