"Stephen Malkmus": "whimsical indie rock" or something greater?

I'd say he's now cast himself as a whimsical indie rocker capable of greatness.

where terror twilight's songs mostly had 2nd sections that got sort of proggy / bombastic, the 2nd sections on this are more concise and relaxed guitar excursions. like frank black's first solo record, the overriding motto can be summed up as "keep it small". but whereas frank black was responding to the grunge explosion he midwifed with an antithetical dinkiness and corniness - ie a sort of authentic non-commercialism, the malkmus record is responding to a suspicion among the entire community of indie musicians, fans, store & club owners and college stations that indie rock is dying out. this was a perverse sort of commercialism, an honest commercialism restricted to the smaller sweepstakes of little clubs and stores.

i think malkmus, more than anyone in the indie scene, has made his peace with hi-fi recording in a dignified and productive way - the production touches, thickness & gloss is consistently enjoyable, clever, musical and not overbearing.

there's a great variety to the songwriting tone - from totally silly jamz to totally heartfelt ballads to ambiguous maybe silly maybe serious heavy things, in the vein of wowee zowee and everything before that [the classic years]. but even the ballads don't stack up, church on white great as it is - the guitar bridge is his best since gold soundz - doesn't touch father to a sister, here, newark wilder, etc.

for me, tt > sm > pl > btc, but the last three are all pretty close.

NO

This cover was purportedly considered for the s/t:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T3yPsQnwRo

I like "Dynamic Calories" and "Fractions and Feelings" (from the bonus CD that came with Pig Lib) better than any other Malkmus solo stuff.
― alex in montreal, Friday, July 16, 2004 9:24 AM (thirteen years ago)

Seconded (13 yrs. later)

those are fantastic songs. as is 'sin taxi'

FSR I had an urge to hear that song "Do Not Feed the Oyster," so I dialed it up -- pretty jammin'!

(I do wish that the "Pig Lib" bonus EP was on Spotify, tho -- all those songs are gr8.)

Found the traxx on YouseTube. I luv the solo/bridge/breakdown portions of "Old Jerry" so much (pretty much the entire 2nd half of the song).

(Not all 5 traxx are up there; but I did find the original version of "The Poet and the Witch," by Mellow Candle, which is cool.)