265. Pavement, "Wowee Zowee"

 

Pavement released Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain in 1994 and seemed poised for mainstream success.  Although CRCR was by no means a mainstream commercial album, it produced a minor hit ("Cut Your Hair"), landed the band on MTV, and had people convinced Pavement was on the brink of breaking bigtime, like their contemporaries Smashing Pumpkins or Stone Temple Pilots.  

So what did Pavement do to capitalize on this budding success?  They recorded this album, a willfully inaccessible, meandering and genre-free musical exploration that was met upon release with reactions ranging from "what the fuck" to "huh" to "oh god what is this."  NEVERTHELESS as the years have passed its reputation has only improved and now it is widely regarded as one of, or maybe just, Pavement's best albums.  I was a hardcore CRCR stan and, like many others, was taken aback by this album and didn't know what to make of it.  I miust confess that I have barely listened to it since my first few confused listens in 1995 and I was surprised to find,upon returning to it, that it didn't seem as outre as I had thought as a youngster.  It's still weird though.

There was only one real "single" off this album, "Rattled by the Rush," which borrowed a riff from Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days" and never really took off.  "Grounded" starts off like Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Maps" (a song it predated by eight years) and then cuts into the more typical meandering Pavement style.  "Grave Architecture" flirts with some bossa nova and acid rock and god knows what else all in one song.  I particularly like some of the later songs, like "AT&T," one of the only nods back to the pop sensibilties of CRCR; "Flux=Rad," which could almost be a Nirvana song; and "Kennel District," one of the only (maybe the only?) song that Stephen Malkmus doesn't sing.  Instead guitarist Spiral Stairs gets a go, and while it's much more trad indie rock than the rest of the album, it's a keeper.

Why did they do it?  Why, when you're on the edge of mainstream success, do you record an album without any identifiable "hits," without anything for the casual listener to grab on to?  No one knows for sure; some people think the band was affirmatively thumbing its nose at fame, saying "fuck you, we do what we want."  But maybe this album just came out 20 years too early.  The band was ready, but we weren't.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes, but I hope Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is on here too.