PAVEMENT • TRAX • POLL

I'd mentioned this in the wake of the Blur poll, but decided not to...but now have decided to. Identical set-up to NBS's poll; in fact I'm copying the rules verbatim:

No need for nominations, just pick your favourite Pavement tracks from any of the albums or singles or whatever. Choose your top twenty-two (why not?) tracks and they'll score as follows:
1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12, 21:11, 22:10.
Please send your ballot to: johnnyilxfever (AT) gmail.com (except obviously without the spaces and using the @ symbol) by June 12 (that's a week from tomorrow).
In the meantime, use this thread for bigging up tracks you want people to vote for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4

lol wut

pavement pavement pavement ooohh

btw, that's midnight on June 12 EDT (like, the END of the day). I'm gonna tabulate as I go along so I can roll it out for that Monday (June 13).

hope carrot rope gets some love in this

Special love for:

Grounded
Raft
Box Elder
Billie

Here's what amounts to a nomination list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavement_discography

If anything is missing from that, and it's legit, vote for it anyway.

if we're going to keep doing these can the next please be a) an artist that had an active recording career for well over a decade and b) not a '90s rock act

Fine, but I went with Pavement simply because they're the American mirror image of Blur (lots of stray songs, songwriters w/in the band with very different styles, etc). Also, they're one of those bands who inspire spirited discussion for one reason or another.

also each a terrible influences on their home country's rock bands

I pine for a Pavement cover of "There's No Other Way."

That's certainly a matter of opinion. I'd argue that Oasis and Weezer did far more damage.

Also, this is a little thing, but when voting it would make my life easier if you'd put the points for each song after the song itself:

Example Song - 40
Example Song - 36
Example Song - 33

Since I'm doing this manually, I can just add them right from the ballot instead of figuring out how many points go to what placement by cross-referencing the rules every time. :)

who are the shitty rock bands influenced by pavement? honest question.

their clothes were influential

and is anything strong enough to knock out Gold Soundz?

lol cr?m

is anything strong enough to knock out Gold Soundz?

My ballot's the only one counted so far and Gold Soundz isn't on it.

As long as Cut Yr Hair doesn't win I'm in. Promise?

shish - too many awesome songs.

What is wrong with Gold Soundz?
(It's going to fucking win btw)

I like Gold Soundz fine, I guess. It just didn't make it into my top 22.

Hope "space ghost jam" gets some votes

I have never understood the abiding love for Gold Soundz. Like it fine but not even close to their best.

The only Pavements I listen to now are Watery Domestic Ep and Westing By Musket. Call me old fashioned.

Three ballots now, 43 tracks voted for.

(only 7 of those have appeared on all three ballots.)

Hope "space ghost jam" gets some votes

belongs on a beatles trax poll iirc

nearly voted 'space ghost' on pure memories - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJplZscUO-4

nostalgic thumb pretty heavy on the scale w/ my ballot as is. 'gold soundz' is on there, had no problem w/ it @ #1 in pfork's rundown, but it is weird to see comments about it as a heavy favorite to win, like if ppl were all 'driver 8's gonna take this easy' on a rem poll. that said there's about 6 tracks i would guess could/would win this and 'gold soundz' is one of them.

Thank you for doing this! I am very excited.

Space Ghost Jam is pretty tight.

yes, thanks for posting, it's not half bad!

this is going to be fun/infuriating

That's precisely why I picked Pavement over some other bands. I know how people get really...er, enthused...about them.

mine is in. 6 each off the first 3 records, 4 westing tracks. 1 scott

Five ballots now, only 4 unanimous tracks among them.

range life, summer babe, here, ?

nope, nope, nope, depends

Listening to it again, I already regret not giving Fillmore Jive more points.

Sixth ballot just shook up the top 10 and now only 3 unanimous tracks remain.

(I'm not going to keep doing these updates all week. Just right now, while I can tell what's going on as it happens.)

im spinning all these again in honor of this poll. Serpentine Pad, you just made the cut!

Not my favourite song but "mandrake versus the snake, I got it on the camera for posterity" is such a great line 'Platform Blues' makes the cut.

All about motion suggests. But yeah I always think of range life as the standout choice from crooked rain, not gold soundz.

Will do this later on today (maybe)...

slightly aggrieved i haven't got to know the extra material on the re-releases in time for this.

Done! Spent a while agonizing over the 22, less time on the order. Thx JF!

I think 'Robyn Turns 26' could be a dark horse in this poll. (lol i made a joke)

must our lists be ordered?

'Give It A Day' is such a good song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbQxGtqSnQk

I voted! Surprised by how many tracks I picked from Terror Twilight.

4 B Sides
1 Slanted (a second one only just missed the cut)
4 Crooked
3 Wowee Zowee
5 Brighten
5 Terror Twilight

Very strange - plus I voted for an overwhelming number of ballads.

3 slanted
7 crooked
5 wowee
2 brighten
0 terror
5 non-album

So is this like the coolest new thing? 1-Band polls...

With eight ballots in, NO unanimous tracks remain.

picked 22 songs easily enough. 10 from singles and EPs released prior to '93 ("sue me jack"), including 4 from perfect sound. plus 6 from slanted and 4 from crooked. and, uh, a couple more. but sequencing is a bitch...

With eight ballots in, NO unanimous tracks remain.

interesting development! looking forward to the results.

All about motion suggests.

seconded; my #1.

'Give It A Day' is such a good song:

o fuck. forgot abt "i love perth"! and cruelly slighted wowee zowee (only one song, and it ain't "motion suggests"). glad i waited before submitting my ballot, as i clearly need to let this percolate a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKi4wz_PIU

everyone is carrying on in this house
i feign to neglect, but i can't even watch
the things you do and the people you know...

^ not a patch on "give it a day" by any objective measure, but i do love it so

how could you only choose one from wowee!

must our lists be ordered?

― positive rapper (k3vin k.), Sunday, June 5, 2011 12:00 PM (7 hours ago)

They must—I'm following all the same guidelines set forth by the original Blur poll.

how could you only choose one from wowee!

― positive rapper (k3vin k.), Sunday, June 5, 2011 4:04 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

my interest had begun to wane by that point, so my affection even for WZ's strongest songs doesn't burn as bright as it does for what came before. decided to hold off on my ballot mostly to devote some reappraisal time to WZ and what came after.

I won't say much, but I will say that no single album/era dominates the results so far. That's nice, imo.

This is tougher than I expected...I just listened to Wowee Zowee shortlisting along the way, and ended up picking every single song. Return to start.

I wanna throw my 2 cents in for Major Leagues, which oddly was the only track I picked from Terror Twilight. I think I like Terror Twilight more than most people - serious Pavement fans especially - which is why I'm kind of surprised that I only picked one.

Anybody else love "Major Leagues"? I think it's far and away the best thing on the record, which sounds great front to back but also begins the slide into pseudo(mock?)-prog silliness which has marked so much of Malk's solo career.

is their back catalogue streamable anywhere? i'm at work and it could be a good time to pick my 20. unfortunately i'm in japan so spotify ain't going to work...

I'm going to throw Major Leagues a few points, wouldn't say I love it though. I'm not sure I've ever listened to Terror Twilight in full.

i love "major leagues", and may vote for it - i'll definitely vote for TT's bookends, and "spit on a stranger" will be well into the top 10

http://grooveshark.com/#/search/song?q=pavement

Darlin' we're up against it now

xxp
listened to TT all the way through for the first time evah today. It was okay! Definitely gonna rep for The Hexx.

"Roll With the Wind"

i'll check it out but Billie was too piratey for me so idk

http://grooveshark.com/#/search/song?q=pavement

― Johnny Fever

perfect thanks!

Ahh Grooveshark, you are too good to be legal.

Roll With The Wind is a good one!

I urge you all to consider the great Harness Your Hopes, inexplicably left off Terror Twilight. It was a b-side for Spit On a Stranger and included on the Brighten The Corners reissue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9NRu0aniqk

Definitely gonna rep for The Hexx.

