This 2001 compilation gathers Elliott Smith's first three albums, tracing his evolution from four-track bedroom confessionals to the fuller arrangements of Either/Or. The trajectory reveals a songwriter refining his double-tracked whisper into something achingly precise, where fingerpicked guitars frame lyrics about addiction and loneliness without flinching.

By the time major labels came calling after his Oscar nomination, these records had already established Smith as the quiet laureate of Pacific Northwest melancholy, proving that intimacy could be its own form of intensity.