pitchfork

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

...And Carrot Rope

Terror Twilight > Wowee Zowee > Slanted and Enchanted > Crooked Rain Crooked Rain > Brighten the Corners

REAL TALK

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

― Parenthetical Grillz,

Different song. Robyn's "Show Me Love":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia2OkrWNmzE

I don't know/care about Pavement enough to challenge the other options, but I still think "Gold Soundz" makes sense for an inevitably nostalgic look back on the 90s from an indie perspective. From the writeup:

But "Gold Soundz" was different. It sounded like a memory in the best possible way. The first two words are "go back," and that's exactly what it does: It was easy, light, and tinged with nostalgia

oh no one actually cares about that Robyn song

Nostalgia for R.E.M., rob. Which is tough as R.E.M. were both active and more successful than Pavement in the 1990s.

Terror Twilight > Wowee Zowee > Slanted and Enchanted > Crooked Rain Crooked Rain > Brighten the Corners

REAL TALK

not sure whether to excelsior this or not

Terror Twilight apologists are in my circle of death with NMH defenders.

yeah that is hilarious, that list

Terror Twilight > Wowee Zowee > Slanted and Enchanted > Crooked Rain Crooked Rain > Brighten the Corners

This list only makes sense to me if I hold my laptop up to a mirror.

Different song. Robyn's "Show Me Love"

>>>Mind blown.<<<

"Spit on a Stranger", "Major Leagues", and "Carrot Rope" are all aces

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 10:44 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ these are enough to spare TT from the "it just sucks" board - add "The Hexx" & you have a flat-out stunning EP

xp
lol. REM did kind of get shafted in the poll didn't they.

I lived in Athens in the late 90s so I kind of have to defend NMH. OTOH, Jeff Mangum dated my downstairs neighbor and backed his van into my car and left without leaving a note once, so fuck him for that.

I know people who would like to touch the hem of elephant rob's garment because of his hit-n-run mangum story

OTOH, Jeff Mangum dated my downstairs neighbor and backed his van into my car and left without leaving a note once, so fuck him for that.

loool

more like LLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLlllllllllllooooooooooooLLLLLLLLLLLLLLlooooooooooooLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

aerosmith lighten up, buddy, it's not good to talk about yrself in the third person.

oh no one actually cares about that Robyn song

― feel free to answer my Korn Kuestion (HI DERE)

This song was just a critical part of my 90s, as were the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" and "Say You'll Be There," and Ace of Base's "Don't Turn Around," "All That She Wants," and "I Saw the Sign." Some of these no doubt sound a bit silly when you play them today, but I played them endlessly at the time, and "Show Me Love" still has one of my favorite pop choruses of all time.

It is a great chorus.