I can't articulate how emotionally impacting 'Watery, Domestic' was for me and my band at the time it came out. Polvo released 'the new dark age' ep, and shellac released the 'doris/wingwalker' 45 all in same time period.
Totally agree! Watery Domestic is my favorite, saw Polvo with Unwound in Austin in ‘95, one of the best shows! What was your band? I probably was a fan
@@JSanders My band was Bubblegum Thunder. Last fm has our stuff to listen to.'ghost town' on RU-vid was recorded at Steve Albini's in Chicago. I went to grad school and the band broke up. I just saw Pavement live in Oregon last summer and they were great.
I love to see Wowee Zowee getting the appreciation it deserves. It's my fave. As for the rest of the albums, I can't really rank them. They are all so chock full of greatness.
Yeah, it's brill. Basically everything I love about Pavement is on that album somewhere. It was also the album that came out right after I'd discovered them, so there's the sentimental thing. Definitely my favorite, with Brighten a length behind.
kinda hurts to see that slanted gets such a bad rep. it's my favourite in the discography. my list is basically the chronological order funny enough: 1. slanted and enchanted 2. crooked rain, crooked rain 3. wowee zowee 4. brighten the corners 5. terror twilight
yeah I love slanted. I went to best buy to try to steal it, and it was a 2cd set with the 2nd CD was bonus tracks...I got super nervous and only took the 2nd. oops. got what I deserved but I didn't get caught. is that a song lyric?
Yep i was surprised to see that people didn't like slanted as much as other records because slanted really has a lot of great tracks front to back(e.g. summer babe, in a mouth a desert, Zurich is strained, and more). Also i'm with you on terror twilight and brighten being my least favorite albums that they put out.
Same. Most old fans like Slanted the best. It's not even a contest imo. Although it's close I'd probably say wowee zowee might just edge out CR if you don't include the b-sides for the second slot. Call it a tie
Terror Twilight had this beautiful, starry-eyed tone to it complete with just a hint of sadness. It felt like a perfect sendoff for the band and I can't help but see it as my favourite. Also love Wowed Zowee, but I think some of that is in spite of people who say it was the weakest
Crooked Rain is top shelf for me. It's where I discovered Pavement. I kept the huge promo poster from the shop where I worked. Those turquoise rings are HUGE.
It was the summer of '92 at some liquor store in Pasadena CA when I heard Summer Babe for the first time. It blew me away. That album made me feel so cool because no one else had ever heard of Pavement.
It goes like this from worst to best: 5. Terror Twilight 4. Brighten the Corners 3. Crooked Rain 2. Wowee Zowie 1. Slanted and Enchanted But Pavement albums are difficult they're all so wild and they all very very wonderful albums
Slanted is my favorite I understand why the band members wouldn’t like it as much, they were inexperienced and young but that what makes it good for me, it’s awkward and unprofessional but still sounds good which is very unique. Woowee is my second favorite because it’s so weird.
1. Crooked rain - one of the greatest rocknroll albums of all time IMO 2. Brighten the corners 3. Terror twilight//slanted = tie 4. Woweee zowee - only record I couldn’t get into
Yeah , I was heartbroken to hear my favorites, Crooked Rain and Slanted and Enchanted , and Westing not getting sufficient love. Slanted was the first Pavement album I ever heard/ bought, and, I mean.. "In the mouth a desert".. "Two states".. "No life" ... wtf , they are amazing.. Though I do truly love Wowee Zowie. And I had that very same "Pavement ist Rad" shirt. Back in my day. Lol
Someone gave me a mix tape with "In the mouth a desert" and "Summer babe" on it. The rest is history. Those first two albums were phenomenal and I hate to see them so disrespected! I also had that T-shirt!
For what it's worth; my fave is Brighten and I also like Terror but I like them all. Fave Malkmus solo is Real Emotional Trash which I think is excellent. Not crazy about the other solo works, sorry Steve. Time for a new Pavement album eh? THE WORLD NEEDS IT!
Terror Twilight was always the black sheep for some reason. It has always been my favorite... The Pavement nerds like to shit on that particular album.
im sorry for the band tht it was a very stressful shitty experience to make the album itself but those emotions were captured for sure in it for me so they didnt go to waste at least. it was my first favourite pavement album and continues to be my fav (except maybe wowzow... everyone love wowzow..) songs like Speak See Remember and Platform Blues are sooooo powerful Blood Sweat And Tears dudes...
Yesss, grounded at the end of the video! Felt for a moment like all was right with the world. Such a great band. One of my favourite space ghost episodes with these guys in. Adult swim. Fuckkkk yessss....though here in England it was called AKA at first If I remember right?! Late Friday and Saturday night, Cartoon Network would suddenly have the scratch perverts cutting up cartoons with episodes of space ghost and aqua teen hunger force from around 9pm...formative stuff. To think of tv back then....mtv2 would play Can during the middle of the day! How I used to get a bit annoyed by the 7 minute advert that used Cut Chemist’s Lesson.....even though it was great....to see that and think ‘ah not again!’....wow times have changed with actual tv. I feel lucky to have been a teenager at that time. Lovely stuff. Rip tch
1. (tie) Brigthen The Corners; Crooked Rain Crooked Rain 3. Wowee Zowee 4. Slanted & Enchanted 5. Terror Twilight (but the Nigel Godrich tracklisting makes it a whole different experience so it could be tied at #4)
Wowed Zowee ist always my favorite, but I’m a no brainer. I also got to see them live for the first time during this era, not at Lollapalooza (thank god), but a bit later at the Ogden Theater, Denver, CO 1995. I still remember how epic “Fight This Generation” was and how nonplussed Malkmus and Spiral seemed.