Yes. Although I may have to vote instead for And Then..., the original version. Either way that's the best late period Pavement song.

Two more for your consideration, Starlings Of The Slipstream and Fin.

Definitely gonna rep for The Hexx.

Yes. Although I may have to vote instead for And Then..., the original version.

I've combined both into one listing for the poll.

yeah Fin will def make my list. Also at least one of the 1st Peel Session songs, but can't decide which. Pavement in full-on heavy fuzzed out mode.

'embassy row' everybody

years ago i often took the N bus on massachusetts avenue to work and would always get this song playing in my head. thanks pave

yup Embassy Row is great. i'd forgotten how damned consistent Brighten the Corners is. This is going to be tough.

BTC still my favorite album by them. I've noticed over the years a few people come over to my side on this.

People telling for some great tunes itt. Harness your hopes, embassy row, fin, the hexx - all reasons why pavement were great till the bitter end

Telling? Repping.

"Till the bitter end" is a stretch. I listened to TT again for the first time in eons today and it's still as bad as I remember for the most part.

Sorry, you're wrong.

Listening to it again meself and nah it's not a career highlight. It's not all bad but even the best songs are cursed with moments of lazy songwriting and even lazier noodling, and the worst are nothing but. Compare the instrumental breaks in You Are a Light or Ann Don't Cry to Range Life or Gold Soundz or Father to a Sister of Thought. Not in the same league.

Nah...

But seriously, I like CRCR etc fine, but I don't hear any lazy songwriting on Terror Twilight. All their albums have weak moments - Hit The Plane Down? Ann Don't Cry might be an anomally in that it relies slightly too much on the "Ann, don't you cry" refrain, but other than that I love so many tracks on TT, You Are A Light especially, if only for the second verse:

Senior year abroad i ripped the pea out of the pod.
In store for three months of exile in spain.
Where was the danger?
Watch out for the gypsy children in electric dresses
they're insane.
I hear they live in crematoriums
and smoke your remains.

And Platform Blues - "The lion reaps his own reward/Serengheti nightmare for the eco-tour"

And The Hexx - by far the most adventurous thing they'd ever done and light years away from their early stuff. An Major Leagues - one of their best ballads. And the fun pop hit with worrisome lyrics, Carrot Rope. It's a really good album!

not sure what 'leagues' and 'laziness' are even supposed to mean when used to describe the looser moments of a band known primarily for bringing the slack. they are slack mongers, mongering the gooped out spacey jammy instrumental breaks is what they were made to do. terror twilight is aight to me, wouldve been even better with less schlocky, "well-written" songs like spit on a stranger and major leagues, and more goop instead. shoulda heaped on the goop, showed the world what being an aging slacker's really all about. gooped it up, if you will.

disagree, i think their slackness was in the delivery; it was a mode, an attitude, not an intrinsic quality of what they did. Underneath it, and at their best, they were pretty tight imo.

yeah, I think it must take considerable skill to sound so sloppy and yet stay so tight.

i'm like 99% certain you have pavement confused with the strokes xp

i'm like 99% certain you have sloppy confused with shite

got it down to 22, working on the ordering

3 slanted
6 crooked
7 wowee
1 brighten
0 terror
3 watery
2 other

I still can't really bring myself to appreciate the love for pre-CRCR Pavement. Like, I quite enjoy Trigger Cut, Here and a couple off Westing and the EPs, but people who say they went downhill after that period, it's like what??

1 brighten
4 crooked
5 slanted
4 terror
3 wowee
2 watery
3 other

xp ha I love slanted so hard

I love Terror Twilight

Watch out for the gypsy children in electric dresses they're insane.
I hear they live in crematoriums and smoke your remains.

Pavement fans are some of the most subjective people - there's something about that band and how they're perceived by different people that can really seem like challops to others, which is probably why we're doing this poll. I find that it all depends on your entry point. If you got on the bandwagon early on, chances are you'll be a bigger fan of the early stuff than the later stuff, and vice versa.

That said, every single one of you is wrong about Pavement, unless you agree with me.

If you got on the bandwagon early on, chances are you'll be a bigger fan of the early stuff than the later stuff, and vice versa.

Yes. I got on board when Slanted and Enchanted came out and to me that's still their best record. So I guess they went "downhill" but when you start by making one of the three or four greatest records ever, there's only one way to go.

S&E just sounds like a load of tinny clanging and shouting on the whole to me, not in a particularly good way either. I just liked it when they started doing "proper songs" really, although I know that's a daft Tuomas-on-the-Fall kinda thing to say.

That said, every single one of you is wrong about Pavement, unless you agree with me.

Not finished, but looks like just 2 BtC and 1 TT for me, & yes, was on board fairly early: I can get that bits of Westing sound like "tinny clanging and shouting", but really S&E is mostly proper songs with a bit of fuzz on top. I lose interest when they sound too clean.

'embassy row' everybody

years ago i often took the N bus on massachusetts avenue to work and would always get this song playing in my head. thanks pave

― daria-g, Monday, June 6, 2011 12:57 AM Bookmark

Sometime around when BTC came out, there was this horrible situation in Peru where rebels stormed an embassy and held the diplomats hostage. I'll look at wikipedia here in a minute for the details, but my imagination always pictured these high-level officials in their eveningwear sitting in corners while the rebels kicked soccer balls around.

Anyway, the video in my head for "Embassy Row" always played out with that above scenario.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_embassy_hostage_crisis

i needed a visa i bought off a geezer...

didn't vote for Type Slowly, but part of me wishes I had.

Ten ballots, top 2 tracks are now dead tied.

while we're pimping our favorite BTC deep cuts, my favorite is "we are underused"

Blue Hawaiian has always been my favorite BTC song that no one else cares about.

You're wrong. Buy me a drink, sugar.

I voted for Blue Hawaiian!

I'm schizzy on my favorite Pavement album. "Slanted" is their most exhilarating record, but BTC is the most consistent. So it's between those two. And though I think it has many of their strongest individual songs, I've never loved "Crooked Rain" the way most people seem to. It's still an excellent record. As are all the others.

Fever,

Were you planning on posting testimonials or just going Rank / Song / Number of Votes

There's a pretty good history of Pavement debate on ILM iirc, so I might post relevant blurbs.

I voted for Blue Hawaiian!

Are you sure? The only ballot it shows up on in my gmail account is my own.

I almost voted for Blue Hawaiian! But yeah, BTC -- not my favorite Pavement record. My list ended up breaking down like this:

Westing - 2
S&E - 1
Watery - 2
CR, CR - 3
WZ- 7
BtC - 2
TT - 2
Non-album - 3

Feel really bad about including so few songs from other albums, but I just love Wowee Zowee so damn much.

Johnny, did you get my ballot? My email address starts with "doleac". I just made some university-mandated changes to my email service, so maybe it didn't go through.

oh crap i sent it to johnnyfever not johnnyilxfever - will fix

westing - 3
slanted - 4
watery - 1
crooked - 4
wow - 6
brighten - 3
tt - 0
'other' - 1

xp- Got it now, thanks!

argh i forgot 'frontwards'

no one should forget 'frontwards'

no one

johnny pleaae replace my #3 pick "sensitive euro man" with "frontwards"

Remember how when the Led Zeppelin box set came out and every track from the fourth album was on there except for "Four Sticks"?

I had to resist a lot of temptation to have every track on Watery Domestic represented.

you shouldn't have really

2 were in my top 5

xp- rvw, have you sent your ballot yet? SPOILER I don't see one with a vote for Sensitive Euro Man.

i just sent it, my email is aaron...etc, joking about "Sensitive Euro Man" but looking at my ballott I should have had Frontwards at 11, sorry.

Okay, you do have "Here" on there twice btw.

I had to resist a lot of temptation to have every track on Watery Domestic represented.

yeah, WD is the peak, imo. will probably include two or even three of those yracks.

revisiting wowee zowee has made it much harder to dismiss. i'm struggling even to cut my ballot to 25.

yracks?

