pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

*than

"Fuck and Run" gets more media attention than, say, "Divorce Song" because it's more sexually frank.

Pavement could certainly be raggedy and loose, but Malkmus also had that arch, literary quality that I think gave them a bit more cultural cachet.

I don't think this is incorrect, but I also read this as Modest Mouse = community college vs Pavement = Ivy League, and viewed through that lens, we might have expected that history would favor Pavement.

For whatever it's worth, I prefer Brock as a lyricist

Wonder how close I'll Be There For You was to getting on the tracks list. If you're throwing in Celine, Hold On, Gin Blossoms, etc, it's totally in that ballpark. Hootie prob got a few votes as well.

I'm not super familiar with MM, but they seem morose while Pavement seems fun.

gin blossoms track is one of the great fake replacements songs not made by the goo goo dolls, it does not belong with that crew imo

“bands only influenced by the replacements breaking through to radio” is one of my favorite ‘90s phenoms

xxp yeah lots of MM music is dark & upsetting songs about addiction, sickness, death, etc, while Pavement have easygoing songs about haircuts, gold soundz, etc. I like MM plenty but Pavement are definitely a more "pleasant" listen in most cases

Westerburg wrote the first Goo Goo Dolls I heard on college radio.

Yeah the overall vibe too despite the subject matter - MM often bursting with intense nervous angst that you don't find with Pavement even when they're being wild.

I think an original p4k reader would be most surprised by the absence of Bonnie "Prince" Billy, the Dismemberment Plan, Low, Sunny Day Real Estate, and maybe Superchunk and Royal Trux.

Wrong type of pop

"Two Princes" inexplicably overlooked. Tbh I'd listen to "Don't Drink the Water" before a lot of these.

I made this 90s albums list in 2003; not sure what I'd list now but I'd stand by that top 4: 90s albums list I just put together today

did emergency & i not make the albums list? sheesh

xp I noticed an explosion of sincere love for "Hey Jealousy" since early 2000s -- a lot of it from ILM but also elsewhere.

xp My impression of Neutral Milk was starting as a small drop whose wave never ended. They were canonized pretty quickly in Spin's decade list 4-5 months before the 90s ended, kind of unexpectedly since they did not appear in their 1998 albums list only a few months prior. So i always thought of them as cultish with many cult members that just happen to be music writers.

Yeah I mean I said they were comparatively ignored in 98 in the sense of "compared to their latter acclaim" not "compared to my noise gigs of the same era". I don't really see what is dated about the album's strengths, though, and am not sure placing at #31 even indicates a huge decline.

Royal Trux

Sadly, they didn’t even make the ‘99 list… pretty crazy oversight, imo

Well I played a bit of their Music Battle game. Apparently, the Marshall Mathers LP is a 90s album.

It would be weird (to me) if Low end up a canonized 2010s band. And repeating myself but: Bonnie Prince Billy is on the songs list

Did "Slack Motherfucker" not make it?

"No One Needs to Know" is a lot better than "Man I Feel Like a Woman" imo. As is Ricochet's "Daddy's Money".

xxpost I was only talking albums. I thought I See a Darkness was indie canon.

maybe he got vote split? I certainly wouldn't pick that album as my one Oldham pick

Modest Mouse = community college vs Pavement = Ivy League

I spent a lot of time in rural parts of michigan and arizona and the pacific northwest so MM feels super familiar to me - dirtbaggy guys who are interesting but probably got made fun of for getting too fancy or acting too smart growing up and have a secret hair metal past before they got into punk that they're sort of ashamed of and if they show up at your party they might kinda be on meth but are still cool but you worry they're going to never leave.

I didn't know anyone who gave off pavement vibes until I was in college

Genuinely curious what Pavement vibes are and what they have to do with the Ivy League. I definitely never went to an Ivy or even a private educational institution but I never thought of them as particularly academic or elite.

CMJ vibes?

Tbh I thought of them as incompetent morons for a long time; it kept me from getting into them.xp

why would you think that?

