BY MIKEY MIGO
Over the past year I've taken the time to listen to a lot of bands I've not crossed paths with before. Like anyone, you're going to miss out on certain bands from older eras and even eras you were around during. So what I do is listen to the band's entire studio discography. I stick to bands with three to six albums for time rationing and avoid the singles and EPs. My personal rule and theory is that if a band can't stand on its studio albums then I don't feel they're worth this much effort to begin with.
I've had the pleasure of adding a few great bands to my musical lexicon and the stress of being forced to listen to a few not-so-great band's entire discography. It's amazing to think of how much great music is out there that just hasn't crossed your ear's path. Today, I'm going to go with the indie/rock/grunge group "Pavement". I've heard a lot of good things about them and many bands cite them as an influence. Hopefully I missed out on something great or the next few hours of my life will be hell…
Album: Slanted and Enchanted
Year: 1992
Duration: 38:41
"Summer Babe" starts off with a familiar guitar sound. I read that the band was "lo-fi" and that seems to be a proper description of what I'm first hearing. The music is a little "grunge", but the vocals remind me of the band "Cake" or even Lou Reed. It's definitely a pretty good start to five albums worth of material. "Trigger Cut" follows and it has a bit more "oomph" to it. "No Life Singed Her" starts off with a shout and goes into a pretty decent tune. "In the Mouth a Desert" is my favorite track on the album thus far. The lyrics are pretty witty and the guitar bridge in it rocks hard. The song "Conduit for Sale!" has an exclamation mark in the title so I expected something exclamatory, but not so much. It's a bit more of a harder tempo, but the ranty Henry Rollin's style of verse work here kind of takes away from the experience. "Zurich Is Stained" is less than two minutes long, but ends up being a beautiful piece. If there's more like that, but only expanded upon, then I'm all for it. We jump to "Loretta's Scars" and it's a bit too "chill" to really get into. "Here" brings my attention back. It's a bit down tempo, but it's done in a very classy way. SM's vocals here stand out for sure. "Two States" starts off the best overall "rock" sound. It's the first time on this album that I find myself nodding my head to a song. The nodding carries over to "Perfume-V", which now takes over as my favorite song on the album. "Fame Throwa" is a great tune. I'm surprised it wasn't a single. "Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era" has the coolest name of all the weird obscure titles on the album. The song itself is pretty decent. It seems to have the most change-ups and sound layers. "Our Singer" finishes off the album with a fairly "meh" song. Not a bad piece of work, but I think I'm missing something. I know the first half has the chunk of the singles on the album, but the second half is superior to me. This album was apparently loved by critics. Rolling Stone gave it a full five star rating, Spin has it at #4 of the "Top 100 Albums of the Past 20 Years", and Blender places it Number One for "Top Indie Albums of All Time". I respect the praise given to it, but it doesn't really connect with me THAT much. I'm just not feeling the "five star" love. Three, three and a half, maybe… but that's still pretty high marks.
Album: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Year: 1994
Duration: 42:18
"Silence Kit"(or "Kid" depending if you ignore the typo) kicks off the album with a more groove based vibe. This track is better than everything from the first album. Call me crazy, but it just has a bigger feel to its music. "Elevate Me Later" is a pretty okay song. It doesn't enthrall me as much as the first track, but it's not a bad song at all. "Stop Breathin'" loses me, but the music from about half way in and until the end is pretty. "Cut Your Hair", the band's biggest career single, sounds a little familiar. It does sound like a typical "Weezer" track, but I accept that it's the other way around. "Newark Wilder" actually sounds like a better song to me. The music is much tighter and it accompanies the vocals much better in songs like this. The mellow and laid back tone still has a pretty sway-able melody. I guess you could mark this down as one of my favorites of the collection thus far. "Unfair" is the most fun of the tracks so far. It's straight up grunge. It's like a Nirvana B-Side and clearly has the most edge. "Gold Soundz", another single, just goes in one ear and out the other. It does nothing to hook the listener. "5-4=Unity" is a bad ass trippy jazz/blues track, but all too short at two minutes. "Range Life", the third single of the album, is another down tempo track. It's one of the better mellow tracks by the band, but still lacks the "oomph" to bring my enjoyment level past anything higher than a 4. I literally start to doze off during "Heaven Is a Truck", but thankfully "Hit the Plane Down" woke me up. I was seriously a bit worried that I zoned out/fell asleep and missed the rest of the album. "Hit the Plane Down" is louder and more "experimental", but the abundance of sound just makes it feel sort of muddy. This one closes with "Fillmore Jive". It's starts down tempo and goes into a pretty decent indie grunge rock tune. Fair enough finish to a fair enough album. The album instantly sounds more polished. I'm normally a fan of "grittier" sounding albums, but this is a huge improvement. It's less ho-hum and a lot easier for this listener to enjoy. It's not a perfect album. It's just a lot better than the first. There's songs on here that I had trouble focusing on as it felt just "there", but then there's some gems on here that barely make up for that. Again, this album got crazy amounts of critic love. It got perfect score ratings by a lot of publications and Rolling Stone put it at 210 on the "500 Greatest Albums of all time". I can swallow this praise a little easier than the first album. It's much more listenable and accessible to new ears.
