Talk:Elliott Smith

To whom it may concern
This article has serious issues and should possibly be demoted from FA. Does anyone agree?  danny music editor  Speak up! 14:24, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Editing concerns
As a long since passed FA, this article has several problems.


 * "The instrumentation of the recordings was primarily acoustic guitar..." -- unsourced
 * "The same year, Smith released a split 7" single with Pete Krebs..." -- unsourced
 * "1995–97: Elliott Smith and Either/Or" has several unsourced sections.
 * "Smith's backing band during most of this period was the Portland-based group Quasi..." -- unsourced
 * "2001-02" subheader has several [citation needed] tags
 * There are overall huge chunks of unsourced content throughout.
 * Reference 7 ("Bitcandy") is broken and redirects to a different site.

I see lots of referencing and content issues throughout. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 03:06, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Much agreed, coming from the person who placed many of the current inline maintenance templates. The article isn't even close to FA as it stands right now.  danny music editor  oops 03:12, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Any new evidence? Justice.
It truly infuriates me that he is gone and everyone thinks of him as another one who committed suicide. We know that there is a very good chance that Elliott did not commit suicide and the person responsible has been free ever since. Nobody deserves to have their death labeled as suicide if they did not do such a thing but either way they need to figure it out. Just the statements I've heard from friends of his and Chibas recently are disturbing and it needs put to rest. From people that knew her they have even talked about her obsession with knives. I guess I'm just wondering if anybody else has heard anything about the case or if anything changed. Forescity (talk) 03:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Quite frankly, there is no evidence to support an alternative hypothesis. And that's what Wikipedia will require to support any other narrative: sources. Speculative sources can be added, but they probably should not be part of the main body, but in its own section, so as to collect all the speculation in one place. We may find that there's not enough to speculate on. The coroner's report literally says that the evidence is consistent with suicide. Everything else is baseless, imo. But I'm willing to debate the finer points, as I've done it before. In a nutshell, what you can expect is the same outcome with the conspiracy theories surrounding Kurt Cobain as a murder. Leitmotiv (talk) 03:14, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "that the evidence is consistent with suicide" that is objectively false, the autopsy came back inconclusive and the case is still open. He died of two stab wounds to the chest mid-argument with his girlfriend he intended to break up with, she then called three people rather than 9/11 and said, despite being medically trained, that she thought it would be a good idea to pull out the knife. She then fled Los Angeles. The only evidence that this is suicide was Elliott's suicidal past. Unlike Love and Cobain, which is a ridiculous comparison, Chiba had means and motive and was the only person who could have killed him besides him. It is irresponsible to say outright she is a murderer, it would be remiss to pretend there isn't a fair chance she is. NotQualified (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Cliff Jump / Fall
I think the story about the fall/jump at the start of the 1998–2000: XO and Figure 8 section should be clarified. It's not so easy to say it was a suicide attempt as this article implies. The few times that Elliott talked about it he sometimes implied it was an accident and sometimes a suicide attempt. In 2013 The Guardian reprinted a Spin article in which Elliott said

"But, um, yeah – I, uh, jumped off a cliff. But it didn't work. It was in North Carolina or somewhere. It wasn't like I made up my mind to throw myself off a cliff. I got freaked out and started running, it was totally dark, and I ran off the edge of a cliff. I saw it coming up, and it wasn't like, 'I'm gonna throw myself off this cliff and die.' It was just, 'Ground's coming up. Who cares, whatever.' I landed on a little tree, punctured my, you know, body. It just made a really ugly wound." https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/16/elliott-smith-rocks-backpages

Since this is often used to suggest Elliott later committed suicide, I think it might be worth using this quote in full in the article itself.

Dorien Garry also supposedly discussed the event in more detail in the book Torment Saint. I have not read the book so I cannot confirm this, but this is a supposedly an extract from it concerning the fall. According to Garry the fall occurred on June 22, 1997 in a cul de sac in the town of Chapel Hill North Carolina. If it's true that the fall occurred in 1997, it means that the reference to it should be in the section before hand.