Oh yeah I get the campus radio association - but the best-known local campus station is connected to a university they used to call "Last Chance U" (my alma mater incidentally). Is campus radio actually associated with more elite schools?xp

Pavement came across as aloof and were lyrically abstract. They would drop references to John Ashbery and whatnot. Maybe too shy and goofy for the Ivy League, though Malkmus looks like he could've been on a rowing team.

xp I don't buy the "ivy league" line, but the sphere of people around college radio definitely were more likely to be into Pavement imo

Bodyguard Soundtrack = professor with tenure

Malkmus went to UVA--def Iva league vibes there

Ivy

college radio embraced both Pavement and MM

Pavement is for the children imo

Or in my experience, rather

joygoat's post very interesting & otm. Never thought to compare them on that basis before but definitely some class stuff going on between the cultural/critical perception of MM & Pavement.

The "lyrically aloof & abstract" thing is interesting, I feel like that comes up with Pavement a lot as a signifier of their supposed ivy league preppy academic image, Malkmus making references to this or that writer, the references always being described as being "sly", etc. While at the same time Isaac Brock's lyrics during the same years were pretty fuckin aloof and knotty and abstract. But when Brock was screaming about getting coated in molasses and getting ripped apart by dogs in outer space or whatever, something about his presentation made ppl think "this guy is scary and nuts" instead of "this guy is an interesting writer". Whereas Malkmus singing very similar lines, many critics were like "what a wry game of signifiers this postmodern lyricist is playing"

ONE WEEK TO GO

Oh sorry I thought this was the Pavement thread lol

Whereas Malkmus singing very similar lines, many critics were like "what a wry game of signifiers this postmodern lyricist is playing"

Only one of'em got a New Yorker review/profile in 1997 where Ashbery got mentioned.

Meanwhile Malkmus was saying, "we're a Fall rip-off band."

But when Brock was screaming about getting coated in molasses and getting ripped apart by dogs in outer space or whatever, something about his presentation made ppl think "this guy is scary and nuts" instead of "this guy is an interesting writer"

I dunno, I think Brock's outlook is scary and nuts and don't see too much similar in their styles

MM:

Here's the man with teeth like God's shoeshine
He sparkles, shimmers, shines
Let's all have another Orange Julius
Thick syrup standing in lines
The malls are the soon-to-be ghost towns
Well, so long, farewell, goodbye

vs
Pavement

Cherish your memorized weakness
Fashioned from a manifesto
Lady, I am no Futurist, I'm my only critic, I
Trolls in the glen are consorting again
The liberals say they don't exist, but I know that they do

Reinforce your literal ass
Hit it on the first or second pass
Frozen images, respected few
Type slowly

"Reinforce your literal ass"

haha, I never knew that was the line

I don't see much aloof in Brock's lyrics there, pretty straightforward

"God's shoeshine" could maybe be aloof, but if you take that apart the image doesn't really mean anything.

"Reinforce your literal ass"

haha, I never knew that was the line

― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp),

he's so good at coming up with these shrugged-off maxims

clunky

I'm on my way to God, don't know
My brain's the burger and my heart's the coal

I'm trying to get my head clear
I push things out through my mouth, I get refilled through my ears
I get refilled through my ears
I get refilled through my ears
I'm on my way to God, don't know or don't care
My brain's the weak heart and my heart's the long stairs

vs not clunky--much more abstract (and yeah kinda Ashbery ish). Don't think Malkmus would have gone for a weak metaphor like that last MM line, which again if you take apart doesn't really mean anything

You better find your way out
You better learn how to run
You better walk away
And leave the angles for the shills
Well, I've been thinking for days
About the means and the ways
That I could hate all I touch
I know you're my lady
But I could trickle, I could flood
A voice coach taught me to sing
He couldn't teach me to love
All the above

Malkmus went to UVA--def Iva league vibes there

So did Dave Matthews

with Matthews I get Ashbery vibes too -- Melvin Ashbury.