terror twilight

Relevant quote from Malkmus in Slow Century re: Rattled by the Rush and Father to a Sister of Thought: "I was smoking a lot of pot at the time, but they sounded like hits to me."

Damn not even Good Riddance?

I think I have serious cognitive dissonance assuming the songs I heard in 90s that saturated modern rock radio were actually popular in the mainstream.

To my ears Green Day were better at writing scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs radio choruses. Green Day mean little to me.

Great but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a band getting a push from a major label and having a "hit" so to speak and being massively popular etc. I think Pavement would have had a hit if they'd had the backing of a major label and a push etc.

That makes sense. And I wasn't contradicting nor arguing with you. I was making a point.

Damn not even Good Riddance?

I think I have serious cognitive dissonance assuming the songs I heard in 90s that saturated modern rock radio were actually popular in the mainstream.

― klonman

Billboard was unyielding about not allowing songs to chart without retail singles. It's possible that on airplay alone "Good Riddance" might've charted.

That makes sense. And I wasn't contradicting nor arguing with you. I was making a point.

totally. and share your non interest in Green Day

It doesn't seem crazy to me that Cut Your Hair or Stereo would have been hits, weirder songs have been big hits. . .

Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” (shudder) is the closest analogue that immediately comes to mind. Still, I think Pavement’s sound and lyrics were even “weirder” to non-indie-listening ears.

I was thinking Cannonball by the Breeders. Stereo has a similar vibe. There's a video of SM talking about the anniversary of Crooked Rain where he mentions that the Breeders were in the buzz bin on MTV and he wanted to get into the buzz bin but never did.
Last Splash went platinum!

Pavement also never wrote anything as good as Buddy Holly

Cannonball is a good call… But it’s tighter than Stereo, and has that hook

Not the point of the thread, but an elaboration of Alfred’s point: Green Day not charting on the Hot 100 until 2004 is entirely due to the old physical-singles-only rule. “Time of Your Life” was a radio hit just before Billboard allowed songs without a physical single release to chart. Longview, Basket Case, When I Come Around, J.A.R., Geek Stink Breath (!), and Time of Your Life all made the top 40 of the mainstream airplay charts. “When I Come Around” made it all the way to #6. None of the songs from “Warning,” in 2000, was a big enough hit to chart after the rule change. Anyway, carry on.

Pavement also never wrote anything as good as Buddy Holly

― PaulTMA, Thursday, April 14, 2022 11:44 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That'll be the Day is a classic for sure.

https://i.imgur.com/HwQEVuY.jpg

Major label push

Don't Look Up

Gotta say, TT does feel a little ahead of its time in terms of the indie rock/jam band fusion thing it has going on at points. Feel like you could put a nice through-line from Terror Twilight > Ghost is Born > Garcia Peoples and other contemporary indie jam acts.

It's notable because in 99 most indie rock fans wouldn't caught dead admitting to liking jam band stuff and vice versa.

are we sure the title with "jam" in it doesn't refer to raspberry

That’s an interesting comment, because I feel like BTC actually gets closer to jam territory. (I feel like I knew a few Phish heads in college, around that time, who became aware of Pavement.)

(maybe through me, lol)

Could very well be the case, I haven't re-visited BTC in a long time.

Definitely met a few hippies that were open to Pavement, more-so than the Mercury Revs/Beta Bands or whoever else that was getting hype in 99/00.

they def had a jam trajectory. i'd argue some songs on WZ (half a canyon, fight this generation, esp live) edged toward jamming. also otm about it not being cool at the time. . . but man there is not much difference between late era pavement and some of the "newer" songs on Europe 72

Yeah, there are moments on BTC that sound like bits of Dead jams (right down to the shaggy timekeeping). I have thought in the past that Pavement could have evolved into a Bonnaroo mainstay act, if they had stayed together and gone in that direction (...of course they would have had to become "better players," and I'm not sure if most the guys had that in them).

It's funny because it's hard to recall many honest-to-god pure guitar solos in Pavement songs, but there's a lot of moments of half-solos, instrumental passages etc., where you get a glimpse that Malk is pretty skilled.

I assume this expanded in his Jicks work but to be honest I haven't delved into the catalog (I think heard Pig Lib once and that's it).

yeah, i'd say real emotional trash is the one that really expands on that idea

Getting back to the "why didn't they have hits like other offbeat bands" thing – it's kinda interesting that Sonic Youth had two higher-charting Alternative Airplay tracks (100% and Kool Thing) than Pavement's sole "hit" (Cut Your Hair, which reached #10).

