Can we talk about how awesome Parquet Courts are?

I vastly prefer Parquet Courts to Pavement in every way.

i did play this album today because of this thread, it's OK and will probably grow on me. the vocals are really, really hard to like. i did like the last one quite a bit especially "Already Dead". but to say they are better than Pavement is laughable, sorry Turrican.

this is just diametrically opposite of anything i like, though i appreciate its a well made version of, idk, all the cool 80s shit i discovered in college ... gang of four and shit

The intro of that song sounds like Range Life, the rest doesn't

I don't get the Pavement comparisons at all, Range Life pastiche not withstanding; even at their slackest, this band is much nervier and angrier than Pavement ever were. Parquet Courts are all about tension and discomfort, whereas Pavement are downright cozy. The aesthetic is just so different. About the only thing they have in common is that they're both indie rock groups composed of white dudes. Alfred's Minutemen comparison upthread is much more OTM.

I also agree that the vox are the toughest thing to like about this band. Signed, a guy who has always loved Malkmus' voice.

Light Up Gold’s front & rear cover art has sort of a Pavement-y aesthetic (appropriated images; cryptic, handwritten scrawls; etc.); but it’s largely misdirection.

Even the Teenage Cool Kids album, which deals more heavily in established “indie” styles, doesn’t really have a Pavement-y song IIRC.

they have more tension & angst than the Minutemen, tho not nearly as much as Husker Du. somewhere in the middle? closer to the Minutemen

the Pavement similarities are all in the artwork and the song titles (Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth, all the II songs, Instant Disassembly, N Dakota, Total Football, Disney P.T.)

The new album definitely gets away from the Pavement sounds, but I don't get how you can't hear their influence on the previous albums.

yeah it's pretty obvious

Re: “Uncast Shadow...” — isn’t there a song on that album that’s basically a straight-up Silver Jews homage?

xpost – where do you guys hear it specifically? Which songs?

yeah it's there but it's Sonic Youth too, I don't know why that comparison doesn't get brought up more often

certainly the song N Dakota sounds like a Pavement ballad, Donuts Only sounds like a Spiral song, but when they really rock, it's more tense and on edge than Pavement ever really were

“Donuts Only” = Sprial maybe only in the sense that it’s the least good song on that album, LOL(!)

the album sounds just like Roisin Murphy imo

xp lol yes otm

there must be a thread for albums that have a band's best song followed by one of their worst (Borrowed Time -> Donuts Only)

whereas Pavement are downright cozy...

it's more tense and on edge than Pavement ever really were

really feelin the coziness on this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CbCTtVvOU8

weird opinions on Pavement in this thread

Haha, “Recorder Grot” is a pretty atypical Pavement song...

I agree there was a certain tension in their early stuff, tho (including S&E)

I changed my mind: this reminds me of Color Me Badd

Also (xpost to myself), I think even Pavement's "abrasive, punky stuff" is somehow on an entirely different tip than PC's "abrasive, punky stuff"

entirely possible, I haven't heard enough PC to say, I just think it's a mischaracterization to act like all Pavement made was their last two records of cozy mid-tempo guitar rock

I would be very surprised if the members of Parquet Courts don't each own a copy of Slanted and Enchanted

they all have the vinyl and only use it to roll j's on.

+1

Parquet Courts sound like Shannon imo

It's almost like Parquet Courts is embarrassed of the "weedy guy in a cardigan" side of Pavement and deliberately het up their sound to void that stigma. I'm not sure they'll ever make as tuneful and shameless a Pavement-inspired album as for instance The Stevens "Good", which is a pity.

I’m thinking some itt have not heard any of malk/pave’s music. “steady on my mind” for example (the song I happen to be listening now) is basically a song from “mirror traffic”

Solo Malk doesn’t sound much like Pavement!

For reference, here are a few random songs that “sound like Pavement”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvNnu3NYKuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR1xCjL0mXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR1xCjL0mXE (start at 1:05)

Whoops, this was supposed to be #2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yeYGbugwc

I think I hear a lot of different malk eras in their records. I’ll give more examples later

I maintain that "Evergladed" by Sammy is the best Pavement ripoff ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJOwsOfQgFs

That’s the Sammy from Long Island, the biz kids? I didn’t know they had a release on Smells Like... thought they went straight to the majors, LOL

I'm pretty sure they're from Florida, I heard the song at the end of a Kelly Reichardt movie called River of Grass from 1994.

oh lol nvm, yeah New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_(band)

I wanna make fun of this guy, but being a junior label exec by day and playing in a Pavement soundalike band by night would have been my dream early-20s lifestyle, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Wood

Wow, I had no idea about his subsequent career. I got a *lot* of mileage out of that Smells Like... Sammy LP as a youngster.

I, too, learned not that long ago that one of the guys from the all-time greatest Pavement rip-off band, Sammy, is now a millionaire music industry executive. smh, as the kids say.

this sent me to YouTube to revisit some of their stuff. another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZ7PxuyqbU

This is some serious hair splitting going on here. Does that happen any time someone incants the name Pavement?

Of course you can find songs that sound *more* like pavement, from the mid-90's, when everyone had similar production and guitar effects, but still, if you're not hearing *any* similarity than you're probably standing too close.
Some of the DNA from "Conduit For Sale"/"Hit the Plane Down" surely made its way into "Donuts Only" (or from "Two States" -> "Dust", or from "Here"/"Zurich is Stained" -> "Human Performance")
That said, I do agree with zchyrs that i hear more minutemen in there.

Also, for the folks who think Turrican is crazy for saying PC are better than pavement, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you were probably aged between 15 and 25 when you discovered pavement, but you're over 35 now, and it's a hell of a lot harder for new bands to get admitted to the canon.

Bands can share DNA (such as “postpunk” DNA, for the first batch of songs you mentioned) without particularly sounding like each other. I understand that sounds like splitting hairs... anyway, it’s just something fun to talk about / debate.

over 35...and it's a hell of a lot harder for new bands to get admitted to the canon.

OTM. Yet Parquet Courts have made my personal canon. I'd even go as far as saying A. Savage is the best millennial rocker.

I don't listen to much rock these days but I make exceptions for these:

Parquet Courts
Sacred Paws
Ought
Big Thief
Future Islands
Lescop
Algiers

And the thing is I like these acts LOADS compared to a lot of everything else I listen to, but I just don't involve myself much in the style as I might once have

like they're part of my canon and very high on there

doggie needs to get down w the bradnelsonwave

rock is good now

does that mean rockism is the new poptimism?

rockism != rock is good

bradnelsonwave is definitely rockpoptimism par excellence