Pavement:Classic or Dud

flappy bird this could be a gateway S&E song and also function as a dirge eulogizing pavement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5OeoVkTDLM

malkmus is a prickly ocd loner fwiu and grew increasingly disenchanted (ha!) with carrying the load of his college / post-college buds. the swerve into prog in his solo albums is heard by some as something of a rebuke to / growth beyond earlier chummy sloppiness

Surface take: SM outgrew Pavement. Aside from Ibold (& Gary Young), the other guys were just friends with marginal talent.

Behind the scenes: one of the other dudes was serially cheating on his then-wife, flirting with a shitty drug habit, all the while coattail-riding & making other questionable life choices.

so why is most of his solo output so boring while every single pavement album is good

^^^could be a collegiate mindset, I found as I've gotten older there are as many classic tracks (and duds!) on the Jicks stuff as the Pavement records (esp. the latter Pavement records which have aged terribly).

I'll just link this seemingly unrelated dating advice column here:

http://www.thebolditalic.rip/articles/3385-dating-in-your-40s

At 21, I gave up hope that my romantic life would ever morph into a John Hughes film, and I met my first boyfriend. After six years, he became my husband, and another eight years, my ex-husband. Initially all I thought I wanted was someone who played guitar, listened to the Replacements, and wore Sambas. And this pretty much describes my ex. He toured nine months of the year, liked bands on Touch and Go, and played soccer in college. But as I grew older, I realized our marriage had turned into a rock ’n’ roll cliché, including erstwhile drummers, band breakups, drugs, and hookups with groupies in Paris and London.

Ultimately, I couldn’t blame my ex since he did us both a favor – he behaved so badly that I didn’t have to feel guilty for wanting out (though inevitably I did) or take responsibility for my own mistakes. But I was still left shell-shocked. At 35, when most of my married friends were having kids and moving to the suburbs, I was single and struggling to make a living as a college instructor and freelance writer. I wondered if I’d completely wasted my 20s and a big chunk of my 30s.

I like the later Pavement records just fine, still. I tap out on the Jicks records at the dull half of RET. the new single is stunningly dull.

then again I never really understood the TT hate beyond godrich's fussy production

Surface take: SM outgrew Pavement. Aside from Ibold (& Gary Young), the other guys were just friends with marginal talent.

Behind the scenes: one of the other dudes was serially cheating on his then-wife, flirting with a shitty drug habit, all the while coattail-riding & making other questionable life choices.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli)

Very interesting...

listen to wowee zowee until it all clicks imo

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, February 7, 2018 9:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

co-sign this

yeah i have, i like it, but so much on there that doesn't connect with me, even songs i like like 'rattled by the rush.' i can't stand stand any of the SS songs. but 'grounded' is like i said one of my favorite songs ever. i just feel one day it'll all make sense because i've been trying to understand this band for longer than any other and i know i wouldn't ruminate on or be perpetually pissed off by a band that wasn't interesting or compelling or moving. i love pretty much all of Crooked Rain but 'grounded' is on another level

Big Pavement fan here who also just doesn't like S&E very much

grounded is like the exact venn overlap of helium and polvo

flappy bird - you listened to the last two albums? common opinion is all 'the early, cool, sloppy Pavement was great; the later stuff where they could play their instruments and got fancy producers to make them sound like Radiohead is dud' and I pretty much disagree with that. Much as I love Crooked Rain, I think there's just as much to be enjoyed about Terror Twilight and Brighten the Corners as there is from S&E, probably more. They weren't the same band, but who wants the same band?

but this is how literally every Pavement thread in the history of the Internet goes

I wasted all my 20s and a good chunk of my 30s too, and I didn't even have to get married to Spiral Stairs.

life is a waste of time. been a pavement fan since crooked rain -- saw the tour as a very young chap. first two malkmus solo albums are his peak imho

Yeah not fighting against consensus at all but:

S/E - Fascinating debut
CR/CR - Near perfect ideal of an indie-rock album
WZ - Their best album
BTC - Their most underrated album
TT - accurately rated mild disappointment

But I think Brighten The Corners is the one most overdue for a reappraisal. It's a fantastic late '90s rock album with a character all its own, even if it's not exactly what I come to a Pavement album looking for.

Love love love Brighten the Corners

flappy IMO in order to "get" S&E you need to listen to Demolition Plot J-& and Perfect Sound Forever, both of which I prefer and both of which were a big factor in the massive hype for the debut album. then jam out to "No Life Singed Her" and see if it clicks.

co-sign that too- transport is arranged is one of my favorite pavement songs. the B-sides from around then are fun too

Gonna descent b/c I think if Flappy doesn't get S&E he's absolutely going to HATE 90% of that early stuff, which is really disjointed and not at all the "Grounded"-y songwriting fix he's looking for.