I haven't sent my ballot yet, Johnny, because my brain hurts.

okay replace my first "Here" entry with "Frontwards" that will work, thanks xxp

xp- Voting is open through Sunday night, so you have plenty of time to take an aspirin and pull it together.

14 ballots in and one track finally has 2 first place votes!

It's some shit like "Fight This Generation," I bet.

Hey, that's an excellent song.

^ hell yes it is

Finally threw something together; "Heaven is a Truck" was the last regretful cut. Relatively canonical breakdown:

Westing: 0
Slanted: 5
Crooked: 5
Wowee: 4
Brighten: 4
Terror: 1
Other: 3

For me there's nothing on the Westing EPs that isn't done better on Slanted and Enchanted, and as I've said I've never sat through the entirety of Terror Twilight.

If you vote for Shady Lane I hate you btw.

^ love that song sososo much

That said, every single one of you is wrong about Pavement, unless you agree with me.

okay replace my first "Here" entry with "Frontwards" that will work, thanks xxp

― indecent butterflies (rip van wanko), Monday, June 6, 2011 8:05 PM (2 hours ago)

vetoing this

oh nevermind you had it twice

Zurich is Stained is perfect

^will vote for

you think it's perfect, but you're wrong

^i am not 1/51st of the problem

hahahaha

(i like zurich btw)

me 2

yeah, zurich will def make my cut. current problem is that i've fallen in love w basically every song on brighten the corners, like it a good deal more than wowee zowee. and i've spent enough time trawling through b-sides and outtakes to realize that they've got a solid album's worth of secret shit. i mean, i remembered "sue me jack" and "the unseen power of the picket fence", but had completely forgotten "gangsters and pranksters".

update: 17 ballots, 89 total trax voted for so far.

Asa, they're comin'!

how many will you be counting down?

For those of you who mentioned it as under-mentioned, I also voted for Blue Hawaiian.

heretofore unmentioned favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWRvd_KHsXk

how many will you be counting down?

For tradition's sake (and it's a very brief tradition), I was thinking I'd do 61 just like the Blur poll.

I needed a visa, I bought off a geezah

I swung my fiery sword
I vent my spleen at the lord
He is abstract and bored
Too much milk and honey...

Pleasantly surprised at all the love for Brighten The Corners in this poll, btw.

in this thread, I mean. But maybe it'll turn out that way in the poll too.

did "secret knowledge of backroads" appear on a pavement release prior to S+E reduxe? i always thought of it as a silver jews song...

Pleasantly surprised at all the love for Brighten The Corners in this poll, btw.

in this thread, I mean. But maybe it'll turn out that way in the poll too.

^this. I've always felt mostly alone in my love for BTC.

It was a Peel Session. Great lyric swap:

So Hunter called
said to me
"It's not as good as the 1st EP"

I'm surprised at myself - I've got 4 tracks from BTC's in my top 10 which I wasn't predicting. All other albums (apart from TT) well represented of course.

According to allmusic, the only other place Pavement's version of "Backroads" appeared before Luxe & Reduxe was a 1994 bootleg called "Luxe & Reduxe."

Still waiting on "Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal Edition"...get to it Matador!

BTC is the worst Pavement album by a large margin in my opinion. Terror Twilight is pretty bad as well, but most of that is rooted in the awful production. BTC sounds good, just the songs are tossed-off crap.

(saw Malkmus do most of Terror Twilight solo before going into the studio and it was really great.. the finished product, not so much)

wait, what? I mean a 1994 bootleg called "Stuff Up the Cracks".

two posts upthread

That collection was the gold standard of 90s indie rock bootlegs.

Brighten The Corners "tossed off crap"? Sure, the lyrics are off the cuff (as is usual with Pavement, but there are great, weirdly poignant - sorry to use that word - quotables here there and everywhere), but the melodies, man, the melodies.

I can understand not liking BTC, even hating it, sure - too slow, not rockin' enough, not enough weird stylistic detours and genre experiments a la Wowee Zowee. It's more singer songwritery than any other record in the Pavement catalogue, too - one of those solo-career-foreshadowing late records in a band's history where the leader begins to assert near total control (the Spiral Stairs tracks are basically concessions, as usual - funny thing is he actually delivered the goods this time around). But "tossed-off" is not among the complaints that would seem to apply here.

the songs are tossed-off crap

I've always heard those songs as the most fully-developed things Pavement ever did as a band.

TT is the one where Pavement just turned into Malkmus's backing band and the record really suffered because of it. Discontent just drips out of that album.

Still waiting on "Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal Edition"...get to it Matador!

Patrick said on the MBB that it's coming before year's end.

WHATS THE title of THE one that STARTS WITH:

Someone took
In these pants
Somebody painted over paint
painted wood.

Off Watery Domestic.

shoot the singer. would maybe be my #1, but there are too many pavement songs! overwhelming.

There are a lot, but you only have to pick 22!

that's "shoot the singer". close to their best song.

x-post

slow it down, SONG IS SACRED

please don't forget about WATERY, DOMESTIC outtake (!!!!): "Greenlander"

the last song with Gary on drums
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NPeykShUVA

I remember back in the pre-mp3 days, I hunted every cut-out bin I came across (dozens upon dozens in many cities) looking for that comp that "Greenlander" ended up on. I think I finally found it, but I can't remember for sure.

For me there's nothing on the Westing EPs that isn't done better on Slanted and Enchanted...

― Terje Chocolate Orange (seandalai), Monday, June 6, 2011 5:41 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

ever so strongly disagree w this. though the first two EPs are a bit sketchy, i think perfect sound forever is fantastic. it was a huge leap forward for the band and holds up surprisingly well in the here and now. S+E's great accomplishment was the separation of the band's two faces, with beautiful pop balladry over here, scruffy noise punk there, but i love PSF for it's failure to make the division clear. every song is of a piece, with screech and song inseparable. i've currently got four PSF tracks on my list and am having trouble cutting even one of them. "debris slide" will be the first to go, but i'm not happy about it.

please don't forget about WATERY, DOMESTIC outtake (!!!!): "Greenlander"

shit yeah. listened to this for the first time in ages today and was properly blown away. might well make my list, but damn, competition is fierce.

Westing comp is the one I've spent the least amount of time with (or at least equal to TT), so I don't know off-hand...are the versions of Summer Babe different? I've been counting all votes for it under (Winter Version). I mean, I still wouldn't split them up for the countdown, but I should probably note the different versions if they exist.

argh forgot Greenlander and Strings of Nashville

Who else bought that wretched pro-choice comp just for Greenlander?

xp: i think it's a different mix, same performance though.

Who else bought that wretched pro-choice comp just for Greenlander?

Five posts above I just said I looked for it everywhere. I left it ambiguous as to whether or not I ever bought it, but now I remember clearly having it in my collection. Don't remember a single other song that was on it, though.

xp- thnx ss

There are a few others like that: "Here" had a mix with distortion on the guitar (not counting the bombastic Peel Session version), 5-4... with or w/o vox,..

The real litmus test will be the foolhardy who voted "The Hexx" over "...And Then".

SO MANY great crooked rain & watery, domestic outtakes. they may not be up to "greenlander"/"nashville"/"picket fence" standards, but i love "raft", "haunt you down" and "cooling by sound". so perfectly and (seemingly) effortlessly in control of their sound at that point.

also bemused by their fascination w REM. covered "camera" and paid snarky (?) tribute w "picket fence" - then there's that quarantine the past press release from last year.

Baptiss Blacktick is so bitchin and I don't know if there's room on my list for it but I can at least pimp it so I don't feel too guilty and it doesn't have to sleep out in the cold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDoOz78JgM

The further into this I get, I realise that I really am an 'I like there early stuff best' kind of guy. I just found that song Forklift- its great! I might have one or two WZ songs (I always liked We Dance) but nothing after this. They seemed to lose a bit of oomph with each of the following albums as Malkmus learned to play his guitar 'properly' and the songs became more conventional. I know others think the reverse.

