There are seldom few pieces of media that posses the emotional depth to genuinely bring me to tears — Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid,” “m.A.A.
d city,” Bill Hader’s “Barry” and John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” are some of the only pieces of media that I can remember as having cut me that deeply. Besides these select few masterpieces, there is one other piece of art that has undeniably made me cry more than anything else ever has; one piece of art that has hit me harder than I initially thought possible: Jeff Buckley’s lone studio album “Grace.” Coming in at 11 songs, “Grace” is a nearly hour long tour de force of emotion, as Buckley’s lyricism, ethereal and melancholic melodies and passionate voice effectively cause his music to morph into an auditory knife that is more than capable of wounding its listener.
However, as much as it pains me to admit, the emotional masterpiece that is “Grace” likely benefits more than anything from something besides the actual music itself: Buckley’s untimely death. For those who are unfamiliar with Buckley’s story, he tragically died shortly after his meteoric rise to fame, the singer drowning in the Wolf River alongside his close friend Keith Foti. The drowning seemed not only inexplicable (Buckley did not fail his postmortem toxicology screen nor did he have a significant level of alcohol in his system), but the suddenness of it was truly jarring.
He was simply ripped from his seat of glory, forced into .