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.
― San Diva Gyna (and a Masala DOsaNUT on the side) (donut), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 22:55 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:00 (seventeen years ago) link
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).
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:01 (seventeen years ago) link
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
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link
Except weren't they already kind of in a rut?
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:17 (seventeen years ago) link
Perhaps someone else also remembers this and could link to that topic.
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:30 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost yeah Steve googling is surely an infallible research method and is totally representative of the zeitgeist/buzz!
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link
But yes thank you for your insight, suggestions and multiple replies.
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 23:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Chris L (Chris L), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:29 (seventeen years ago) link
also
1. Terror Twilight2. Most other music
― poortheatre (poortheatre), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot 4-Tay: forth-coming, my child. forth-coming most righteous champion (mar, Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot 4-Tay: forth-coming, my child. forth-coming most righteous champion (mar, Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― mts (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 6 July 2006 01:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― mts (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 6 July 2006 01:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 6 July 2006 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link
lolzz
― rizzx (Rizz), Thursday, 6 July 2006 11:05 (seventeen years ago) link
i had forgotten about "easily fooled," that song is SUPERB! it's very grifters. isn't that also the single that has the total jon spencer pisstake?? "i ain't no woman... i aint no woman.. i'm a.. MAYUNNN!! check me out!!"
― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 6 July 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 6 July 2006 14:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Thursday, 6 July 2006 14:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― strom (strom), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― wmlynch (wlynch), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― mts (theoreticalgirl), Thursday, 6 July 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link
And I think Wowee Zowee was the album that had Pavement at their most Pavementy, with regard to that quality. Yes, it was full of wise-ass slack moves and all that, but it also contains a pretty high proportion of the band's prettiest songs -- stuff like "We Dance" and "Grave Architecture," or the verses of ... is it "AT+T?" Everyone's completely OTM upthread about how all this stuff "blurs together," and I think that's really important to the pretty stuff. None of those songs seem to be popping up and announcing it: "Hi, this is the pretty song, please note the pretty guitar tone, etc." No, they just get to stumble into it naturally, like they're finding that beauty right in front of you. (Part of why everything "blurs," after all, is that the songs are all recorded the same way, with the same guitar tones, and not too many track-to-track production shifts; it feels like they're just playing and coming across each thing individually.)
So that quality, that "casually stumbling across pretty things" quality, felt important then, especially when held up against alt-rock. Thing is, I feel like this reissue might still retain that feeling, even in a whole other context, because ... well, compare to all the run-of-mill indie bands right now who have that same quality of wanting to tell you that their stuff is beautiful, or hard, or whatever; compare to the amount of stuff these days that feels like its effect is very carefully calculated. On Wowee Zowee, Pavement actually sound like they're as open-minded about their record as the listener is expected to be -- they play what they play like it's no big deal, and they show a really surprising amount of range and skill in being able to stumble over and steer their way into a lot of really complex, wonderful things. I would love to hear more albums these days that caught that spirit, even if it did mean rocky, uneven records -- sorting through this kind of rocky unevenness is fairly pleasurable, and I'm probably fonder of "Best Friend's Arm" than any number of really solid well-written tracks.
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 6 July 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Thursday, 6 July 2006 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link
nabisco, that's perfect. Thanks!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 6 July 2006 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Thursday, 6 July 2006 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― barefoot manthing (Garrett Martin), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― willem -- (willem), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link
I love everything up to CRCR, but Watery, Domestic is my favorite Pavement stuff ever, except maybe the repackaged S&E that includes it
― rentboy (rentboy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― rentboy (rentboy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link
Though I convinced myself that I liked it at the time, Slanted and Enchanted reduced the whole shebang to just another indie rock band with some album out. I never bothered paying attention to them afterwards.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― barefoot manthing (Garrett Martin), Thursday, 6 July 2006 18:55 (seventeen years ago) link
And then there's a lot of stuff in their decisions of what to play. Look at the beginning of CRCR, where, after a bit of deliberate intro slop, they break into playing big swinging riff -- except kind of twisting up the accepted organization fo the time, where playing riffs like that was supposed to be the province of tight "we know what we're doing" rock, and indie/alt bands were supposed to be sticking to power chords and simpler punk riffs. (Part of their "sloppy" tag might have just been contextual, the way they were one of few bands in their genre who broke outside punk's rigid rhythmic grid in that way.) Their choices of what to play gave an impression of "sloppiness" even when they were executing well, which is one of the things about Wowee Zowee -- with stuff like "Best Friend's Arm," it's not that the playing is bad, it's that the song itself seems to have been written to sound wreckless and falling-apart. (I can't imagine any band on Earth playing a faithful rendition of "Best Friend's Arm" where the first part didn't sound sloppy! Or at least not without sounding like morons.)
So it's in the writing, too, the way guitar lines would swing around and stop on notes that sounded like mistakes (haha "off-kilter"), or drop to places that were exactly a half-step short of where the key would supposedly dictate. There's plenty of stuff about the production and rhythmic feel that's important here, too. But yeah, it definitely wasn't a matter of their stuff being sloppy by accident, sloppy by incompetence, or even sloppy by nature -- there was surely an intention to be slack and casual in certain ways.
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 6 July 2006 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link
If "Brinx Job" didn't sound "sloppy" it would sound like the 1920s, I think.
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 6 July 2006 19:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― FAN DEATH (teenagequiet), Thursday, 6 July 2006 19:05 (seventeen years ago) link
it's weird that I can't google up anything about this existing
― dmr, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 23:00 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― fischer-price my first chukkas (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 23:07 (fourteen years ago) link
favorite pavement album no contest--and one of the great stoner records
― iago g., Thursday, 15 April 2010 00:41 (fourteen years ago) link
one of the great stoner records
― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, 15 April 2010 19:16 (fourteen years ago) link