5. Jeff Buckley - Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk
Jeff Buckley was probably the most enigmatic singer-songwriter of his generation, and he thrived on his role as a musical paradox. His debut album, Grace, became iconic for its deeply personal lyrics, which were delivered with great bluster and pomposity. The album managed to feel both intimate and grandiose at the same time, making Buckley someone that was hard to get a grasp on, but impossible to let go of. Unfortunately, Grace was the only comprehensive example of Buckley's mesmerizing brand of folk-rock. So this posthumous follow-up is automatically handicapped by the fact that most of the songs are "unfinished." But while it might've been impossible to improve on the immaculate Grace, even if Buckley had seen the songs to the finish line before his untimely passing, Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk is an undeniably enthralling listening experience from start to finish. This is technically a double-album, though in reality, the first disc is what the album would have been if Buckley wasn't such a perfectionist, as he'd decided those songs he'd recorded with producer Tom Verlaine weren't up to snuff, and had abandoned them to work on home demos for new songs and different takes on the already-recorded songs (which make up the second disc). Edgy, brooding, and oddly sentimental at times, the songs sound like Nick Cave-meets-Nick Drake, which is about as high of a compliment one could give a singer-songwriter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIMKYryXHzg