Mojo Rising: Elliott Smith

IS THIS a fairy tale or a corporate rock nightmare? Taciturn 28-year-old indie songster is taken up by maverick movie director and wakes to find himself onstage at the Oscars, wedged between Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood. Songster’s nominated ditty fails to beat out the timeless 'My Heart Will Go On' for Most Titanic Song of 1998, but all of La-la land wants to show it’s down with the lo-fi-Simon’n’Garfunkel woundedness of 'Miss Misery'. One minute the kid is hunched over a mic in a club in Portland, Oregon, the next he’s circling Hollywood in Harvey Weinstein’s Gulfstream IV. Surreal or what?