pitchfork

haha actually "Gold Soundz" vs. "Runaway Train" would have been a good poll too

"It sounds kinda like Soul Asylum, but with less gift for melody"

this would be A+ trolling if tuomas wasn't the kindly incontinent uncle everyone pats on the head of ilx trolls.

Tuomas to thread: "I wish you were many thousands of posts longer"

New board description.

haha actually "Gold Soundz" vs. "Runaway Train" would have been a good poll too

I can still hum "Runaway Train" even though it's been 15 years since I last heard it - I doubt "Gold Soundz" would have the same quality. Basically, when you sound like a million other rock bands and your lyrics are just a bunch of forgettable metaphors, catchy melodies are the only thing that make you stand out. At least Soul Asylum had that.

tuomas killin it itt

I can still hum "Runaway Train" even though it's been 15 years since I last heard it

I can still remember what it felt like when I was riding my skateboard on my belly and I ended up eating the curb, but I hope I never actually experience that again just like I hope I never hear "Runaway Train" again even though yeah I can still hum it

tuomas i can still sing every word to gold soundz whereas all i remember of soul asylum at this point is that dave pirner's dick drove winona ryder to shoplifting so ymmv.

I'm not trying troll here, I'm genuinely interested if there was some special quality that made this band stand out? Because I don't here any in this song, supposedly the #1 of the decade.

(xx-post)

There's no such thing as a #1 song of any decade. Polls apply an inappropriate model to reality so the estimates are always going to be off. Woah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5blb-d0rSmg

this is by far the most fun of any of the threads related to this topic today

I was a lot happier before I knew that Runaway Train wasn't about an actual runaway train Tuommy you fucking monster

one thing i just remembered about runaway train is seeing the video for the first time on 120 minutes sandwiched between like the rollins band and ministry's "just one fix"

now there's the '90s for you

Frustrated, incorporated... | Yr Winona Ryders Rock

I'm genuinely interested if there was some special quality that made this band stand out?

yeah, there was - no one will be able to explain it to you - sorry :(

I was playing the above MMC video just now (JC's hat! The sad sclown!) and asked my wife if she knew who was singing. She said (not seeing the screen) "Bon Jovi?" I asked if she knew who the original artist was and she said, "Bon Jovi?"

women wanted to be with them, men wanted to be them

it' se-cret-cret-cret-cret

uh, it's

yeah, there was - no one will be able to explain it to you - sorry :(

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, September 3, 2010 10:13 AM

one of those sad internet truths

"As of 2007, the album has sold almost 500,000 copies."

you know, i'm kinda surprised by this actually.

tuomas i can still sing every word to gold soundz whereas all i remember of soul asylum at this point is that dave pirner's dick drove winona ryder to shoplifting so ymmv.

http://www.wordcat.co.uk/articles/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/love4.jpg

"Gold Soundz" just seems like a compromised twist ending. I could actually imagine, like, "Nuthin But a G Thang" winning on a straight vote, and then the editors shuffling things around for branding or whatever.

It does suck to be so stoked about the majority of this list and then see Weezer > Nirvana. That's such a goofy move that it kinda taints the top 20 for me. I could see Nirvana as not #1, but 13??

Funny thing is I feel like "Summer Babe" would've been a satisfying/appropriate #1.

Common People beaten yet again to the Number 1 spot!

I think you could put the top 20 in any randomised order without changing the proportion of people who think it's good/bad.

Gold Soundz at #1 makes a kind of sense to me because it's so obviously not the #1 song of the 90s (or of Pavement's 90s or of that one album) it makes explicit that assigning that position to any song at all is just arbitrary and ridiculous.

Pavement's just not a superlative band, it's a poor choice. Nothing about them begs or can command canonization this absolute.

Weezer > Nirvana

I'm not a big Nirvana fan/apologist but this is BY FAR the worst thing about the top 20.

Fucking Weezer...

surprised no one has heard anyone claiming Gold Soundz as Pavement's best song before. I pretty much thought that was close to consensus. It's the first song on Quarantine the Past, the lyrics are referenced all the time--maybe for a lot of people it's more like their quintessential song? the most pavement-90s song but not their best? I never really listened to them after Crooked Rain, but it would be on my shortlist

I would have guessed Cut Your Hair was more iconic. The video for Gold Soundz was quite popular though, right?

No. "Cut Your Hair" was Pavement's mainstream pinnacle. The video was a Buzz Bin clip. "Gold Soundz" was shown as the opening clip on 120 Minutes two weeks in a row but was rarely if ever shown during the day. If you're going down the road of popularity, it's "Cut Your Hair" by a fucking mile.

Surprised to hear so many of you hate "Holland, 1945." It would have made my top 3, along with "Common People."

Disappointed they chose "Paranoid Android" over "Let Down," "Gold Soundz" over "In the Mouth a Desert," and "Say It Ain't So" over "El Scorcho," but the artists and placements all seem about right.

Surprised "Smells Like Teen Spirit" isn't higher.

Surprised Robyn's "Show Me Love" didn't get a shout out considering their (deserved) love for her lately--I didn't see it in a "See also" section, but maybe I missed it.

Not surprised one bit that country and alt-country were just figments of my 90s imagination. They never happened. No Lucinda Williams, no Old 97's, no Whiskeytown, no Jayhawks, no Uncle Tupelo...

^^^ "Gun", "If That's Alright", "Fall Down Easy"...

No dEUS or Morphine seems unforgivable to me but probably not to anyone else.

i like both but my 90s list would not resemble this one all that much

oh yeah, "Cut Your Hair" was definitely their pinnacle of mainstream popularity, but surely that makes it less quintessential for an indie audience? Given how nostalgic-sounding the song is but anti-nostalgia the lyrics are (I guess?), to me it makes perfect sense for GS to have emerged as their "best song" now that they're in their reunion tour phase.

Are there really people out there who think Gold Soundz is the best pavement song?

has crooked rain ever been polled on ilx?

Yes! And "Gold Soundz" won, but just barely:
CROOKED RAIN CROOKED POLL

"Show Me Love" was a See Also

^^^
For which entry? Do you remember?

Uncle Tupelo actually did get a shout out too, in the Wilco entry for "The Long Cut," but that's as close to country as this list got, and that's pretty goddamn far from being their best song.

Can we talk about "Via Chicago" being the Wilco choice for a second? I mean, it's a phenomenal deep cut, and I love it to death, but c'mon, "Shot in the Arm" is so good they put it on the album twice. And "Misunderstood" getting the Being There nod is a bit of a laugh, but whatever.

I agree that Gold Soundz is a standout on Crooked Rain, but it still doesn't sound like a watershed moment in 90's music the way "Summer Babe" or most of Slanted & Enchanted does. It just seems like people must've been repping the band, not the song--the way they did for like Tribe.

xpost "Show Me Love" is a see also for maybe "Everybody Everybody"? #171?

can we all just agree that CRCR is not a great record

Right, but then the editors must've selected "Gold Soundz," which just seems strange.

And CRCR is probably my favorite record of theirs.

Great now I have "Red Rover" stuck in my head. Thanks for nothing, Grillz.

pretty sure it was "Everybody Everybody"

Just can't imagine anyone getting, like, super-pumped about Gold Soundz the way you could about other tracks in Pavement's catalogue.

CRCR falls off a cliff so fucking hard after "Range Life", it's an near-incomparable train-wreck.

Better songs than "Gold Soundz":

In the Mouth a Desert
Cut Your Hair
Trigger Cut
Shady Lane
Date with IKEA
Summer Babe
Stereo
Embassy Row