A big yes to Baptist Blacktic- how can anyone not have this in there top 22? So many times I have jumped around my lounge. To this.

cosmo and hink OTM re: the baptiss. for some reason, the spelling is "corrected" to baptist on the back of westing. wheels within wheels...

you guys are bros

oh crap i forgot about kennel district, the only good spiral stairs track ever. do i like it better than we dance? should i throw him a bone?

Very cross I completely forgot about Strings Of Nashville.

Tempted to squeeze it in but not sure what I would drop, also annoyed at it for being in a ridiculous guitar tuning.

Greenlander and Circa 1762 fighting it out for slow-burn S&E-era oddment spot on my ballot.

don't know if a ballot here is even possible but i'm tryin i'm tryin

strings of nashville also had an instrumental mix, not sure which i prefer

Kennel District and Date W/ Ikea are the only good Spiral Stairs songs and are definitely both in my top five.

Today I booked a day off in a couple of weeks so the missus and I can go furniture shopping. I literally have a Date w/Ikea! :-)

Do they still do the cheap hotdogs at the end?

never been. i will get back to you on that one.

Greenlander's on my ballot.

BTC is a great album, but not so much as a singles collection, if that makes any sense in the world.

I tried, tried to find a Terror Twilight song I liked. But as soon as I heard that "pardon my birth, I just slipped out" line, I knew I'd be wasting my time.

there are parts of terror twilight i don't need to hear again but i still like the pop songs on it

I've got a weak spot for "And Carrot Rope" since it's a group singalong that closes out their official releases, but it wasn't hard to think up 22 better songs than that one.

here are parts of terror twilight i don't need to hear again but i still like the pop songs on it

Yep. It's their weakest album, but it boasts "Spit on a Stranger," "Billie," "Ann Don't Cry," "And Carrot Rope," and "Major Leagues."

Don't get the Terror Twilight hate here. Try harder you guys! TRY!

I haven't seen the hate yet.

Great songs on Terror Twilight:

You Are A Light
Platform Blues
Major Leagues
The Hexx
Carrot Rope

Good songs:
Spit On A Stranger
Folk Jam

Okay/Not so good:
Cream Of Gold
Ann Don't Cry
Billie
Speak, See, Remember

Apart from maybe the completely unmemorable Cream Of Gold and the slightly lazy songwriting on Ann Don't Cry, there aren't any bad songs on the album, and each song has something to offer.

Try harder you guys! TRY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSuRGl0KAw

cream of gold is p much the only song on TT i like. and like is a stretch. i bought TT on cassette the day it came out, on my way to the train station for a 6 hour round trip. i didn't take any other cassettes with me. just my walkman and that terrible POS. long 6 hours.

Hang on Cream Of Gold has
"You were stitched up venom
and I was the cursed from the Vedic."

What can i say, i dream in beige.

I prefer the demo of Major Leagues over the album version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ivVG-M8xNI

iirc the major leagues single had the covers of the classical and the killing moon on, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

how can anyone dislike "spit on a stranger"???

they're bitter strangers.

major leagues single is great.

as is the lead track - i'd trade it in for any clangering trebley tapegrot nonsense you care to mention.

"Darlin', we're up against it" is my favorite aw-how-cute Malkmus moment.

terror twilight has gone up in my estimation. i didnt like it when it first came out. a fiar deal of brighten the corners sounds boring now though.

i'm putting carrot rope on my ballot if only because of ibold's singing

harness
your hopes on just two oxen
because you know their harness (yoke)
was actually made for two

I like the bit about "and I'm wanting you to hold me just like the morning paper".

I'll tell you what annoys me about TT now: Goodrich's mixing decisions. All that echo – feh.

love Carrot Rope - enjoy the three vocals hitting one another, jarring jump to chorus, Malkmus playing syntax well, one of my favourite annoyingly suggestive nothing lyrics from him. Works for me as an abstract, formal kind of thing with a weird energy in it. Def in my ballot. (odd personal tmi - one of the few songs I liked and wanted to listen to after one close relative's death. Never sure why.)

Today I booked a day off in a couple of weeks so the missus and I can go furniture shopping. I literally have a Date w/Ikea! :-)

came across this last weekend as i was putting together my 22 and pulling songs off youtube for a quick reference. it's hilarious, cause bob's basically on a date with the cameraman for the most part while the lucky contest winner gal is off presumably taking care of her spending spree business. no chemistry, or maybe she just ran out of horse racing questions to ask.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz5SwN_IabI

Don't forget this ultimate collector rarity, the extended "J vs. S" from the advance copy:
Pavement - Brighten The Corners (Advance Copy)

steve ffs did you need to start a new friggin thread about it!?

Re: TT reissue...I'd forgotten how long ago Patrick made the statement he made about it. Sure didn't happen in 2010 did it?

http://www.matadorrecords.com/forums/showpost.php?p=75647&postcount=9

(When talking about the Quarantine the Past package) ** As for Terror being underrepresented... guilty as charged. I think most people feel that it is the weakest Pavement album. Other see it as a dry-run for the first Malkmus solo album. Whether or not either of those statements are true, Major Leagues was on the comp for a while - but the record was just too long. Carrot Rope was never a contender. Finally, 2010 is going to be the year of Terror, with the first vinyl reissue coming March 9, and Terror Deluxe coming in Oct/Nov, so we (and the band) thought, let's give the other records the nod.

i could vote for 22 Pavement b sides and be perfectly happy with my choices. dudes' non-album tracks were frequently amazing.

haven't read this whole thread yet, but did a ctrl+F and looks like no one has mentioned "Nail Clinic" from the old "Hey Drag City!" comp??

best band ever.

okay, so i got a ballot together, but it wasn't pretty. though i spent a lot of time over the past few days w/ their last 3 albums, enjoying them far more than i thought i might, i wound up sticking to my initial instincts and including only a few songs released after 1994. didn't cut anything that i thought might be overrepresented or give special favor to what might not otherwise make it. i.e., it's an apolitical ballot. and the death of a thousand cuts, saab.

PSF - 3
S+E - 5
W,D - 3
CR2 - 4
WZE - 1
BtC - 1
B-sides & stray tracks - 5

JF and the rest of you calling Brighten your favorite are nuts! it's an old man in a tux who keeps nodding off during an otherwise interesting conversation.

jeez, I like the whole Pavement catalogue except the very earliest stuff and the very late stuff. They had a delicious middle. BTC just happens to be the best of the best imo. No disparaging on my part for anyone else's favorites.

it's just so reserved. I wanna drink beer not tea with these guys. (btw I seriously love 4 trax on btc)

Brighten The Corners could have been a lot better than it was, based on the 2 cd reissue. Too many midtempo ones that sound alike. Old To Begin, Transport Is Arranged, Type Slowly, We Are Underused, etc.

That said, Starlings Of The Slipstream and Fin will be on my ballot.

Can we also vote for like the 5 worst Pavement songs and have you deduct points from them?

I floated a similar idea for the year-end poll last year and people either didn't get it or did get it and were mad about it.

WZ - 5
S&E - 2
CRCR - 5
BtC - 5
TT - 2
Other - 3

the midtempo middle to brighten the corners is great! it's pure creamy porkfat cut from the belly of the pavehog. they're just cruisin' brah. drinking beer to it is not that difficult!

xpost Yeah, I was half-kidding. But man do they have some terds.

would deduct points for the pavehog just cruisin

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

since it ain't gonna happen, i'd deduct points from "cut your hair", "carrot rope" and i dunno, there aren't that many others i genuinely object to. maybe that awful nirvana rip-off from wowee zowee.

I would take ALL THIS POINTS from "Carrot Rope".

fuck, just realized i accidentally cut "jackals, false grails" and overlooked "fillmore jive" (though i'm more okay w that). shit.

Haha. Love Carrot Rope. Would probably take points off of Fillmore Jive and every Pavement-Does-Pavement track.

Also pretty sure Wowie Zowie is 55% Nirvana rips. Part of its charm.

Love the idea of competitive polling.