My suggestion is check out the live 1992 concert on the second disc of the S&E reissue, which dresses up a lot of those rough early songs with some alt-rock showmanship. This version of "Home" is so completely my shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJ4SSbSJ6o

Stick your fingers in my mouth / Pull my lips back WATCH ME SMILE

hmph "Debris Slide" is far from disjointed (again, imo, but come on)

I found S&E and CRCR a total letdown after those glorious EPs, the only other record I like as much the early stuff is WZ.

will not dispute the glory of "Debris Slide"

If you love “Grounded,” Brighten the Corners is certainly the closest thing to a whole album of Groundeds, and the expanded edition has more good stuff along the same lines. It’s my favorite Pavement album, though the almost invariably slow tempo takes some getting used to.

I for one also adore Transport Is Arranged. Listened to it last week and I still can't get it out of my head.

With recent events, the lyrics have changed in my head to "Praise the GAMMON police..."

What's weird is that I have internalized Standard Critical Discourse enough to think of S&E and Crooked as "the classic Pavement albums" but if I actually contemplate my listening habits, in the last 10 years I've played Wowee Zowee and Brighten the Corners 5x more than either of those. "Transport is Arranged," "Stereo," "We Are Underused" are three of their greatest songs.

But of course, yes, "Debris Slide," that is majesty.

(I don't care about "Box Elder" anymore though!)

I was always a little sad they didn't ever try to go the Perfect Depth route / style ever again. Wonderful noise rock.

I just find the early stuff a bit hard on the ears. I don't mind 'lo-fi' but I'm just not into harshness, and I just don't think the songs are as good. Crooked Rain has incredible songwriting, as does BTC. Might mean something that BTC was the first album I heard and the one that got me into them.

"Grounded" (in its original state) was left off of Crooked Rain, then rerecorded for BTC. There is nothing even close to it on BTC.

That said, I also think it's pretty overrated... 4+ minutes of 3 chords with a cool intro/outro and a weak chorus (?)... it's basically "Summer Babe pt. 2".

^^^...then rerecorded for BTC WZ

that post started so well...

it's not overrated, you just don't like it

also, it's 'fight this generation' that's "summer babe pt 2"

pavement threads on ILM are reliably weird.

whether or not you dig WZ (I also think it's their best) the whole thing just SOUNDS so good

sounds like fondue or an electric blanket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEy4OUeZs4

the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode where Pavement is introduced as The Beatles is pretty classic

hell yea

The jam they do at the end is a bonus cut on the BTC reissue

Yeah not fighting against consensus at all but:

S/E - Fascinating debut
CR/CR - Near perfect ideal of an indie-rock album
WZ - Their best album
BTC - Their most underrated album
TT - accurately rated mild disappointment

But I think Brighten The Corners is the one most overdue for a reappraisal. It's a fantastic late '90s rock album with a character all its own, even if it's not exactly what I come to a Pavement album looking for.

― Evan R, Thursday, February 8, 2018 5:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This

New Malkmus & Jicks track sounds like a lovely lost Pavement B-side

https://open.spotify.com/album/2NSpjbEnOdNMJU9F2ELEgF

Just came here to post that. Think it's the best (or at least most acceptable) thing he's released in a very long time. Reminds me of Major Leagues, one of my favourite Pave ballads

I like Brighten The Corners, not really a TT fan though. Transport is Arranged is one of my favourite Pavement songs. I really don't like Shady Lane though which seems to be a fan favourite.

dang going through my old bookmarks has inspired me to listen to "Brighten the Corners" today. I always think of it as one of the albums I'm not as familiar with but then I put it on and know every song inside and out. I also COMPLETELY forgot how fucking good "Old To Begin" is.

Classic top to bottom

Brighten The Corners is probably my favourite Pavement album, its one of those albums that instantly reminds me of a specific time of my life. My girlfriend at the time had parents who owned an independent record store, so I got to tape a copy a few weeks pre-release and played it to death. Pavement did a UK tour about a week before the album actually came out and (being a cheeky twat) I took it with me and the whole band were happy to sign it, top geezers.

I was so underwhelmed by Brighten the Corners that I sold it—not usual, being a broke kid in the '90s meant constantly selling old CDs to buy new ones—but like half a year later I bought it back and it was one of my favs for years afterward. Been ages since I've listened to it start to finish though.

lol i have basically the same history with BTC. bought it around 98, listened to it several times and was bored.
slapped it on a couple years later and was like "ok wtf every song here is great"

Was my first Pavement album but would suggest it as an entry point due it's slow-medium tempos for much of it. Was there a reason given for Harness Your Hopes being a b-side? And even then, why did it wait until the following album releases for it to come out?

Now here are the best albums, ranked.

brighten the corners is fine. it's fine! it is not better than crooked rain