Buckley's Grace Tops To French Mag

01/07/2000 5:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Wendy Hermanson

(1/7/00, 5 p.m. ET) - More than two years after his death by drowning, the music of art-rocker Jeff Buckley is still causing a stir. In its December 22 issue, French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles has named Buckley's groundbreaking 1994 album Grace as the best in the past twenty-five years, besting 's Nevermind, Radiohead's OK Computer, and runner-up, the Smiths' The Queen Is Dead, among others.

Wrote the teen-culture-based glossy: "Even though he was carried away by the waters, Jeff Buckley never stopped singing, to heights undreamed of." Buckley's mom, Mary Guibert, tells Launch that while her son was often very uncomfortable with such accolades, this one might have secretly meant something more to him.

"Jeff was not one to be excited by magazine covers and the things that were said about him. He had some famous reactions to having been chosen as one of People magazine's '50 most beautiful people' in, I believe it was, '95. He was just absolutely scandalized. It made him depressed for days…But I think deep in his heart he would have been very moved [by this particular award]."

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, fans can look forward to a new collection of live Buckley cuts on Columbia Records some time this spring.

-- Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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