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Pavement, the slackiest slackers who ever slacked, has returned. After releasing a series of cult-favorite albums in the 1990s and disbanding at that decade’s end without ever denting the mainstream, they’ve reunited and are touring the world.
And though I don’t particularly like the indie-rock legends or their music — their studio albums can be knotty and tedious — I’m elated they’re back. From leadoff track “Gold Soundz” to final song “Fight This Generation,” their greatest hits compilation “Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement” shows us exactly what rock and roll needs right now: a band that embraces weirdness instead of running from it so they can play on NPR.
The question is, does anyone — outside of 100,000 aging hipsters — miss Pavement’s quirky, erratic sound? And will any aspiring rockers stop adding friends on Facebook long enough to listen?
The great thing is, Steven Malkmus, Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, Mark Ibold, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West probably don’t even care.
Just take a listen as Malkmus’ voice hopscotches from atonal and bemused to a croaky shriek, or to the endless tempo shifts in the music, often in the same song.
This adventurousness is splattered all over the album. “Frontwards,” “In The Mouth A Desert” and “Box Elder” are excellent stoner anthems, with distorted, scuzzy guitars and barely-sung lyrics that don’t progress so much as peter out into a shrug.
A simple bass line pulses throughout “Stereo,” as Malkmus asks this hilarious question: “What about the voice of Geddy Lee (the lead singer from Rush)? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?" This query dissolves into an incongruous Casiotone-like samba beat for a couple measures, which evolves into some shrieking by Malkmus, and why not? They knew better than almost everybody it’s more satisfying to be true to oneself and embrace eccentricity than to be “normal,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
So yes, Pavement weren’t afraid to sound like dorks. Or to make strange songs that became cult favorites.
And Pavement is in peak form in “Cut Your Hair,” one of their biggest “hits” and probably the most radio-friendly song in this collection. From jokes about how often rock drummers die to commenting on how often bands start up, “Cut Your Hair” is a how-to manual on sounding awesome and unappealing at the same time.
This album is filled with oddball songs that just shouldn’t work, but do—such as “Shady Land/J vs. S,” which shifts from college rock to space-age sounds, and “Range Life,” which mocks suburban ennui and 90s grunge gods The Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots.
My personal favorites are “Unfair” and its thrilling mix of dissonance and anger, “Debris Slide” and its shredding guitars, and “Fight This Generation,” which is killer both lyrically and sonically, but the songs that make up “Quarantine the Past” are so varied I’ll bet absolutely no one will agree with me.
At times this collection is too unsteady and tone-deaf even for my eclectic tastes. But that’s the charm of Pavement: they force you to accept their weirdness and dramatic shifts or get the heck out.
So listen up, Indie fans and Indie rockers: don’t copy Pavement’s sound, but if you want your sub-genre to become interesting again, you’ll want to adopt their spirit.
And even if you don’t like Indie rock or guitar-based music, you better get this anyway, because the way the economy is going, it’s like we’re living the early 1990s all over again, and this album is a fantastic place to learn about irony, interesting guitar phrasing and slacking off.
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