"As they came to the stop Elliott threw open the back door and bolted. “He was incredibly drunk and embarrassed” by the crying, Garry says, “and I don’t think he even realized what he was doing.” The impulse was simply to run, to put some distance between himself and the car and the people in it. To be alone, in other words. Garry recalls, “There was a drop-off at the end of the cul de sac that Elliott did not even see, no one could see it.” So, without clear intention or any true sense of what he was in for, Elliott ran off the cliff"

https://obscurelliott.tumblr.com/post/68323355500/the-true-elliott-smith-cliff-jump-story-torment

--14.8.68.2 (talk) 02:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Elliot Smith
I have started a RM at Talk:Elliot Smith (American football) to discuss the best target for, which is currently a R from misspelling to this article. Certes (talk) 13:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Elliot Smith (American football) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 14:06, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Hesitation wounds
There were no hesitation wounds, which are typically found on a victim of suicide by self-infliction. There is no basis for this claim that hesitation wounds are typical. There is no reason for this assumption to be included in the article. Research and see many experts say that it is a false assumption. 2600:1702:21E0:4080:B0AA:21DD:4532:D691 (talk) 17:29, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

https://justiceforelliottsmithcom.wordpress.com/a-neighbors-testimony/
I feel like this page is too relevant not to include in the wiki but amn't sure, thoughts? NotQualified (talk) 20:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It is a blog with no indication of who maintains it or what expertise/authority they have in the incident. ... disco spinster   talk  20:31, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's ran by Alyson Camus and they've been researching this topic for over a decade, they're possibly the most knowledgeable person on the entire subject and have done countless interviews and blogs on it? NotQualified (talk) 20:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It's ran by Alyson Camus and they've been researching this topic for over a decade, they're possibly the most knowledgeable person on the entire subject and have done countless interviews and blogs on it NotQualified (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Blogs are not suitable sources. This doesn't matter, but the blog essentially says nothing of consequence either and is very vague. Useless. Leitmotiv (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is the controversy over his death not documented here?
Where is the discussion of him being murdered instead of a suicide? It's not mentioned in the article here? It was a huge deal when he died. I remember driving in my car as his death was reported on the radio as his girlfriend killing him. Even if she didn't do it, the story should be addressed as everyone I knew believed it for years. I mean, listening to his lyrics and his biography he probably killed himself, but the controversy should have a section since it was such a big deal at the time. It seems odd to be completely ignored in his page. Ansarya (talk) 02:11, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Because the sources available to posit the murder theory are mostly conjecture and hypotheses, with little evidence to back it up. Yes, a lot has been said, but not typically by cite-worthy sources. I recall one slightly more serious theory that cited a peer-reviewed article about suicides and the manner they were inflicted. The PR paper noted that suicide by heart stabbing, and through bone was rare at ~10%. The hypothesist concluded that means Smith's death was a murder because it's rare. 10% is not nothing. It means that 1 in 10 suicides may involve death by cutting through bone. Now if you have 1,000 suicides, that means 100 of those will be that way. That's not an insignificant number. And there are more than 1,000 suicides to scrutinize in the U.S. alone, probably per year. My point is... there is little substance to the arguments and a lot hearsay and bias, and don't forget money-driven motives (books and tours) behind these arguments. Wikipedia is a not a place for conjecture articles. If an article were to exist, it would require a lot more reliable sources than are available, imo. Kurt Cobain's death has an article like you're suggesting, but he was super famous, so a lot more reliable sources exist for both sides of the argument (and the murder argument is spurious and patently false, btw). And most importantly, an article on Smith's death wouldn't only focus on the premise of murder, but equally give weight to suicide and evidence for it (friend hearsay, Smith's behavior in his final days). Leitmotiv (talk) 04:11, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I wasn't saying to give credence to the murder theory, but rather talk about how the spurious murder theory was very prevalent, especially early on, and then say how it's very unlikely. The relevant part wasn't that it was true, but that it took up a lot of the discussion over his death at the time. Ansarya (talk) 06:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I addressed that as well. Leitmotiv (talk) 17:26, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

elliott being labelled as "folk pop" and "indie folk"
https://www.avclub.com/elliott-smith-clementine-tom-bergeron-morning-show-1850307551

elliott rejected the folk label, should we remove the terms or are these subcategories better? i feel like we should add punk but want general consensus NotQualified (talk) 23:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It isn't up to the artist to name their own genres. Seasider53 (talk) 23:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * so whos it up to then? would they not be the supreme authority over this? NotQualified (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)