while he was alive. His Nick Drake-like ubiquity as a 'name to drop' really came to be after his death.

I believe his talent would have come across even if he'd looked like one of the Chuckle Brothers, but being a very handsome chap obviously did him no harm...

I can still hear the sound of swooning from the crowd at the Shepherds Bush Empire...

A friend played me Grace when it came out, and I particularly loved Hallelujah and Lilac Wine. Still do. I'm sure his appeal increased because of his (a) looks and (b) death, but you could say the same about Nick Drake or Gram Parsons. But the guy certainly had talent. And it's not his fault that he influenced those that came after him.

I remember Mojo championing his music a great deal while he was still alive.

If Elliott Smith had been photogenic he would have been all over the covers of all kinds of magazines by now. What is that line about living fast, dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse?

All the most venerated dead rock stars were good looking.

and to be honest I couldn't give a fig about his looks. Grace is a very good album and his voice is exceptional. When the song quality matched his voice, the tracks were out of this world. His early death has more to do with his legacy than his looks but it's still based on his music mostly I reckon.

Buckley had the voice of an angel and was a stunning live presence. I saw him at The Garage and it was, without a doubt, the single best gig I've ever attended. His looks certainly didn't hold him back and certainly sold books/posters but I don't think it got in the way of the music

His early death did, of course, cause his recorded legacy to be short and perfect - no dodgy third studio album, no tedious collaborations, no appearances on charridy records - just one and a bit albums.

...entirely forgettable. I tried to like it because my freinds banged on about it so much but it just never did anything for me.

I love Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley, but I can understand that people love Buckley for the quality and pitch of his voice.

Smith writes great songs, but his voice doesn't stand out in the same way.

Nick Drake also has a similarly haunting voice that marks him out from, say Bert Jansch (and, of course Drake died).

..let him down, it doesn't matter how "angelic" your voice is, you gotta have the tunes.

Well, like I said, my two favourite songs of his are both covers. One is beyond overplayed, so here's the other one:

Have you guys come across Mark Mulcahy? Now there is a truly talented singer.

I was "conned" into buying Grace by swooning reviews in Mojo and didn't take to it at all. Overblown comes to mind. Got rid of it years ago.

Grace is a diamond of a record. Yes he occasionally veered off into over-egging certain musical puddings but the guy was fantastic. Great musician, great songwriter, great performer great singer..he was only going to improve and stun the world. Sadly those who've copied him and cited him as a main influence have been total tosh. That's not his problem. And as for his looks - couldn't give a monkeys either way. Music is invisible.

and was completely underwhelmed.

No different from the current crop of Blunt's/Rice's/Gonzalez's/Morrsion's to be truthful.

Horrifically over-rated.

As Ian Faith said "Death sells"

Posters and reputations.

Paint A Vulgar Picture, The Smiths, Strangeways Here...

...on Hallelujah sounds wise and wry. Jeff Buckley's version is hollow and over-emoted, like most of Grace. Even when he's under-emoting, say on Lilac Wine, it sounds like he's over-emoting. He was the indie Michael Bolton.

I really like a few tracks on it, but when some of it pops up on my MP3 player when it's on shuffle, I wonder what duff rock band who had one single that got to No 37 and was never heard of again I'd forgotten to delete from it.

Elliott Smith, absolute brilliance.