Stephen Malkmus

shh don't tell the other posters on this thread!

R.E.M. have been horrible since Monster, so, no

'new adventures' was pretty good

roughly the same set as "guys who still buy SM/Jicks albums"
i accept this. i mean, i got into pavement when I was 14-15 years old, they're an ~important~ band to me, in that way that music that you get into when you're 14-15 is maybe more important than any other music you'll hear. so i think there's some element of nostalgia that i'll always have with malkmus. but at the same time, i do really enjoy his jicks records -- i don't think he's ever made a bad album in the same way that REM or say, Paul Westerberg has made a bad album. i'm not desperate for him to just rehash pavement. but i guess i'm just a big fan.

me too. "pink india" speaks more to me than most pavement songs

Isn't talking about music on a forum in itself a form of music criticism though? Unless all you're doing is reading list threads or w/e?

This album isn't really grabbing me. The first three tunes are enticing enough - they cover a modicum of new ground - but by the time he's singing "there's not much left inside my tank today" it's just Malkmus by numbers. That said, every album I've ever heard by Malkmus or Pavement has taken a good few listens to truly love.

I got into Pavement via Blur when they were touting the band as a major influence. There was a segment about them on television with Malkmus singing a live version of Stereo: "What about the voice of Geddy Lee/[Helium voice] Why does it sound like this?...". I was struck by how amusing this line was and how it was delivered in this shambling US drawl with stumbling instruments barely able to drag themselves up off the floor, yet somehow maintaining coherence through some idiot logic of their own. I couldn't tell if it was out of tune or out of time or what, but it sounded so different compared to the bright'n'bouncy sounds of most UK Britpop of the time. A skewed house of cards sound with these archly labyrinthine lyrics that only just hinted at solid concepts but poked and tickled the receptors with their wordplay.

Once I'd listened to the albums a bit more, I'd find myself being plagued by these lyrics. They'd just float into my head completely unannounced: "One of us is a cigar stand/And one of us is a lovely blue incandescent guillotine", "The tiger reaps his own reward/Serengeti nightmare for the eco-tour", "Oh intuition/On your docks we're fish'in/Come on now give us a grade". It got to the point where I could recite the whole of the Brighten The Corners album without really trying or even looking at the lyric sheet - and I'm NOT a lyrics man. It's this knack Malkmus has for imaginative word combinations that does it I think. He would have made a brilliant hip-hop artist - the doors within doors within doors automatic writing - Stereo being a case in point. He's like the indie ODB (*ducks*).

But yeah, it can take a while for a Pavement/Malkmus album to sink in. I thought Pig Lib was a major snooze when I first heard it. Now it's my favourite rock album of 2003 - a true masterpiece and the last really great thing he ever put out. Since then it's all gone a little wincey. I have no qualm with the prog direction he's been pushing lately - it's more the lyrics I think. They've gone a bit obvious and cutesy. Songs about dragonflies and wicked witches and shit - it's more like someone doing an impression of Malkmus than anything else and a major stumbling block for me on the last two albums.

I was a huge R.E.M. fan who gave up on them shortly after Reveal. Bought Accelerate and it reminded me why I'd given up on them in the first place. Malkmus doesn't make exciting records anymore, but he still makes good ones, and I suspect he always will. Even if I hadn't heard and liked it on Spotify, I'd be buying Mirror Traffic. The cutesy stuff can be annoying, yeah, but I don't think it's gotten substantially worse since Pig Lib. It certainly hasn't reached McCartney levels, anyway.

i think he has an "admiral halsey/uncle albert" or two in him. kinda feel like the more apt comparison in terms of stature and influence is lou reed though, except malkmus solo is better than pavement, and lou barely ever measured up again to what the velvets did

He's definitely got some noticeable Lou Reed moments on this album

i always thought "the hook" was lou solo-y. hope he never does a 'new sensations'

That song which uses "alacrity" – it's towards the end – makes me boil.

i'm pretty sure you mean makes you "boogie"

alfred, did you like this movierecord i dont remember?

Btw, does Malkmus' delivery in a couple of these songs make you think he's been listening to a lot of his buddy DB's records? Can't remember specifics right now, but listening this morning i remember several times thinking, "that line belongs on a Jews record".

Malkmus is infinitely less perverse and substantially easier to listen to than solo Lou Reed. I mean, Lou hasn't even attempted to sing on key since at least 1972.

those buzzing guitars when he sings the line "there's not much left in my tank today." totally rule my world, they literally make me dizzy. later on the song turns into a progrock guitar jam. a little disappointing but isn't this typical for malkmus, experimenting a little and then coming back to normal life. there are lots of codas on this, a real malkmus song is almost unthinkable without a coda, isn't it? i think this album to which i must have listened at least 5 times by now is absolutely wonderful. i love the guitars on "stick figurs in love". sunny and breezy at the same time. this album is one of the best i have heard this year. which doesn't say much as i didn't listen to many and most of those were pretty unexciting. "long hard book" is another killer song. it switches from melancholic guitar ballad to country and then to god knows what. there are so many ideas on this albums, it sparkles like a crazy star in the milky way. but you have to look closely at the night sky to see all those rays going in all directions.

only songs i don't really like on this are "senator", "spazz" and parts of "gorgeous georgie"

"fall away" = strings of nashville 2

“Unfortunately the Jicks songs are too difficult to play behind my head or fall to my knees so often. I end up looking down more often than I’d like. But those Pavement ones are in these totally remedial tunings, and I know ’em so well I can just play them with my eyes closed. That allowed me to have some fun playing the guitar, which I like. That was more showmanship, but I’ve been playing more, y’know, considered guitar for a pretty long time. Since [2003’s] Pig Lib people have been throwin’ that (expletive) around.”

