Mystery White Boy
Mystery White Boy, culled from Jeff Buckley's eight-month world tour of the same name, is not just another live album blighted by whoops and catcalls. Such was the reverence granted the ill-starred singer-songwriter's electrifying confessionals that hardly a whimper issues from the audience in 78 minutes--not, at least, until each gargantuan heart-and-soul epic ends. Buckley treated music like it was Shakespearean tragedy, and that grandiosity makes the live "Grace" and "Mojo Pin" at least the equal of their recorded counterparts. The gems, though, are the cover versions found here--especially a closing nine-minute rendition ofLeonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that lurches into a whispered chorus of theSmiths' "I Know It's Over." Ultimately, this posthumous collection is utterly captivating.--Louis Pattison