My list! 1. Brighten the Corners 2. Slanted and Enchanted 3. Wowee Zowee 4. Terror Twilight 5. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 🖤🖤🖤 Also, I love the blue shirt guy’s Suicide hat! They’re awesome too!
brighten the corners is insanely underrated, wowee zowee was where they hit their poppy catchy peak except for that song on "friends", crooked rain was mostly amazing, slanted was insane in the best meaning of insane, twilight was good but maybe overproduced....pavement is soo good
Yeah maybe it was just cuz BTC was the first album I heard, but sometimes I don't get how it isn't unequivocally considered their best.... it is just so lush and complex sounding at the same time. It is clearly their most musical and all the way through has no weak points for me. I think the two Spiral songs are his best too.
@@zevi14 I agree, I heard btc 1st as well. I honestly was underwhelmed by btc at first, but that album slowly grew on me and it's a personal favorite of mine.
I’m absolutely glowing because nobody is crapping on Wowee Zowee. I’ve said for YEARS it’s #1 and never had anyone agree. I feel amazing. I feel healthy and alive.
I didn't like much after The Straw Dogs except for Eerie Canal and Hospital. They owe their success to me trading Gary Young my EHX micro-synthesizer for a bag of weed..... lol ... just fucking wit choo ...
yeah my ranking’s pretty basic, 1. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 2. Slanted and Enchanted 3. Wowee Zowee 4. Brighten the Corners 5. Terror Twilight but I consider the top 3 all as indisputable classics, and the last two as fantastic albums. it’s too great of a discography, they never really released a bad song, not even one I feel impartial to. ranking the top songs would be a much more arduous process.
the best song would probably either go to gold soundz or grounded, i bounce between the two but they’re both indescribably amazing. in the mouth a desert would likely be third.
I'm unable to pick a favourite. I love them all. And although the expanded, reissues have a lot of dodgy stuff on them, they have a lot of great stuff as well. I'll be seeing the lads again in Paris this year having last seen them in America (El Paso, Texas) sometime back in the 1990s.
Tough list, but personally I would say: 1) Slanted and Enchanted 2) Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 3) Brighten the Corners 4) Terror Twilight 5) Wowee Zowee
1. Westing 2. Wowee Zowee 2.5 Watery 3. Slanted 4. Crooked 5 Brighten 6 Terror Sacrilege but I think the first self titled Stephen Malkmus record is better than most of the pavement records
Yeah, Slanted and Enchanted is the worst, fair opinion. "In the Mouth of a Desert" is brilliant, and I enjoy Trigger Cut, but the album overall isn't their best effort. Crooked Rain has my two favorite Pavement songs: Gold Soundz, and Range Life, gotta go with that one for the best. I'm not a big enough fan to rank the rest, I first heard of the band during the "Quarantine the Past" era, first reunion, so it's all filtered through that album (their "greatest hits", which is tongue and cheek for Pavement lol).
Nice list.... but objectively Brighten the Corners is the best album. 😅 In all seriousness though, BTC just has the best of it all to me. Amazing song writing, crisp productions, noisy freakouts, and is just musically really complex. Some of the riffs in Transport Is Arranged and the bendy Americana in the coda sections of Shady Lane are just some amazing stuff My list 1. BTC 2. Wowee Zowee 3. Terror Twilight (gets a nod for most underrated, I think Stephen is generally wrong about this record...ha). 4. Slanted And Enchanted 5. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. I still love CR CR and can see how a lot of people would even put it number one but something has to be in last place and for me this album just isn't all that interesting compared to the rest. I think the first two tracks are amazing and it kinda falls apart from there. Never been that into Range Life and Gold Soundz, Newark Wilder is amazing though.
Disagree about Gold Soundz and Rangelife, but you're spot on with BTC and putting Wowee Zowee up there with it. It's too difficult for me to pick a favorite, I feel like it's a moving target. Wowee Zowee was my #1 for a while.
1. Crooked Rain 2. Terror Twilight 3/4. Zowee/ BTC 5. Slanted Dont get it twisted i think all of them are a 9/10 are higher, just some are gooder than the others
LOL I enjoy all the records, but Slanted MADE being "record fans who made a record" a thing around that time... and the harsh sonics and handmade quality were essential as they were trying to copy the Fall and other primal source bands... and the fact that they and their audience finds this their least favorite record shows that they were indeed posing when they made it... but that actually validates it ;)
their best work - WATERY, DOMESTIC (again not even close, by far their best 4 songs ever) worst - Terror Twilight and it ain't even close (carrot rope their cringiest song evah) my personal fave - Wowee Zowee best - Crooked Rain
Slanted and Enchanted is one of the greatest fucking albums of all time. Way too much disrespect! Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is not far behind. Those are clearly the top two!
