I was a big fan of his earlier stuff growing up and know all about him. He wasn’t a manic depressive and he received recognition immediately when he started his music career. Any struggles he had in his life are kind of undercut by the montage of cool shit in the music video. No reference to amphetamines or painkillers, just his long and storied career.

Context aside, he just doesn’t sound good in the song. He sounds like any old man singing…which is why I said nobody would be gushing over it if it were not him.

Unrelated but I hate his lyric change in Hurt almost as much as what Cee Lo did to Imagine.