This quote from an interview with Aussie website the vine kinda explains why I like Slanted / Crooked Rain era Pavement more than anything else he's done

"Senator" is actually a really great song, I feel like too many people are letting the awkward "blowjob" lines ruin the song completely.

I still hear Pig Lib as his peak, and the new album sounds a little too polite or something, but I like the fact that he's able to put out fairly solid albums in the same general style year after year. Off the top of my head I can't think of too many other reasonably talented indie folk who've been able to pull that off. Like his solo career has a pleasing lack of urgency that does remind me of the 70's.

Oddly, Mirror Traffic doesn't show up on Spotify when I search for Malkmus (his other solo albums do) but they do have it (under Malkmus and the Jicks). On Rhapsody it turns up in the Malkmus search. Interesting, and worth remembering... I did wonder why Rhapsody would have it first.

Either he's become a less interesting singer or uninterested in rhythm or both, or I've lost interest in his disinterest in them.

Was he once interested in rhythm? Maybe. Ever since he started talking more about prog and late-60s and early 70s Brit folk, and his guitar playing, vocals, and song lengths began to reflect that, I became less interested. But lots of folks here seem to like that.

sloppy grammar there.

It needn't be a binary though. Lots of early seventies Britfolk moved more interestingly than Malkmus' tunes.

Martin Lamble is a drummer that I like a lot.

If Malkmus could only bring that Fairport Convention drummer back from the beyond.

sm + jicks actually covered "tale in hard time" a few years back. it was great.

brain gallop -> jumblegloss -> asking price -> stick figures in love

^^A++++

brain challops

this is a really swell autumn is coming album

sorry if this was already posted, but did you see the email exchange b/w Malkmus and David Berman regarding the original title, L.A. Guns, along with a bunch of entertainment lawyer worrying about getting sued by people confusing the title with the 80s glam metal band L.A. Guns? Berman posted the email chain in its entirity: http://mentholmountains.blogspot.com/2011/08/la-guns-intangible-showdown.html#more

it's pretty lol

x-post

How is it "Autumn is coming"?

yes! this is amazing

I don't want anybody to get hurt.
I can just see the two factions healing their schism
and coming after you with both barrels blazin.
These headbangers are angry and vindictive.
They've been looking for revenge since '92
and let's face it--
you weren't far from the scene of the crime.

curmudgeon, autumn is on the way. summer is almost dead.

Not around here. 108F tomorrow. Damn it.

x-post- so any album released in August that you like is a " swell autumn is coming album"? Uh, thanks. Now tell me again why you hate music criticism.

Wish I could place what old song 'Gorgeous Georgie' threatens to turn into at 0:57, something by Built To Spill off 'Keep It LIke A Secret', perhaps?

I still hear Pig Lib as his peak

otm. nice in-store at academy records the other day. benny!

x-post, Was thinking of The Move's 'Do Ya.

http://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/videos/stephen-malkmus-2011.html

Ok, finally figured out why the Senator/blowjob line irritates me: it's too reminiscent of the Bob Packwood line from Vanessa From Queens. Like if you're going to go for such an attention grabbing line, it shouldn't be a retread...

^^^ that's what I said in my review. He wants to make sure we hear the vulgarity.

Yeah, when I was relistening to this over the weekend, it did bug me how much he overemphasizes that bit. Still not enough to completely ruin the song though.

just now really digging into this record. mixed bag, maybe, but lots of great moments.

I don't know what to say about the legacy overall, except that a certain strata of middle-class hipsters (lthe word laughs in parens, which ILM doesn't seem to like) share Pavement, and that's great. Hipsters (in quotes, which ILM also doesn't seem to like) doesn't have to be a pejorative or about trend-jumping, either. I wouldn't want to be called a hipster, but there's nothing really wrong with it. To me, it can be just about exploring, or an openness to finding the best things.

wait, Malkmus reads ILM?

No, remember, he only likes fantasy baseball--repeat ad nauseum

Is baseball stage chatter a regular thing w/ Malkmus? Only saw him live once, and I remember him doing it then.

It's more like a constant refrain in many articles about him, usually his band members talking about he could care less about following music, etc

“Stephen is a pretty difficult guy to access,” Nastanovich explains via telephone, calling from a racetrack in Illinois where he’s working. “If you’re not in the same town with him, you don’t really hear from him. I’ve found that the easiest way to get in touch with him, even if it’s about a Pavement-related issue, is to propose a trade in one of our fantasy leagues and attach my question in an e-mail memo.”