Given that nobody else has mentioned Loretta's Scars, I'm less certain that I'll be able to push it onwards to victory. My personal favourite early-period song.

i am lazily considering voting; loretta's scars would definitely make my ballot. i think. 22 songs!

loretta's scars is great but feel i can't vote for both that and zurich

Sure you can.

Put them on an ep and call it Zurich is Scarred.

People hating on "Cut Your Hair" is so bizarre to me

im voting for both

xp

21 ballots in now, which is just five less than the Blur poll. Keep sending them! (if you haven't sent one yet, that is...don't send me a second one if you've already voted haha)

I kind of do want to drink tea with Pavement. See, this is why I find their earlier stuff a bit pointless - it's a noisy clamour, but it doesn't really ROCK. If I wanted to get pissed-up and wild, I'd choose a punk or metal band to do it with.

i don't think of the noisy early stuff as ROCK so much as willfully scuffy stubble-pop. they cleaned up over time as they fleshed out their initial ideas, but their songwriting declined in the wake of crooked rain, and the aesthetics got shaky. you know, imo.

Yep,its heavily influenced by Swell Maps I expect but less dangerous, more loveable. I find it so much more interesting and joyful than the later stuff which just sounds lifeless to me. I guess these two viewpoints (early noisy chaos v more structured, meticulous processed later period) are incompatible, just different ways of looking at the same tin of beans. Once the views are articulated i don't think there going to be any changing them.

but some of the early stuff does rock! Watery, Domestic EP, 1st Peel Session, She Believes, From Now On, etc

Yeah, I totally get the charm aspect of early Pavement - I especially love their aesthetic and artwork, but the songs just don't stay with me. I like Pavement as a pop band or a ballad band. I know that's lame, but if I'm gonna listen to a noisy racket, it's gotta hit me in the face, not sort of artfully scuffle my trainers.

That said, I stuck some early things on my ipod today for reassessment purposes, and I knew I should have kept Trigger Cut on my ballot.

Yes of course. Its rocks in a joyful kind of way. Chap (or chapette) upthread who said they would rather listen to some punk or metal band to get 'pissed up and wild'....well hell, maybe I would too, maybe i wouldn't. Certtainly don't listen to pavement anything like as much as I used to but then I don't prick pimples as much either. Early Pavement might do the trick for me just fine if I want to larrup around the lounge and move my behind on any particular night of unbridled debauchary. Sure why not? Then i might play The Buzzcocks, then a bit of Flipper then Pere Ubu then etc etc....I think this early stuff fits in just fine with this kind of lineage on 'that' kind of evening.

yeah, it's funny that i don't ever play pavement under those circumstances. i stick to toothier punk, psych & metal, like dog latin. not sure why. it might be residual indie guilt, i don't know. if i'm in the mood for that sort of guitar rock, i'm more likely to reach for the likes of pere ubu, the homosexuals, swell maps, early sonic youth, etc.

My choices won't go beyond Wowee Zowee--I don't remember all the late Pavement love on the other threads, that's for sure!

can't believe i missed the obvious stray (slay) tracks joek

I think there are two bands that I always have time for, always enjoy whatever the circumstance. One is Pavement. The other is Parliament/Funkadelic.

That was fun! Here's my breakdown:

5 CROOKED RAIN
4 WOWEE ZOWEE
4 S&E
3 WATERY DOMESTIC
3 WESTING
1 Peel Session
1 Unreleased
1 Compilation

24 ballots now. Top ten trax just got all shuffled with the last three ballots.

Just got out of the voting booth. My #1 got a major boost from a special guest appearance. Also, since Crooked Rain was my favorite album bar none in high school, it was really odd trying to extract individual songs. I never really put any of them on mixes when I was younger because I didn't want to ruin the illusion of a 43-minute piece.

24 ballots now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-0f2OLadvVk/SATgLyhmglI/AAAAAAAADwM/NkwxngtWH2s/s320/Red+Leader.jpg

lol

Just got out of the voting booth. My #1 got a major boost from a special guest appearance. Also, since Crooked Rain was my favorite album bar none in high school, it was really odd trying to extract individual songs. I never really put any of them on mixes when I was younger because I didn't want to ruin the illusion of a 43-minute piece.

― Cosmo Vitelli, Wednesday, 8 June 2011 08:50 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I think this is the reason I didn't vote for that many CRCR tracks.

this is nuts cuz, album integrity or no, those are GREAT fucking songs

also 5-4=unity breaks the mood. as does heaven is a truck. and less controversially, hit the plan down REALLY breaks the mood.

I've actually saved everyone's ballot except my own, so I don't remember how it broke down (aside from what my #1 was). I know I voted for at least a few CRCR tracks.

actually i voted for 4 crcr songs, but this seems meagre as i consider it my favourite pave album, yet i voted for more Terror Twilight songs in the end.

weird move. ;)

At one point I had the first 6 CRCR songs on my ballot...in contrast to the "can't split it up" suggestion above, I think any of these songs work perfectly on their own. It's more BTC where the quality of the album, which is a lot about the laidback mood of the enterprise, doesn't necessarily translate into a collection of awesome standalone songs. IMO.

^

Surprised to not see more support for 'Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)' from the Watery, Domestic EP. Many consider it to be when Pavement 'matured' and stopped sounding so much like The Fall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n9YWNX4rOk

the quality of the album, which is a lot about the laidback mood of the enterprise, doesn't necessarily translate into a collection of awesome standalone songs.

This is how I feel about Wowee Zowee. I adore that record to death but apart from 3 or 4 songs, it's one of those records where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I think I might agree with that. S+E is the opposite for me, I rarely if ever listen to the album in full but a bunch of my favourite Pavement songs are there.

I always think "Someone took … in these pants" is some joke lyric that my friends ad-libbed until I hear it for real on the song.

"Shoot the Singer" got some major points from me. Likewise every other track bar one from that EP.

I'm vaguely surprised that I voted for more CRCR tracks than S+E tracks, given that teenage me perceived the later album, as a whole, as the sort of follow-up I didn't want, at the time. (I probably used words like "labored" and "lethargic", rightly or wrongly.) The various non-LP tracks up to WD did still dominate overall though.

So Watery, Domestic is going to dominate the top of this poll then?

^^ assuming Nag Nag Nag also went with "Nail Clinic".

That wouldn't surprise me. It's always been one of their most-loved releases, and justifiably so.

x post

think both contenderizer and i said "shoot the singer" might be our #1

^^ assuming Nag Nag Nag also went with "Nail Clinic".

Yowsah, forgot about "Nail Clinic". Part of me also wishes I'd found a place for "Greenlander".

I still have lingering teenage antipathy towards Watery, Domestic after paying £10 for it ("IMPORT CD"!!!) and then discovering it's about eight minutes long.

That said, my #1 may have been a WD track.

Let's see.. chances are the winner won't be a big pop hit, but not too obscure either. Something that lands between Slanted and Wowee. Maybe Range Life?

? Range Life screams BIG POP HIT

yeah, but it's no Cut Your Hair or Carrot Rope or Shady Lane (maybe?)

All these obscure songs from the reissues are making my decision difficult: Haunt You Down, Harness Your Hopes, Same Way Of Saying, Strings of Nashville...what a band.

lol same way of saying?

never had a (sic) children and i never wanted them
but now
now i'm getting older maybe i'd like to fuck a woman and make one

Same Way Of Saying probably won't make the final cut, but for a throwaway goof it's spectacular.

Just voted.

Slanted 5
Crooked 4
Wowee 4
Brighten 2
Terror 2
Watery 2
Westing 1
B-sides 2

Gonna try to sit down tonight and hammer out a ballot. Glad to see some Terror Twilight love in here, I've always thought that one seemed unfairly maligned. Any word on the deluxe version?

Yeah, it's great. They removed half the tracks.

how many will you be counting down?