Pig Lib includes the 9min jam "1% of One", which at the time kinda felt like him shedding whatever hangups he had about formally identifying as a jamming guitar guy

Pig Lib in many ways feels super jammy but also very controlled and concise. It was like he’d gotten the self titled debut out of his system and was ready to get serious, or “serious,” or however you wanna parse that.

(If I ever pitch another 33 1/3 book it will be for Pig Lib or Washing Machine.)

Pig Lib jams are his take on Pentangle/Mellow Candle.

I’ve often thought that late-Pave and solo Malk was on a collision course with Phish. Folk Jam could easily be a Phish song. I blv Phish covered Gold Soundz live at least once.

Mellow candle, really?

Pig Lib bonus EP even features a killer cover of MC's "The Poet & the Witch"

that ep is so good i always forget about it.

also, ha, has a song called Old Jerry!

I blv Phish covered Gold Soundz live at least once.

Yep, but just the once. Prolly because Trey had problems remembering all the lyrics. It's a fine version otherwise, kinda wish they'd have played it more often.

https://relisten.net/phish/1999/07/21/gold-soundz?source=163662

Woah, I didn't know that happened - he kinda flubbed the guitar part too. I always thought it would be cool if phish covered wowee zowee for a Halloween show, because it would confuse or piss off large portions of both fan bases, but there is definitely some common ground there.

Yeah Trey is a noted huge fan of Pavement (and My Bloody Valentine).

Which I would assume is the genesis of the "They've got a dog she named Trey" line in "Jenny and the Ess-Dog"

Ok, I love Platform Blues as the first track and that tight transition to The Hexx is pretty great.

Listened to TT for the first time in a long time tonight. I think its a challenge to find a good sequencing for the album because it just has too many draggy interchangeable midtempo songs. I think they should have gone further in the direction of trying something different with the arrangements. They do it a bit: the acoustic guitar, the harmonica, maybe a banjo at one point? And I think those are some of the better moments. The cringiest moments are when they dial up the distortion on the guitars to show they are still hard rockers, man, because it feels like their hearts are not in it.

Who’s fault is it? I think it’s sm’s…looking back to Brighten, the slog had started, eg “type slowly”

I think "Type Slowly" has real tension and musical interest, though (and that guitar break in the middle is really pretty). Even the final two songs on BTC, which have always felt draggy to me as a pair (and especially as an end to the album), work well individually – they're slow, but atmospheric.

Heck - if you want a real midtempo slog, look back to "Range Life." I always sort of forget/block out how weak Side 2 of CRCR is (after "Gold Soundz")... it's their weakest stretch, IMO.

The cringiest moments are when they dial up the distortion on the guitars to show they are still hard rockers, man, because it feels like their hearts are not in it.

That "Sue the fortune teller" bit in "Billie" always sounded like Pavement trying too hard to be Pavement.

I like all their albums, but I felt that this was the one where they weren't trying too hard, like they didn't feel there they had to meet a certain quota of irony or slackness, or cover up less-than-solid songwriting with weird arrangements or performances.

xxp Range Life is a slog? one of their very best, a roller.

without question ^^

also the "sue the fortune teller" part of Billie is a fleeting rad moment on an album with too few of those

I think the "Quarantine the Past" greatest hits comp did a pretty good job of cherry picking the best tracks. If you look at the album breakdown it's:

S+E: 5
CR, CR: 5
WZ: 2
BTC: 4
TT: 1

assorted early EPs: 6

These track counts make a pretty accurate measure of the relative consistency of the albums. WZ was the first slump, BTC a return to form, and then TT the sign of the end.

uh, WZ is their peak, lol

When WZ came out, I didn't really care for it. I made a point of not buying it for a long time, even though I'd been a huge fan up to that point. Too long and inconsistent, I think was my main complaint. The main problem was that everything up to that point had been so brilliant that almost nothing could have lived up to the expectations. However its got that classic Pavement sound and most of the songs are pretty good, so I like it better now.

WZ was where I got on, and as such it’s the measuring stick for everything else (for me).

That said, WZ and CRCR are neck and neck at the top for me now, though they achieve different things.

BTC has grown on me but it remains the beginning of the end imo. “Fin” is the standout there, on some Goldilocks shit, because it’s just right, existing at the perfect tempo and intensity. If it has a flaw, it’s that I wish it was longer! Everything else, in comparison, is either straining to hard or falls slightly flat.

(The BTC b-sides and Pacific Trim fare better that the album as a whole.)