Album: Wowee Zowee
Year: 1995
Duration: 55:51
We are told "There is no castration fear," or at least that's what it sounds like. in the beautifully done opener, "We Dance". "Rattled by the Rush", a single, has a pretty good melody but the breakdowns are too "look we're stoned and so out there, man". I zone out during "Black Out", but "Brinx Job" shakes it off. The main reason is the vocals. It's sung in a very annoying high pitch that's hard to take serious, even on a fun and ironic level. "Grounded" feels like a real song. The opening build up leads us to a outstanding mellow track. This is another one of those situations where I'd of preferred this over the singles. "Serpentine Pad" is an oddly placed punk track. Sounds like a completely different band. "Motion Suggests" and "Father to a Sister of Thought", the second single of the album are adequate down tempo tracks. "Father" almost has a country music vibe. That's NEVER a good thing. "Extradition" is short enough to forget, but it leads into another "punk" sounding track in "Best Friend's Arm". "Grave Architecture" is one of the better "experimental" tracks. "AT&T" is a fun song and a good departure on the album from the "way out there, man" and the emo-ish stuff. It's what my grandfather would have called a "nice little ditty". "Fight This Generation" and "Kennel District" will probably end up being my favorite tracks of the album. They're both crafted well and have a good tone and flow to them. "Half a Canyon", at just over six minutes, actually feels kind of epic and almost redeems this album. That is until the shrill screaming that completely ruins any enjoyment of the song. "Western Homes" finishes the album. It sounds nothing like anything on this album or by Pavement. That's probably why I actually really like it. This album is often regarded by many as the most experimental. It's basically just a lot of randomness thrown together with no flow and seemingly no rhyme or reason. Stephen Malkmus blamed their "style shift" on weed smoking. Not cool. Dude, don't blame the weed on suckage.
Album: Brighten the Corners
Year: 1997
Duration: 46:10
"Stereo", a single, opens the album with a solid effort. It's only about three minutes, but it somehow contains like ten breakdowns and four different styles. Normally, I like a variety like that, but it doesn't work there. Getting the singles out of the way, "Shady Lane", the other single, is next. It just feels "there". There is nothing about it really notable. If you've listened this far, it's more of the same. If I've learned anything, I know that I'll appreciate the non-singles more. So this album could have a chance. The down tempo "Transport is Arranged" is one of the better songs I've heard thus far of the first four albums. "Date w/ IKEA" borders on "Tom Petty" and "radio jingle". Not sure if either is really that good. "Old to Begin" and "Type Slowly" waste about nine minutes of my life. "Embassy Row" stands out to me. It's more grunge rock and actually gets my head nodding along. "Blue Hawaiian" isn't that bad. It's a decent chill track that compliments the last song nicely. "We Are Underused" is incoherence being presented as something else. It's sung with soul, but still lacks substance. "Passat Dream" has some pretty rad music, but as soon as the vocals hit I lose interest. Sleeping past "Starlings of the Slipstream" and onto the last track, "Fin" not much changes. "Fin" does have some good music to take us out, but this album lost my interest long before now. I was hoping that these albums would become better, but that's sadly not the case. Granted, this album wasn't as bad as the others it still didn't do anything to win me over.
Album: Terror Twilight
Year: 1999
Duration: 44:08
Will the final album be any better? I'm certainly hoping so. The story behind the name is pretty cool. Bob Nastanovich explained, "Terror Twilight is the short span between sunset and dusk; this is considered the most dangerous time in traffic, because half of the people switch on their headlights, and the other half dozen. It's when most accidents happen." With that kind of cool thinking behind the title, I can only hope that translates to the music. The album opens with the single "Spit On A Stranger". It sounds familiar and I kind of like it. It's a sweet down tempo track that gets my head nodding along. The track "Folk Jam" isn't a creative title; it really is a folk jam. Not a good one, but still one none the less. "You Are A Light" is enjoyable and has a pretty sweet melody. "Cream of Gold" is another down tempo track and blends in with the rest. "Major Leagues" is a cool song in theory, but it doesn't really hook you with anything notable about the track. "Platform Blues" gets my head nodding and my foot tapping with its solid blues rock vibe. "Ann Don't Cry" and "Billie" are both good songs, but do blend together and take the steam out of the "Platform Blues" high that was just gained. "Speak, See, Remember" starts off with some easy listening blues and goes into a rather dull song. "The Hexx" is a fine song and one I can appreciate the trippy drone vocals in. It's too little too late though as we come to the final song, "Carrot Rope". It's actually one of the better songs by the band. At least, they can end on a slightly brighter than dull note. This album was in all honesty my favorite of the entire discography. The band has their shit together as much as they would ever. I found myself nodding a long more here than the four prior albums. It's still not an album I'll want to listen to again.
THE VERDICT
Artist: PAVEMENT
Discography Duration: Apx 3 hours/45 minutes
I'm never really at a loss for words, but I had a hard time talking about this band's work. Not because it's hard to describe, but listening made it rough to want to. I love listening to new music, but this felt like a job. In a perfect world, I'd get four hours of pay for this work because that's what it felt like, work. Pavement sounds very dated. It's basically indie grunge and reminds me of a lot of early 90's "slacker" movies. I could swear this music was in the "Empire Records" movie score. If not, at least a dozen bands that sound like this were. The gloomy "whoa is me" lyrical whines have to be an influence for what would later destroy rock music via emo. This music just lacks any balls. There's no sign here that an average junior high kid couldn't kick the entire band's ass. That sounds harsh, but it's an honest observation. Being fair, there is some merit and quality though. The music is there and has a good melody, but it's toned down enough to make the laid back, almost talking vocals more prominent. You can hear each album become more "polished" sounding and in a rare case, it helps this band. I can easily see why a lot of bands cite Pavement as one of their influences. They remind me of The Pixies but grittier and a lot blander. All the critic love makes me wonder just how much bands like "Marcy's Playground"(minus their one hit) are worshipped. My main problem is probably the boring as shit song structure. It's like they decided to try to figure out how to make Nirvana music and Primus creativity sound as boring as possible. I get it; they're non-commercial and super cool. That doesn't mean having hooks, good choruses, and a good melody is selling out or "spoon feeding the art, man". I really wanted to like Pavement, but there were just too ho-hum, too bland, and way too forgettable.
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