For tradition's sake (and it's a very brief tradition), I was thinking I'd do 61 just like the Blur poll.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, June 7, 2011 5:16 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Just wanted to say, that seems like an awful lot of tracks - you could fit almost all their "proper" albums in that way. A top 30 or something would make more sense as a "best of Pavement" countdown and give more satisfaction when a voted-for track shows up.

xp - lol

- you could fit almost all their "proper" albums in that way

With all the reissues, I have 226 Pavement songs on my iPod. If you guys are willing to tabulate them all, I'd love to see the full 61.

Looking at the results right now (and there's still a couple ballots waiting to be entered), a countdown of 61 wouldn't be any problem at all. If it was just a run of first place votes and songs with no other voters, I'd probably lower the countdown...but it passed that situation a while back.

Ok, no problem!

Hopefully this way I'll hear some B-sides I don't know, or even some Terror Twilight tracks.

think both contenderizer and i said "shoot the singer" might be our #1

yeah, watery, domestic getting lots of support over here

it's great to see so much support for the likes of "greenlander", "nail clinic" and "strings of nashville", but i wanted to stand up for my favorite obscurities, in case anyone isn't familiar:

Give it a Day - check dog latin's video just above the jump! from the pacific trim EP, out in early '96 (the last pavement record i bought upon release). overall, it's a lightweight trifle full of jokey songs about books & places, certainly no competition to perfect sound forever or watery, domestic, but it's a lot of fun, and "give it a day" stands as a minor classic that deserves more exposure.

Sue Me Jack - an obvious slanted and enchanted outtake that first appeared as a B-side to "trigger cut", to which it seems a darker cousin. both tuneful and abrasive in the manner of their best early songs, with in-the-red barking, shrilly psychedelic guitar and a fluttery synth bit that tips things somehow towards the cars (?!) on the chorus. plus a hypnotic muttered outro. one of their best noisy-noise tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkGRLat26j0

Baptiss Blacktick - okay, so everyone knows this, but a goddam, it's GREAT! probably a pixies cop and utterly unique in their catalog, with its excitable-boy combo of yelping angst, joyful spazz and weird lust. maybe not a knockout from a songwriting standpoint, but one of their most energetic and infectious songs, great for singing along while pretending to be bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDoOz78JgM

Unseen Power of the Picket Fence - another well-known obscurity, this one from 1993, that perfect gulf between slanted and crooked. it's a strange song, a smirky, stomping fan letter to REM that imagines them as both as legendary outlaw rockers and as sherman's army laying waste to georgia (with the song eventually deteriorating into an hilarious museum diorama of the latter). i didn't think much of it at the time, thinking it a messily underwritten joke, but it's held up exceptionally well. funny, smart and awful damn catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvVYwXqFEE

Sue Me Jack - an obvious slanted and enchanted outtake

nope, post S&E... it was Watery outtake. Watery sessions (OTTOMH): watery domestic EP + greenlander + sue me jack + so stark

Voted for 3 of those!

x post

i already posted that Baptiss youtube upthread but it's worth repeating. cute punkish energy plus maybe the funniest moment in their catalog.

27 ballots! Take that, Blur. ;)

nope, post S&E... it was Watery outtake.

DANG! schooled. i was talking straight out my ass, cuz i don't know, really, but it sounds so much like S+E (and so little like WD) that i just assumed.

note to self: go easy on the "obvious"

I want more songs about Cotton Mathers, please. It's the tragedy of Malkmus' career that he never devoted a concept album to him.

besides "give it a day" you mean? are there others?

that's the tragedy

A few songs about Jonathan Edwards and his grandson Aaron Burr woulda been rad too.

Fewer songs about being scared of leprechauns.

With a very small number of exceptions I rarely think of Pavement songs as being "about" anything.

I've nearly finalised my vote but I have to give a shout to PRICE YEAH!

yeah was about to say, what's the leprechaun song again? xp

^^^ "Cut Your Hair"

that's funny, cuz a lot of them seem to be very explicitly about things. they're often oblique, of course, but you've got songs about history & historical figures, nostalgic reminiscences, stray thoughts, generational critiques, ironic self-portaits, slices of life.

thing is, at least half the lyrics of even the most direct songs seem like maddeningly opaque nonsense, which does make it hard to nail them down 100%.

Yep. I like to pretend all Pavement songs are about things. There Is A Light, for instance, is about a wannabe gap-yearer being warned about people in foreign countries.

Malkmus might have to get his history correct - wasn't Increase Mather Cotton Mather's father?

"Ann Don't Cry" is about a girl named Ann, who cried.

"baptiss blacktick" is about the conversion of paul

"ed anes" is about bratty sisters.

ames

Malkmus might have to get his history correct - wasn't Increase Mather Cotton Mather's father?

― The Boy Who Can Go Inside The TV (dog latin), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 2:46 PM (21 minutes ago)

uh.... the lyrics start:

"Increase Mather told her daddy..."

uh... yes it does.

...perhaps you might have realized you're being fucked with right off the bat considering that Increase Mather was not a female?

well if it's intentional then fair dos. being a brit, i'm not as up with my 17th century witchfinders as others.

"Laocoön and her two sons..."

As far as ridiculous minor material, will I be the only one to rep for "False Skorpion"?

i think the reason bands like Pavement and GBV have so many tossed-off little tunes is because they recognize half the fun is coming up with song titles.

"False Skorpion" and "Wanna Fuck You Around" are great.

I wanna see if anyone has "Saganaw" on their list....

Stop Dreaming is about tennis

And Cut Your Toenails is about Koreaaaa!!!!!!

this poll is destroying my life btw

My apologies.

haha no in a good way! listening to all the albums, have no idea how i'm going to narrow it down.

lol It's made me listen to all the albums for the first time in a while...all together, anyway. I play them once in a while w/o going into a "phase".

http://www.thefreeinmatelocator.com/images/kentucky.png http://www.mariebrizard.com/upload/Cocktail_alexander%281%29.jpg

^concur

vote fur "Circa 1762"

voted; looking forward to the results. I really don't know what Pavement's consensus classics are

http://www.allmusic.com/album/quarantine-the-past-the-best-of-pavement-r1717485/review

hmm only 10 of those 23 tracks made my ballot

Yeah, I thought the consensus on Quarantine the Past was that it wasn't a very good compilation.

I don't even like the sequencing.

1've got 13 of the QTP tracks on my list, which makes me a traditionalist, i guess. several of the others are tracks i cut only after much deliberation ("embassy row", "stereo", "date w/ikea", "debris slide").

i like the attention it pays to watery, domestic and perfect sound forever, endorse the tracks it draws from the first two albums ("cut your hair excepted"). i don't own it, but it looks like a decent crash course. for a band like this, with few consensus hits and tons of die-hard fans, there's always gonna be grousing about any single-disc comp.

Their legacy is their LPs and EPs.. one of those rare bands with a very impressive full discography, but not necessarily the type who had a handful of obvious stand-out tracks or singles.. I suppose "Spit On A Stranger" has the sound of a single, but "Summer Babe" would never fit on commercial radio, and "Cut Your Hair" has no chorus..

looking over the best-of tracklist, I *think* 9 made it to my ballot.

think the main objection to QTP was that it had nothing to offer the long-time faithful. it's strictly for newcomers and casual fans, which seems a good approach for a budget comp.

If it counted I would have voted for Birds In Traffic..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtcM0TVFxEc

I used to drive my coworkers and store patrons crazy with Hospital the summer I worked at a chain music store. My boss actually bought my lunch one day in exchange for me turning it off.

Where is Gary Young Now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Young_%28drummer%29

"Young currently markets recording studio products, in particular, the Universal Microphone Shock Mount."

Yeah, my ballot also shares 13 tracks with QTP, tho I don't think it's an especially great compilation overall. If anything, I think the track listing for QTP should've been even more "hits" (i.e. singles) oriented than it was. Generally, Pavement's singles were also some of their best songs - I don't see why "Rattled by the Rush" and "Major Leagues" weren't included. More problematic than the omissions are a couple of the inclusions - "Fight This Generation"? "Unfair"? (Good song, but it's the sixth best song out of 6 on the first side of CRCR) "Heaven is a Truck," really? With a band like this no "Best of" compilation is gonna please everyone, but QTP isn't really an ideal introduction either; if I were to recommend a first purchase for a Pavement newbie it would be the expanded edition of either of my two favorites: "Slanted" and "Brighten the Corners."

posted my ballot after agonising over ordering for far too long, feel like it's pretty arbitrary between 5-20 or so.

