Pavement:Classic or Dud

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

LOL – I’m not even clicking

me neither, not after mookie's comment

It's all the same album, dudes.

lol what

the #1 is otm though

great TT blurb

thanks

tough to get worked up about a ranking of.....five albums

That's the fun part. It's like arguing about Joy Division.

I wonder if someday I'll go back to Terror Twilight and really *feel* it the way I do the other four records.

BTC gone down and TT gone up in my estimation throughout the years.

Too much mid-paced torpor on BTC and I really like the shiny Godrich production on TT now.

Don't agree Alfred re your low ranking of Crooked Rain, nor your take on "Cut Your Hair."

It's Slanted And Enchanted. And Crooked Rain would be my #1, though I love Wowee Zowee, too.

alfred's rankings otm, btc over cr only by a hair

btc has the benefit of not having 'hit the plane down'

i prefer hit the plane down to the two spiral stinkers on btc

I quite like "Date With Ikea"

wowee zowie is obviously the best and TT is really good

crooked rain will always be my favorite. it came out on valentine's day 1994, a month and change before kurt cobain blew his head off. an uncannily timed meta-"rock" record, "unfair" as dorm eulogy 1, and then 'the elegant bachelors', and "there's no survivors", and "good night to the rock n roll era" . . .

btw I seem to be that rare Pavement stan who really likes the SS songs

I don't mind the SS songs at all.

Terror Twilight would've been at least 8 times better had Side 2 opened up with something like "For Sale: tPSoI" instead of "Ann Don't Cry".

I'm kind of Wowee Zowee>Everything Else.
I wonder if Watery, Domestic is still as great as I thought it was at the time.

it still has frontwards, texas never whispers and shoot the singer so yes /cif

huh Watery, Domestic (or the expanded Slanted and Enchanted) are not up on (UK) Spotify. Finally a reason it wasn't stupid to have spent £10 on 10 minutes of music at Zhivago Records in Galway in 1997.

anyway Alfred's ranking is OTM

uh... Watery, Domestic still remains the best 12 minutes of music ever released.

good mourning!

I quite like "Date With Ikea"

― Paul Ponzi, Monday, August 27, 2018

The sparkle of that twelve-string intro never fails to grab me. Then SS sings the non-chorus and I've flopped out of his arms.

The actress? She's always breaking things.

btc has the benefit of not having 'hit the plane down'

fair

I quite like the SS songs too!

uh... Watery, Domestic still remains the best 12 minutes of music ever released.

― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion)

Gary Young at his best. The entire Watery, Domestic recording session is insane:

Texas Never Whispers
Frontwards
Feed em to the Lions (Linden)
Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Sue Me Jack
So Stark (You're A Skyscraper)
Greenlander

yeah I listened to “watery” a few days ago and it’s still as great as it was the first time. their best release maybe

def the best bang for your buck. SE/CR/WZ all have more quantity of quality, but also so-so spots. WD is perfect, but only for 4 tracks.

also, Albert R. Broccoli otm xxpost

Where are Malkmus' tax returns?

The way the river bends, etc.

Yep, still a beaut. If I had any time (or sense of where the issue is now) I'd dig out the copy of YOUR FLESH magazine that wrongly slammed this EP.

watery domestic is so so excellent

I was listening yesterday and noticed for the first time that the twangy bass (or guitar?) that opens Greenlander also shows up toward the end of Shoot The Singer

Great snapshot of pre-S&E Pavement -- summer 1991 show at the Middle East just popped up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Cd56fHNFg

some good gary young content here

I saw a teenager this summer at a grocery store in my small, middle-of-nowhere home town wearing a red S&E t-shirt and it pleased me greatly.

Wonder where he found it. I don’t get why ‘90s indie bands haven’t been able to cash in on the retro T-shirt craze... I feel like there should be Sebadoh tees at Hot Topic.

(Also — I didn’t know that Bob was playing with them that early on.)

It's been so long since I listened to Pavement that when I was watching a bit of that I heard a song I half recognized and thought, hmm, where do I know that song from? And then instantly realized, oh yeah, it's a Pavement song.