Pavement Thread, Pavement Thread

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!]

I've been listening to Wowee Zowee quite a bit recently. I'm pretty sure that it's the best Pavement album and also maybe the best album of the 1990s (maybe). "We Dance" is probably one of my ten favorite songs ever.

[snuffbox]

I prefer Crooked Rain to Wowee Zowee but I definitly like that one too. I prefer Malkmus' solo material to most Pavement but it really seems, to me, that he's been consistently good for a very long time while still managing to avoid getting sucked into the mainstream.

 

I hope the rumors prove true & Pavement reunites for a tour. I think it would have the Pixies effect.

[C Dubya 04]

Crooked Rain I like better than Wowee, but agree on We Dance. I love that song.

 

 

I don't think that a Pavement reunion tour would have the Pixie effect. The Pixies were much bigger when they were together. I'd love a Pavement reunion, but I don't think it would have the mass appeal.

[snuffbox]

I guess we'll just have to disagree about the Pixie effect.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

That's debatable that Pixies were bigger than Pavement when each were still an ongoing concern; Pavement managed both a minor video and radio hit ("Cut Your Hair") and were headliners at Lollapalooza. Also, while Pavement would no doubt be a concert draw now, they were never considered a good live band.

[C Dubya 04]

I think that "Head On" was almost as big a hit as "Cut Your Hair". The Pixies also have the Breeders/Frank Black after which I think added to their draw during the reunion.

[Henry Spencer]

Pavement were the best thing ever to me about two years ago, but I've grown to find them grating and childish. Crooked Rain... is the only one I can really get excited about anymore, and even that one I haven't listened to in months.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

The Pixies also have the Breeders/Frank Black after which I think added to their draw during the reunion.

I don't think any of the band members' post-Pixies activities added to the appeal of the recent Pixies reunion; Frank Black's solo career only managed minimal mainstream interest for the first two albums, while "Last Splash" was bigger than anything the Pixies had done up to that point, I'd wager the Breeders were enough of a separate entity from the Pixies in most people's minds that it didn't play a hand at all in concert turnouts a couple years back.

[Smartly Pretty]

Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17 is one of my favorite songs ever.

 

edit: The thing about the Pixies reunion tour is that the people who attended weren't people in their mid to late twenties who liked Pixies when they were still together—It was a pretty diverse crowd age wise. Pixies have managed to stay popular with younger music fans and kind of transcend generations (I wasn't even a fetus when Doolittle came out). Pavement on the other hand, while equally influential on indie rock, don't really have that, and a reunion tour would most likely be attended by people who were fans of them back in the 90's.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

I just don't think Malkmus likes touring. He rarely goes out for his own solo stuff; as a big a payday a Pavement reunion would be, he could make some decent money now if he'd hit the road more often on his own. But he doesn't.

[Henry Spencer]

Pavement were the best thing ever to me about two years ago, but I've grown to find them grating and childish. Crooked Rain... is the only one I can really get excited about anymore, and even that one I haven't listened to in months.

 

UPDATE: I've recently gained a newfound appreciation for Slanted & Enchanted, to the point now where I cannot fathom how I ever prefered Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Man, what a great album.

 

Also, is it just me, or can anyone else hear the bit of melody in Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17 that they nicked from Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels) by Jim Croce? Nobody else I've mentioned it to noticed it. Still a great song.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

Did I ever tell the story of how I hated Wowee Zowee for ten years, only to come to the conclusion that it's their best album?

[godthedog]

i've listened to 'crooked rain' and 'slanted & enchanted' for a month now in an effort to get it, and i give up. it feels like they write parodies of songs instead of real songs and try as hard as they can to not be sincere about anything.

 

i can understand the appeal of that in the early 90s when grunge &c were taking themselves so seriously, to have a band that just slyly laughs at the whole thing by avoiding hooks, keeping the noise from the hard-rock sound while taking away the headbanging power of it, and the rest, but...jesus, at least try instead of being too cool to try. it's like a doppelganger of ween, who play ridiculous shit like they mean it and make you like it while you laugh at it. the impression i get of pavement is to play like they don't mean it, to make everybody else look ridiculous.

 

i want to be cool and like these guys, but i need to know why.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

They write good songs, dude. Just from the two albums you mentioned, "Here," "Summer Babe," "Range Life," etc. Plus, looking at it from an alternative-from-grunge perspective is the wrong way to go about it.

[Lord of The Curry]

"Major Leagues" came on my iPod the other day. What a nice little tune.

[Smartly Pretty]

I recently started collecting records, and I can't find a copy of Crooked Rain...anywhere. There's one on ebay but it's a 1st pressing so it's some batshit insane amount of money. Maybe I'll stumble upon it one day at a garage sale.

 

I'd like to add "Gold Soundz", "Unfair", "Trigger Cut: Wounded Kite at :17" and "In The Mouth of a Desert" to Inc's above list.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS!]

"Major Leagues" came on my iPod the other day. What a nice little tune.

 

All wrestling fans need to check out the video for "Major Leagues." The wrestling one, not the mini golf one.

 

Wowee Zowee is easily their most underappreciated album. Father to a Sister of Thought is up there in terms of their best songs.