Word: malkmus
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Dates: during 1994-1994
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...stuff prior of Slanted is now available on a Drag City CD called Westing, By Musket and Sextant), and the whole dynamic seemed changed, for the worse. The Pavement of Crooked Rain is indeed a very different animal from past records. Until now every Pavement record was the product Malkmus and his partner Spiral Stairs, plus drumming by a crazy and amazing hippie named Gary. They played all the instruments, and in most cases there wasn't even a bass guitar. This may not sound so appealing, but it was how they did it, and believe met it worked...
There's also something awry in the singing. Malkmus has renounced nonsensical lyrics (to a certain degree) and spends a lot of the record singing bitterly about the music industry, the New York rocker/druggie lifestyle, California politics... On the first single, "Cut Your Hair," he criticizes the music industry (as Nirvana did with their "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter") just as he offers up exactly the sort of pop gem that keeps it alive. Between insanely catchy "Woo woo woo woo ooh oohs" at the beginning of each verse, he sings lyrics like "Songs mean a lot/When songs are bought/And...
This is interesting stuff for those with rock'n roll aspiration, but I fear for its universal appeal. Scrawled in the liner notes is a boxed phrase: "NOTHIN TO SING BOUT." In a recent interview in Raygun Malkmus addressed this problem, admitting that when he recorded this album he didn't have anything "poetic and beautiful to say, and I wasn't having girl-friend problems." He just didn't have the inspiration, I guess; the best moments are those that reveal a vague angst, best summed up in the melancholy chorus of "Range Life": "If I could settle down...
Having made these criticisms, I have to admit that this record has grown on me a whole lot, and all of my friends seem to be having the same experience. (One just walked out the room, saying, "This has grown on me, a ton.") Malkmus has become addicted to REM (covering "Camera" on a b-side and writing a silly tribute to them for No Alternative) and Crooked Rain features a few gorgeous pastoral tunes--"Range Life" and "Gold Soundz" in particular--that are a million times better than anything Mssrs. Stipe, Buck, Berry and Mills have produced in years...
...have any interest in rock music at all, you should buy or tape this record, and tell me what you think. As Malkmus himself says, speaking for the countless bands who are accused or ripping him off, "Look, we don't want to do blues or techno, so what else is there to do but this?" We still do need him, whether he likes...