Jeff Buckley

Since 1992 · United States

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Grace (1994)

Grace moves from hard rock to delicate balladry to a cappella hymn without ever losing its center, Buckley's voice — capable of a falsetto wail and a near-whisper within the same song — the one constant across all of it. His cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," built around a fingerpicked guitar figure and a vocal performance of extraordinary control, has become the version most listeners now think of first. The title track shows the harder-edged side of the record, guitars stacking into something close to a wall of sound. It remains one of the most vocally ambitious rock albums of its decade.

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Jeff Buckley

Grace · 1994

Jeff Buckley spent his early twenties playing sporadic solo shows at a small Manhattan cafe before releasing Grace (1994), his only studio album completed in his lifetime, which combined an extraordinary vocal range with an eclectic mix of original songs and covers — most famously a version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that has since become one of the most widely covered vocal performances in popular music. His guitar playing drew on Led Zeppelin and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in roughly equal measure, and his voice could move from a near-whisper to an operatic wail within a single phrase.

Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River in 1997 while recording what would have been his second album, leaving Grace as his sole complete statement. Its influence on singers across rock and pop — several of whom have spoken about Buckley's vocal freedom as a direct inspiration — has expanded considerably since his death, well beyond the modest commercial reception the album received on release.