199. Pavement, "Slanted and Enchanted"

 

In the early 90's, I was a regular at this bar in San Francisco (looking back on it now, it's weird for a guy who was barely past 21 to be a regular at a bar, but it was a different time?) and one of the bartenders was a beautiful woman named Deborah.  She was a platinum blonde and way too glamorous for a dive like this place.  She also worked at the Blue Light on Union Street, an uber-bro bar and had great stories about the incredible assholes she encountered there.  She also had a boyfriend named Scott who was just like your regular slacker early 90's guy, maybe a few years older than me, really nice guy, super into music.  One night we were all at the bar, probably in 1993, and Scoot handed me a CD and told me I had to check this out.  Of course, it was this album.

I would love to say that I instantly fell in love with this album and this band but that's not how it happened.  I wouldn't truly fall in love with Pavement until Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which came out in 1994.  The first song here, "Summer Babe," is the closest thing on this album to a radio-friendly song, and it's not even that accessible (although it is great).  In fact, it was the first single, and somehow failed to ignite the world.  I actually like the second song, "Trigger Cut" more, with its wonderfully dada lyrics, hummable melody, and shouted background vocals.  It also appears that I am not the first person to hear an echo of Jim Croce's "Operator" in the pre-chorus of "Trigger Cut":

No biggie.  I once wrote almost an entire song before realizing it was an Afghan Whigs that already existed and which I had apparently forgotten about.

Back to this album.  After the first two songs, things got a lot shaggier.  The songs are more unstructured, more freeform, with lots of experimentation and Stephen Malkmus kind of just free-associating vocals (or so it sounds).  One exception is the lovely "Zurich Is Stained," a catchy, short song about God knows what.  Then, right after that, as if to remind you it's not all going to be smooth sailing, comes "Chesley's Little Wrists," a blast of guitar squall and screaming that's barely a song at all.

Listening to this now, it's rather easy to see how Pavement went on to become one of the most important - maybe the most important - band of the 90's.  It's absolutely fearless and experimental and unafraid to just the music go.  It's still not my favorite Pavement album (or maybe not even in my Top 3 Pavement albums) but as a template and a guide and planting a flag and saying "This is what we do. Fuck you if you don't get it," it's without par.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? It even deserves to be in the Top 200, as it is.  Maybe I should switch this now, since everything in the Top 200 is probably going to qualify for the Top 500, unless some really fucked up shit happens.