"I'm drowning for your thirst/Drowning for your thirst": The official WOWEE ZOWEE REISSUE anticipation thread

from the matador discography:

OLE-722 2 dbl CD Pavement -- Wowee Zowee DELUXE Fall 2006

Next question: when did the WOWEE ZOWEE critical revisionism take place?

*raises hand*

Although if you consider CRCR flawed because of "Hit the plane down", how can you excuse "Best Friend's Arm"? I guess I found it mildly amusing when I was 20 or so but it must be one of Malkmus's worst Pavement songs...

I guess I thought WZ was the best Pavement album when it came out and now barely listen to it.

What constitutes a restaurant kitchen fave?

WZ didn't come close! There was the novelty aspect, and it felt thrown together. It totally lacked the cohesiveness that made S&E and CRCR stand out

That's incredibly likely. I bought all of their albums, but only out of some form of respect. Nothing after CRCR did much for me.

I've grown to nod to the songs on WZ that I used to always skip over... I wished they replaced those songs with the singles B-sides instead still, that's all.

Terror Twilight is still my favorite Pavement album... despite it being "the first Steve Malkmus solo record" not unlike the analogy to Trompe Le Monde.. (in that I didn't care for the actual solo records that followed at all.)...

Brighten The Corners, aside from "Stereo", still evades my attention.

I preferred them when they were borrowing more from british post-punk/Sonic Youth (Westing & S&E), and was more than happy to join them in the classic rockisms that crept into their sound on CRCR.

After that, they lost (or so it seems to me) the more obscure, jagged elements and became more of an indie pop band. More jangle, more structure to the songs.

I'm pretty sure Eric Weisbard awarded it a "6"; it was the first serious blow to Pavement's popularity, and as such I didn't buy it unitl 1998 despite loving "Rattled by the Rush" (still my favorite Pavement song).

Despite their disavowals of "progress," this proceeds as you'd figure--toward lyricism rather than commerciality or some such chimera. It's seldom hard or fast or chaotic, and if it was their sacred mission to humanize guitar noise, they've betrayed it like the reprobates they no doubt are. But if their vocation is beguiling song-music that doesn't sound like anything else or create its own rut, this reinforces one's gut feeling that they can do it forever. They can't, of course--nobody can. But the illusion of eternity has been music's sacred mission for a good long time Grade: A

Except weren't they already kind of in a rut?

Perhaps someone else also remembers this and could link to that topic.

xpost yeah Steve googling is surely an infallible research method and is totally representative of the zeitgeist/buzz!

But yes thank you for your insight, suggestions and multiple replies.

also

1. Terror Twilight
2. Most other music

this album sounds great

there's a lot of hardpanning going on with a lot of the instruments, interesting

yeah, i think this is their best-produced record, even though it has the reputation of being the weirdest/most difficult. nice guitar tones, lots of layers.

This is the Sordid Sentinels edition? The booklet was fucking great, makes buying albums worth it.

I've never compared the Sordid Sentinels version with the original issue, but either way you slice it, this is hands down my favorite Pavement record. I've heard several people express how much they like it on shuffle, but for me it's perfectly sequenced, just a great ride all the way through.

i just bought the regular vinyl version available on the matador site, was only $12 for a double LP, looks about 120 gram vinyl, and all of matador's vinyl is pressed at RTI iirc, so it's dope official on wax

This is cute:

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kwurhvtxMK1qz87jlo1_400.jpg

really only $12?! huh kinda want it now.

is Wowee Zowee on vinyl still 3 sides? The original release had etchings on the fourth side ...

I have what I thought was an original release (it's not the recent reissue anyway)...it's blank on side 4, no etching.

eh, maybe i'm thinking of something else ... i don't have it on vinyl, a friend did ...

tylerw, now you've got me confused. i know psychic hearts (released the same year?) had etchings on the fourth side, but now i wonder if wz had the drawing from the inside of the gatefold etched on the fourth side. of course i'm at work so i can't verify the latter.

maybe i'm thinking of psychic hearts? i'm confused too.

both had side 4 etchings.

thread title keeps beckoning

i never realised it had three sides! the flow of it kind of makes more sense to me now

lol mp3 generation

My copy side 4 has no etchings, it's just blank.

(purchased around 1998)

i bought mine the day it came out - no etching

Maybe only certain copies had the Steve Keane etching?

and says a bunch of Malkmus slogans.

yeah my copy does not have an etching, bought it when it came out

mysteeeeeerious

My copy had an etching when I bought it, but now the etching has vanished!

http://frooliemew.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/cast.jpg

lol no etching on mine either

it's possible i was high as a teenager listening to this and etched something on it myself.

hahaha, i need to find my copy. pretty sure about this dudes!

OK thanks to ILM I am going to listen to this RIGHT NOW for the first time in years

You will NOT be disappointed.

it's a great record! i remember when it came out, my family was going to cooperstown to visit the baseball hall of fame. i made my dad stop at a random mall where there was a record store -- The WALL, I think? -- and I bought it there. So I kinda associate it with Willie Mays and Lou Gehrig and so forth. Memories.

I've definitely seen the etching and remembered it being a Steve Keane thing as well. But I don't own one. It might have been my college radio station's vinyl copy. Maybe it was only on promos?

it's weird that I can't google up anything about this existing

the one i just received from matador has a blank fourth side, no etchings of any kind

but this is obv a repress, has the new Low Price sticker that says free download on it

favorite pavement album no contest--and one of the great stoner records

one of the great stoner records