Fight This Generation is a good song! But yeah, Unfair really isn't that remarkable.

WALK WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD IN THE AIR!!
SWING YOUR NACHOS JUST LIKE YOU JUST DON'T CARE!

Unfair made my 22 but not FTG, RbtR, or Major Leagues, so there you go.

^ none of those

Rattled By La Rush: boringest Pavement single. Even Malkmus admits he must have been high when he chose it as a single.

I reckon Grounded has a good chance of making #1, but I didn't vote for it.

You crazy! RBTR is great. Golf references do it for me every time.

It's not a bad song, but it's a weird single choice.

is it? it's the closest to a straight rocker on WZ surely

Love RbtR (on my ballot), but maybe AT&T or Black Out would be more obvs indie rock single choices?

xpost my thoughts exactly. it's a really static song - kind of default mid-tempo Pavement really. Just strange that they chose it to represent Wowee Zowee out of 16 other songs (not including Father To A Sister of Thought, which is a great single). Then again, looking at the tracklisting, WZ isn't exactly packed with obvious single choices, and RbtR at least has a chorus people can identify.

It doesn't really have a chorus as such - there's the 'drowning for your thirst'/'no soap in the john' bit, then 'rattled by the rush' over and over at the end. But broadly agree - it really isn't an album with obvious singles.

have this weird aversion to malkmus' screechy yelling circa wowee zowee. i love it on the earlier records ("that fucker! AAAAGH!"), but for some reason find it terribly grating on or after WZ. "AT&T" is a prime victim, as his tuneless shrieking towards the end of that song dissuaded me from including it on my ballot. "half a canyon" too, though that one maybe wasn't so entirely great to begin with.

wonder what it is that bugs me so much about this. is it his performance, the recording, the way he is (or isn't) fitting in with the songs?

Father To A Sister of Thought will be very high on my ballot

Half a Canyon is brilliant! "Iiiiiiiii can't believe I'm still goiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnggg!" <3 <3 didn't get on my ballot though, too plodding up till then.

See also Pueblo, "Alright I want a cigarette!"

has anyone ever sampled the intro to Half A Canyon? kind of reminds me of Pigs by Cypress Hill or What's Up Fatlip?

I love the solo on "Rattled by the Rush."

AT&T is such a joke song though, as a single that would have made no sense

I sent my list. would like to speak up for these two subtle ear wormers: 'black out' and 'motion suggests'. i think i love songs like these because they pass you by for the first few times you listen to them, but then they stay in your head for a lifetime.

motion suggests is my favourite Pavement ballad fwiw.

I love the solo on "Rattled by the Rush."

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

That's why it made my top 10

wonder what it is that bugs me so much about this. is it his performance, the recording, the way he is (or isn't) fitting in with the songs?

Maybe he was thinking up parts for Bob to sing live.

Is it swing your nachos or swing your numchucks (?)

nunchucks

yeah "black out" is a great song!

"swingin nunchucks"

thank you! it's listed as "nachos" on every online version

35 ballots, 103 tracks voted for.

Will anyone else be voting for Decouvert de Soleil?

I can't do this. I despair.

There are so many little wonderful moments in songs that I care about so much about. I haven't the energy to choose between them.

use the force, kraudive

Agree with Contenderizer about WZ and the Malkmus voice. Its hard to pin down, coz up til this records I like all his yelping and wayward crooning just fine but on WZ it just seems paper thin and kind of at odds with the music and thats why i only included a couple of tracks from WZ. Surprising but there you go.

With 37 ballots in, 10 points separates 5th place from 1st place. CLOSE RACE.

i have actually cried to "you can't enjoy yourself, i can't enjoy myself, you can't enjoy yourself, i can't enjoy myself" has anyone else ever pavecried

a voice coach taught me to sing, he couldn't teach me to love rip van wanko's posts

;_;

i would like to have cried to "bad girls / are always bad girls" because it is a great line (and they are), but no

(sorry rvw, couldn't resist)

I've probably gotten misty at the Tindersticks version of "Here" but that's as close as I get.

jasper's

skinny

arms

"just hold me back or let me run"

Yes. We Dance stands head and shoulders for me above the other WZ tracks for me. I really seem to have it in for WZ's critical rep don't I? I guess i just don't get it being the favourite for so many. i like the atmosphere of playful experimantation on the reocrd but the execution and songs individualilly don't work for me. Most songs have good monets but kind of feel lame as a wh9ole - except for the first track- which feels perfect. Still prefer to listen to this than BTC though.

Not cried but I'm sure I've growled 'I need to sleep - why won't you let me sleep?' before

Oh man I put off thinking about this until the weekend (i.e. now) so I could have time to listen to everything, and now I am thinking I cannot do this, there are just so many and I love them all, I could pick 22 real songy songs or 22 crazy tossed-off bootleg tracks, 22 supposed album fillers, the whole of Westing, all of CD2 of the CRCR reish, etc... and love them all just as much

fuck I still have to organize my list and send them in

Ballot submitted!

Also sent

tried to draw up a ballot but i just found this too difficult and frustrating

What time's the deadline for this plz? Just got back from hols

W(bMaS): 0 :( bcz I still don't know this comp very well; sorry.
S&E: 3
CR, CR: 6
WZ: 2
BtC: 3
TT: 1
B-Sides/Unreleased/etc: 4

PS you guys are stupid and/or uninformed if yr not voting for these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JK4p_vnqo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ofAp0dK40

and also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMMzYp07Zs

"For Sale! The Preston School of Industry" is the Armando Galarraga of Pavement's discography

just relistening to stuff now and thinking christ was it 20 years ago...

will have ballot sent off by tomorrow morning britisher time.

fillmore jive's got steve west's best drum fill but it won't be on my ballot

deadline Sunday night LBI.

Thanks Pandemic!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qMhrSttafPY/TLizzy6-AHI/AAAAAAAAACc/eCdYbJWmqTM/s1600/iVoted.gif

jeez this is hard and i'm only a stanner for the first three albums

fillmore jive's got steve west's best drum fill but it won't be on my ballot

― sonderangerbot, Saturday, June 11, 2011 5:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in my current state of mind this counts as fighting talk :-)
didn't realise quite how much i <3 so many of these trax

Wow, flurry of voting activity today!

45 ballots in, 113 tracks receiving one vote or more.

i'm trying i'm trying i'm trying etc

"PS you guys are stupid and/or uninformed if yr not voting for these"

F. You. I may be stupid but I think I am pretty well informed.

Didn't vote for those tunes at all.

I think you are stupid and a doofus all in one.

So there.

Save the sniping until Monday!

xp WELL YOU ARE SUCH A POOP THEN

Hey. There's plenty a time to be bitchin' - just wait till next week. Man it's gonna be BRUTAL.

xp hehe

Would love to get at least five more ballots btw. 50 is a nice number.

GOOBER

(45 is already more than I expected, tho.)

must vote tonight

think i'm gonna go with cuts from the 5 albums for the most part and not kill myself over narrowing down the couple dozen other stray tracks i love

On quite the Pavement ride again today because of this poll! Like Whatever, it's all about the first three albums really. Apart from two songs from BtC (the last two). Terror Twilight I hate with a passion for being the dull mediocre album Pavement shouldn't have ever released.

But yeah, so so many great songs, and for some reason this poll comes completely at the right time to visit them all again. Kudos to Johnny for making it happen.

btw I did this

CR CR 5
WD 3
WZ 4
S&E 3
DP 1
PSF 1
ST 1
BTC 1

You guys treat this like the crucifixion. I just thought of twenty-two songs at random and threw scores on'em, just like I would with some of my Pazz and Jopp ballots.

