Pavement:Classic or Dud

correct, nothing new.

although i will say it is kind of nice to have this stuff separated from the proper albums. reminds me of my 2CD homemade compilation of their b-sides that i made in, like, 1998ish - "Four Channel Destiny"

granted, this is soemthing you can easily do with streaming playlists, but i don't make playlists.

I think those alt versions of "Black Out" "Extradition" weren't streaming before(?)

But otherwise, yeah, I agree with alpine static – while you could recreate the track list, I still think it's cool that they made it available as a standalone thing.

Huh – the alt "Black Out" has "Gonna haunt you down, haunt you down..." lyrics

"Extradition" sounds pretty close to the album track

Also, I guess you still need to dial up the Westing... comp to hear the "Perfect Sound Forever" tracks (so Drag City Incorporated get their $0.0000002)

...and ftr, that's exactly what I'm doing now. I've never known most of these songs by title, but damn... "Internal K-Dart" and "Perfect Depth" are such anthems. After hearing those, you kinda have to play the final EP, and close out the trilogy.

Pavement have finally gone Gold:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2024-05-21/pavement-steven-malkmus-a-new-gold-record-tik-tok-harness-your-hopes

On May 16, the song (Harness Your Hopes) hit the RIAA’s classification for Gold status, meaning it hit the sales equivalent for 500,000 units across platforms. Malkmus was just as confused as the public by the song’s ascent — “I heard it was on a playlist or something,” he told Stereogum. “I’m not an expert on Spotify but, you know, one of those ‘Monday Moods’ or whatever the f— they do.”

lol SM

“Im pushing 60 i dont care”

Pretty wild that this is Pavement's top 10 on Spotify:

1. Harness Your Hopes 148M
2. Cut Your Hair 42M
3. Range Life 32M
4. Gold Soundz 27M
5. Spit on a Stranger 16M
6. Stereo 11.9M
7. Zurich Is Stained 11.3M
8. Shady Lane 10.8M
9. Grounded 10.1M
10. Father to a Sister of Thought 9.2M

Zurich is Stained 11.3M is the actual title

40M daggers

Here's the long version of how this song has exploded and a great read. Glenn McDonald is a hero too.

https://www.stereogum.com/2105993/pavement-harness-your-hopes-spotify/columns/sounding-board/

How cleanly the top 10 divides into tiers: S = "Harness Your Hopes", A = the three big radio-friendly songs from Crooked Rain, B = a career spanning selection of wistful tunez (+weird outlier "Stereo")

Stereo is an iconic Pavement song not a weird outlier

Yeah always felt that was a breakthrough single of sorts

What about the voice of Geddy Lee etc

an esteemed ilxor even took their name from it!

yeah, Stereo was a single at their commercial (until recently) peak, no?

that's enough fact checkin for now

Why is Zurich Is Stained up there now. This makes no obvious sense

It's not my fault

I didn't mean "Stereo" was a weird outlier in Pavement's overall discography or sound, just within my tiers list.

It isn't 'moody' like "Grounded" or "Zurich" or "Stranger", it's a lot goofier than the big trio of songs from Crooked Rain, it's maybe got more in common with "Harness" than anything else in that top 10 most-streamed list.

And if anyone is baffled by "Zurich"'s placement here, let me just add that the 2xCD reissue of S&E came out when I was a high school sophomore, and I spent an entire hour one time listening to "Zurich" on repeat and crying while mowing my parents' lawn.

My friends had a kid around 2000, and by the time the kid was three or four it was kind of a parlor trick for them to put on "Stereo" and have the kid sing along with it word perfect.

are you all still trying to figure this out? Spotify makes pkayliats, they put a pavement song on a playlist, lots of people who aren’t pavement fans listen to the playlist. It isn’t a bunch of little griel marcusues going “ummm Zurich is stained is the new ghostly weird Central Valley rubiyat” or something

lol

Thank you o wise one

pavement pkayliats

That Top 10 is like some bullshit classic rock Memorial Day list of The Greatest Songs of All Time where "Dust In the Wind" is #1.

its quite a thrill as a fanboy seeing Harness have some success. The rare occasion when dreaming about a bside being better known actually comes true.

lol brimstead

"zurich" is short/melodic/doesn't have SM shrieking at any point — it's ideal for spotify's "classic indie of the 90s" playlists that halfway cool coffee shops or co-working spaces play on endless repeat

What about the song "Harness Your Hopes"? How did it get that high?

Does it get played by ordinary guy?

I met it, and it does

now where's our fact checking cuz

where oh where is the "debris slide" tik tok trend

we can dream

Looks like no Malkmus solo song has topped 2 million streams, and the most popular ones from the s/t album ("Jenny & The Ess-Dog" et al).

malkmus's solo career is on the whole very good, more people should stream his post-pavement work imo

zurich is stained has always felt to me like a real standout on S+E ever since I bought it as a high schooler in 1998. not surprised that people enjoy listening to it above the other s+e tracks, which are clattery and noisier. i don't think it's the playlist thing like harness your hopes is.

also it starts off with a line about being a wimpy loser, people love songs about that

Some Jicks songs are higher than 2 million though

Oh wow, one of those cases where I didn't even think of searching for two different artist pages.

The "Harness Your Hopes" phenomenon is still so funny/random to me (even though, yes, I get "how" it happened). I received a notification a few weeks back that the song was released as a single... I guess to qualify for the RIAA certification(?)

+1 in the highschooler discovering pavement and immediately latching onto Zurich is stained.

It really is a little bop. The slide guitar still mesmerises me today like it did the first time.

Also vry cute story above about the 4yo parlour trick Eazy. Someone teach their kid Conduit For Sale next.