Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval shares her love for Elliott Smith: “His music is so beautiful”
Dream-pop staples Mazzy Star emerged in the late 1980s out of the Paisley Underground movement in California. Beginning as a band called Opal, they supported The Jesus & Mary Chain and quickly secured a record deal with Rough Trade. With the addition of lead singer Hope Sandoval, the band looked to redefine their sound and renamed themselves Mazzy Star.
Their debut album, She Hangs Brightly, was released in 1990 amidst a new underground scene of indie rock and fuzzy shoegaze. The record set the new Mazzy Star sound in stone, comprising a careful collage of Sandoval’s soft vocals, melodic guitars and a glittering tambourine. Though their first album wasn’t widely successful, it was, and still is, well-loved by most alternative fans.
Their second album, So Tonight That I Might See, further developed their soothing sound. The record featured their biggest hit, ‘Fade Into You’, a comfortingly melancholic song full of longing – the track has become a well-loved 1990s alternative classic. But while Mazzy Star were pioneering dream pop, elsewhere in California, Elliott Smith was reinventing indie folk.
Though they both existed within the west coast’s alternative scene, Mazzy Star’s records felt like a warm, comforting blanket of sound, while Elliott Smith’s music was lo-fi and raw. He used similar techniques of vocal layering and intricate guitar moments, but Smith’s music contained an honest quality like no other artist. Plagued by mental illness and struggles with substance abuse, Smith’s pain was palpable in his lyrics and vocals.
Hope Sandoval noted her love for the late indie-folk artist in an interview with Dazed in 2013 when speaking about her influences. She shared: “I was just thinking about Elliott Smith the other day. I only recently got into his music. I love it so much. I don’t even know the names of the records.”
Sandoval also acknowledges their similar roots in California. She recognised the location on the cover of his 2000 album Figure 8. The artwork features Smith in front of swirls of black and red, a mural on a wall in Silver Lake, California. Sandoval recalls, “My brother used to live in Silver Lake, and when I saw the cover I knew where it was.”
Sandoval picks out the track of the same name, Smith’s cover of ‘Figure 8’, a song she says she grew up listening to: “It’s from a children’s show. The cartoon is a little girl making a figure 8 ice skating. So for some reason when I think about him, I think about the figure 8.” ‘Figure 8’ featured in the children’s educational series Schoolhouse Rock!
Smith’s cover of the song leaves some of the original educational lyrics, “Figure eight is double four, figure four is half of eight.” But he also makes the track sound much more eerie, with haunting piano and modified lyrics that declare, “If you skate upon thin ice you’d be wise if you thought twice, before you make another single move.”
Sandoval recalls that she thought ‘Figure 8’ was “the most beautiful song” growing up: “It’s a really sad little cartoon. His music is so beautiful, though. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to hear the rest of it. Cheers to him and what he’s given us musically.” Like the cartoon, Smith’s music is equal parts sad and beautiful. Two decades after his death, Smith’s music still inspires alternative artists and a huge cult following, including the likes of indie darlings Hope Sandoval and Phoebe Bridgers.