Yeah, i never really have much of an idea how to order these things beyond like the top five. Not worth agonizing over.

My votes:

WZ 7
S&E 5
CR, CR 4
BTC 3
Other: 3

xp Alfred, that's how I did it as well. Who is agonizing over it?

O I C. Don't kill yourself over this K3vin K, choose life! :)

i am agonizing over it

i'm sorry, Johnny, i reread the first couple of posts, but just to make completely sure, you need these by midnight tomorrow, right? not tonight?

Yeah, the very moment Sunday turns to Monday.

oh, hinklepaws

(by agonizing i mean planning to drink a bottle of wine and re-listen to wowee zowee to make absolutely sure)

I'm drowning for your thirst!

Cheese your flattery will get you nowhere.

NOWHERE.

I have to go now and tend to my foul.

GOOD DAY.

(by agonizing i mean planning to drink a bottle of wine and re-listen to wowee zowee to make absolutely sure)

― horseshoe, zondag 12 juni 2011 2:47 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

I fully endorse this tbh

voted

thought about putting my #22 at number 1 just to see if i could sneak it onto the countdown

Just listened to slanted and enchanted walking home with the sun only just up - literally terror twilight - I think I'm converted. This is a really great collection of songs

had a good night then?

It's interesting how a lot of people seem to agonize over their lists. Pavement is one of my top 3 favorite bands, but I didn't have much trouble narrowing down to 22 picks. Maybe if I'd become a fan more recently it would've been harder, but as it is, I think most of my favorites crystallized about a decade ago, once I'd purchased all of the albums. I think every album has 3 or 4 few clear standouts even if the rest of the songs are good to great. CRCR has a few clear throw-aways, Wowee Zowee has almost a whole side of 'em. But on WZ, at least, that's part of the charm. I downloaded various b-sides in college but never bought any of the singles/EPs so I never had all of the nonalbum cuts in one place until the reissues, hence - except for the pre-Slanted stuff and "Frontwards" - almost none of them ended up on my ballot. I love "Westing: By Musket and Sextant" to pieces, so I forced myself to pick more than one cut from it even though "Box Elder" was my only clear favorite. That might've been my one mistake - not sure I shoulda picked "Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent."

Listened to "Terror Twilight" again and remembered why I liked it - smoothest listen in the Pavement catalog, with Nigel Godrich and SM tightening up the usual stray slack. So it doesn't sound a whole lot like Pavement, but it's a lot of fun. The lyrics are nowhere near the level of "BTC," though. Still, I like the space-rock vibe. Why do so many people prefer "And Then" to "The Hexx," anyway? Better a one-riff jam than a fully-developed song? Nothing wrong with the former, but given the choice - especially for a band with such a limited rhythm section - why settle?

The breakdown:

Westing: 2
S&E: 5
CRCR: 4
WZ: 4
BTC: 5
TT: 1
Other: 1

CRCR 3
BTC 3
TT 3
WZ 6
W 1
unreleased/b-side 6

guess i didnt like S&E all that much

surprised no one ended up contributing a discography to

The ILM Fan-made BEST OF/ANTHOLOGY Compilation project -- POST Tracklists, Cover Art, Liner notes, editorials, spotify links and/or otherwise LEGALLY obtained streaming album lists HERE!

Maybe because they would have been torn to shreds for omitting obscure B-side #211!

Just voted after much relistening:

S&E: 3
CR,CR: 3
WZ: 4
BtC: 4
TT: 3
Other: 5

Maybe because they would have been torn to shreds for omitting obscure B-side #211!

come on, everyone knows that #210 is the killer!

voted

S&E: 7
CR, CR: 7
WZ: 3
Others: 5

ballot sent. at first it was very difficult but after a while i just had a good time listening to pavement.

s&e: 4
crcr: 3
wz: 2
btc: 2
tt: 2
other: 9

wasn't my intention to put that many b-sides/etc on it. guess it's just easier to think of those as individual songs.

yeah i'm having that experience, too. s+e and wowee zowee are particularly hard for me to break up into individual tracks.

51 ballots, 116 different trax with votes. Approx 10.5 hours left to vote!

51 ballots has gotta be some sort of record for a non-eoy poll, right? The results are gonna be very interesting.

Decade polls usually have in the 70-90 range ballots-wise, but I definitely wasn't expecting this many for a single band poll.

that bieber song at the top of the thread is p good huh

Are you going to do them all over 1 or 2 days?

that bieber song at the top of the thread is p good huh

― lebroner (D-40), Sunday, June 12, 2011 1:35 PM (4 minutes ago)

my favorite bieb actually

xp over three days, M-W

Like tomorrow, Monday?

Yeah.

Snappy work!

more ballots than a hoy hoy's rap poll?

not sure I shoulda picked "Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent."

― thewufs

i am very sure that you shoulda picked "angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent."

Just listened to slanted and enchanted walking home with the sun only just up - literally terror twilight - I think I'm converted. This is a really great collection of songs

― The Boy Who Can Go Inside The TV (dog latin), Saturday, June 11, 2011 9:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^ RT

Well, I sent 22 tracks in a semi-random order and could probably have thought of another 22. In fact, I'm probably going to wake up at 4am with terrible regret for missing at least another 3 or 4. But, psyched for the results, etc...

first attempt at a ballot has 37 songs :/

Progress! Only 15 more to axe.

just sent mine in.

S&E - 7
CRCR - 5
WoZo - 2
BTC - 1

+

you're killing me
she believes
easily fooled
box elder
from now on
recorder grot

just missing out:

lions
shoot the singer
grounded
debris slide
baptiss blackstick
perfume - v
stop breathin
jackals, false grails
unseen power of the picket fence

sent! i switched out circa 1762 for kentucky cocktail at the last minute. also feel like a criminal for leaving off summer babe and loretta's scars.

this thread has done more for reviving my interest in listening to pavement than the reunion tour ever did.

i know, right? terror twilight isn't so bad, as it turns out.

just missing out:

lions
shoot the singer
grounded
debris slide
baptiss blackstick
perfume - v
stop breathin
jackals, false grails
unseen power of the picket fence

disqualified

I can't grasp how 'Grounded' wouldn't be in anyone's top 22 tbh o_O

lip balm on watery clay
relationships hey hey hey

Just 4+ hours left to vote.

one more that made it: forwards

two more that just missed: carrot rope & spit on a stranger

yeah, fine, those can go

"grounded" would have easily made it for me back in the day. It was one of my favorites live as well. It's just slipped a bit for me over time.

We're not talking about our picks yet are we?

You guys are worse than kids at Christmas!

yeah, save 'em!

54 ballots, 118 tracks have received votes.

I can't grasp how 'Grounded' wouldn't be in anyone's top 22 tbh o_O

Because I don't smoke marijuana anymore.

Fighting talk!

Haha, fair enough PP

Which, to be fair, the 22 I submitted would have been much different than the ones I would have wrote in 10-15 years ago.

And to that, I'm just as surprised as anyone that more Terror Twilight songs didn't show up in my ballot. If a 37-year-old father of two can't get into those party barge rock tunes, then I don't know who can.

too late to send off a ballot?

3 more hours.

Why do so many people prefer "And Then" to "The Hexx," anyway?

It's heavier, with a better vocal performance and the guitars are just huge.

Slanted 6
WZ 4
TT 4
CRCR 3
BTC 3
comp 1
watery 1

this thread has done more for reviving my interest in listening to pavement than the reunion tour ever did.

Really wishing this thread had happened first. I'm so primed for this band right now!

something about "The Hexx" thats a bit more blank and deady eyed which I prefer. Nice song but I didnt vote for it.

get in your last minute votes for "Circa 1762"

Or for "Shoot the Singer"

i voted for it

ONE HOUR LEFT TO VOTE

voted. thanks P!

Voting is closed!

did a guy named (Mr.) Jay Batman get a ballot in?

Yeah, the Hexx is pure vampire music.