Music I like!:
Introduction
This page is for discussing music I like, perhaps short little reviews of albums or artists I really enjoy, just something else to write on this site except my lifestuff.
Pavement:
Let's start with my favourite band of all time, Pavement! They're kind of the slacker rock band, totally cool while acting like they're not trying at all which just makes them even cooler. However, I think this causes people to think they didn't care much about the actual music they were making, which is totally not true! The songwriting and craft and lyricism put into these songs by Stephen Malkmus (and sometimes Scott Kannberg too hehehe) is totally incredible, I don't think songs like 'Starlings in the Slipstream', 'Fillmore Jive', 'Major Leagues', 'Grounded' or, 'Spit on a Stranger' (I could include pretty much every song they have in this list but I won't because that'd be really silly) could be written by people who didn't care deeply about what they were doing. A lot of attention gets placed on their first two albums 'Slanted & Enchancted' and 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" as their "main albums", the first where they were at the height of their slacker/art rock mode and the second where they managed to take style and get it to hit in the mainstream consciousness with 'Cut Your Hair' and 'Range Life'. Unfortunately, their third album 'Wowee Zowee' gets written off as being too bloated, being a double album, and stalling their career progression, reducing the album to some sort of reactionary pushback to the success of 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain' and I have to disagree with the sentiment completely because I love 'Wowee Zowee', moreso than either of their first two albums, it really showcased the band's range of styles, starting soft and acoustic with 'We Dance', providing some solid indie rock bangers with song like 'Rattled by the Rush', 'Grounded' and, 'Grave Architecture', going into punk with 'Best Friends Arm' an 'Serpentine Pad', a string accompaniment for the beginning of 'Father to a Sister of Thought' and getting downright weird with 'Motion Suggests' and 'Western Homes' (note, I could name more songs from the album in this section but I wont because, again, that would be silly). All-in-all I think Wowee Zowee is an incredible album that gets overlooked by people just focusing on their earlier work. Also, be sure to check out the non-album single from this period called 'Painted Soldiers' which is Kannberg's best song with Pavement. Likewise, their fifth and last album 'Terror Twilight' is called "overproduced" and "messy" and while, yes, it did cause a lot of tension in the band which eventually caused them to split, it's also their best album. The way the first half captures Pavement at the top of their game when it comes to writing indie rock hits while the second half captures their more artist, jamming side is so utterly perfect, I love the way each track flows into the next, the album just has a perfect vibe all throughout. Also, I listened to the tracklist Nigel Godrich suggested and thank god they didn't go with it, it's kinda dreadful and all over the place, the final tracklist is much better. Listen to this album! It's incredible, all of their albums are but this one is my favourite. Also, if you want my list of Pavement albums, best to worst (though worst here is still like a good 8.5-9/10) then here it is:
- Terror Twilight
- Brighten the Corners
- Wowee Zowee
- Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
- Slanted & Enchanted
There's also the EPs 'Watery Domestic', which I highly recommend 'Shoot the Singer (One Sick Verse)' and 'Frontwards' are classics, and 'Pacific Trim', which I really don't remember at all to be honest. There's also the compilation 'Westing (By Musket and Sextant)' which I unfortunately don't really like, not to ruin my cred as an indie rock girlie, but it just really didn't connect with me at all, 'Box Elder' is an undeniable hit though.
Guided By Voices:
Aww yeah baby you know what it is! The king's of lofi rock fronted by king of songwriting, I don't think there's anyone alive who's written as many songs as Bob Pollard and I don't think there ever will be, thank god he's really good at it too! The big two albums from these guys have got to be 'Bee Thousand' and 'Alien Lanes' and it's not really a contest, I do like a lot of their other stuff don't worry but my god these two are just utterly divine albums! Both are around 40 minutes and totally jampacked with songs. It'd be kind of a waste listing all the stand out tracks because the true magic of these albums is how it all fits together like one interlocking jigsaw puzzle, each song short enough to feel like a snippet that quickly gets replaced by a new one, it's like comedy in that way, the thing where if you have a bunch of jokes going by super quickly you can just keep hitting the audience over the head with banger after banger and if there's one that doesn't fly too well it doesn't matter because guess what? Another one's already sored. If you wanna know what other albums to check out by these guys after you've listened to 'Bee Thousand' and 'Alien Lanes' a thousand times, I reccomend 'Propeller', 'Vampire on Titus', 'Under the Bushes, Under the Stars' (with the bonus EP too!), 'Isolation Drills' and 'Half-Smiles of the decomposed'. There's also the EP 'Sunfish Holy Breakfast' which is great too! If you really want you can listen to all of their albums, they're all pretty good, I did that back in 2019 or so, I should make sure to listen to the rest of their more recently albums, though, I have to say I'm not much of a fan of the new direction with the slower, longer songs. I like GBV when they're blasting me over and over with hooky bitsized songs, ykno? This band has had such a strong impact on how I think about writing song, I'm really trying to tap into that impact of a bunch of short bangers one after another on my next album, it's proving to be very fun to make it this way! Even though Car Seat Headrest was my introduction to prolific lo-fi artists I think Guided By Voices is what truly dragged me into the sea and I couldn't be happier.