Either/Or

Made while Smith was still in Heatmiser, it was recorded at Joanna Bolme's house, Smith's own house, Undercover, Inc., Laundry Rules Recording and the Heatmiser House, all in Portland, and at The Shop in Arcata, California. Smith produced it with Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. Rothrock and Schnapf mixed most of the songs, while Smith mixed Alameda, No Name No. 5, Rose Parade and 2:45 AM himself. Larry Crane recorded Pictures of Me and Don C. Tyler mastered it. The title comes from Kierkegaard's book, and the lyrics refer to Portland places such as Alameda, Division Street and the Rose Festival. Speed Trials came out as a single in October 1996 and Ballad of Big Nothing in June 1998.

It did not chart in the US, but it sold 429,000 copies there by March 2017, according to Nielsen SoundScan, more than any other Smith release. Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club wrote that it marks something of a thematic transition. It placed 20th in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz and Jop poll. Pitchfork ranked it 59th among the albums of the 1990s, and Rolling Stone put it at 216 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. Reviewing the 2017 expanded edition for Pitchfork, Matt LeMay called Between the Bars the closest thing to a standard Smith ever wrote, and said the album marked the last time his instincts would outpace the studio resources to realize them. Van Sant used Between the Bars, Angeles and Say Yes in Good Will Hunting, and Angeles again in his 2007 film Paranoid Park.