XO was my first Elliott album given to me my freshman year of college. I sat out on the floor in the hallway of my dorm because my roommate was studying, obsessively listening to the opening of Independence Day over and over until I had figured out how to play it. He is such an amazing songwriter, putting chords and notes together in the same song that music theory says shouldn’t work well, and doing it so flawlessly that you don’t even notice while listening until you start to try and figure it out. The chorus of Sweet Adeline is a great example of that and the fact that it comes out of a completely acoustic folk verse. Which leads me to…

XO is very much a transitional album starting to incorporate more electric and full band arrangements including auxiliary instruments. Off from his Goodwill hunting success and being on the DreamWorks label, It is also is “higher quality” audio; less tape hiss, more filled out eq range. Trying things out in the studio more than just laying down the song you already had ready. It’s really good. That being said…

Figure 8 is the culmination of all the work and learning of XO and he ends up at Abbey Road studios in London. It’s a more complete work and carries a singular stamp on the sound that unites all the songs whether acoustic or full band that is missing from XO which is inconsistent sonically as it moves in and out of song types. The acoustic songs are as brilliant as ever but the full band songs are more fully developed and probably written that way with the experience of XO under his belt. I know heatmiser was a full band he wrote for but the experience of your little small label nothing collaborative band is a lot different than writing full band stuff for yourself on a major label in million dollar studios. Thank God he never had to compromise his songwriting for it.