Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)

It took me way too much time to understand Pavement, but I'm really glad I finally did. Few of my friends were already listening to Pavement in the early 00's but for some reason I didn't really get them at that time. I've mentioned many times before that my musical taste was much more conservative when growing up and even as a young adult, I had hard time getting into lo-fi sounds and melodies that weren't exactly in tune. Around that time, Pavement sounded too noisy for my taste and I never really gave it a proper chance. Approximately ten years later, I was introduced to Stephen Malkmus' solo records, which I liked more. They weren't as lo-fi as the old Pavement records. I still had some problems with the lack of beautiful melodies. I guess my father had inflicted on me his musical taste that always requires music to be beautiful.



All of this changed just a few months ago when I realised that I didn't own any Pavement albums and thus I wasn't going to present any of them in this blog. I had recently discovered that I liked many bands and artists now that I didn't care for years ago, so I wanted to give Pavement another chance as well. I'm really happy that I did, because now that I listen to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, I'm just baffled why I didn't like it before. I can somehow understand the debut album Slanted and Enchanted, which is very lo-fi and strange, but Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is a masterpiece of music with excellent 90's sounds. I ended up buying two first albums immediately after listening to them on Spotify. Now I finally understand one of the most original sounding 90's bands.

The album starts with raw electric guitars in the intro for Silence Kid, which then turns into a lo-fi sounding song that combines 70's Kraut rock elements with 90's college rock aesthetics. Elevate Me Later has slightly more upbeat sounds even if the vocals still have that slacker tone of the 80's and 90's alternative rock. Stop Breathing has some psychedelic guitar riffs and laconic slacker melodies. The chorus reminds me of Pixies. Cut Your Hair is a hit song with catchy wooing parts in the beginning. These kinds of songs have given the band a very strong cult following. Newark Wilder is from the stranger end of the spectrum on this album. The guitars are quite psychedelic and the different parts are joined with strange intermissions. Unfair has that upbeat college rock intensity which works brilliantly with Pixies style screams and alternative rock yells. Gold Soundz is a proper summer hit with great melodies and excellent guitar sounds. 5-4=Unity is almost like a strange jazz song. The song is instrumental and filled with innovative use of guitars. Range Life is the most obvious hit song from the album. The melodies draw you in immediately. This song could be categorised as alt-country and I'm sure bands like Wilco have gotten quite a few ideas from these sounds. Heaven is a Truck is a slacker rock jewel that could be seen as a pre-stage example for artists such as Mac DeMarco. Hit the Plane Down is one of the most alternative sounding songs on the album. It's filled with noisy guitars and muffled vocals. I guess it was songs like this that originally turned me away from Pavement. The album ends with Fillmore Jive that has somewhat emotional vocal loop along with weeping guitars in the end, but they're all presented with excellent lo-fi sounds.

There was also another reason why I recently decided to give Pavement another chance. I was looking at something else on youtube, but it then rolled over to the next song and that song was Range Life by Pavement. This song was just so good that I knew I was finally ready for Pavement. The music video has some footage of fooling around on tour and on stage. So, it's not the most original music video, but I think it still illustrates perfectly what the alternative music scene of the 90's was all about.

I'm always thrilled when I manage to get excited about a classic album that has a cult following. It's been happening quite a lot recently. I guess my blog writing has broadened my musical horizons quite a bit and now I can actually appreciate quite different albums for what they are. But it's these kinds of jewels that make me really happy that I've spent all that time educating myself about the history of pop music.

Listen to the album on Spotify.