Pavement : Quarantine the Past (The Best of Pavement)

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/pavementquarantinethepast.jpg" alt=" " />Some bands I like to name-check, and one of them is Pavement. ...
Rad Matador
2010 

Pavement : Quarantine the Past (The Best of Pavement) When the Pixies (QRO live review) reunited in 2004 at Coachella, an event many people had thought impossible, due to the bad blood at break-up between singer/guitarist Black Francis (QRO album review) and singer/bassist Kim Deal (of the Breeders – QRO live review), people started fantasizing about a number of other indie-rock reunions, which had also previously always seemed just as impossible, due to just as bad blood at break-up.  Well, Dinosaur Jr. (QRO live review) reunited not long after, as its own singer/guitarists J Mascis (QRO photos) and Lou Barlow (QRO album review) buried the hatchet, and others followed.  However, all, or at least most, eyes had fallen upon nineties alternative icons Pavement: they were both hailed & considered influential (despite a relatively short/small output for a band with such acclaim, five albums and some EPs), and had dissolved in a morass of singer/guitarist Stephen Malkmus wanting to go it on his own (which he did, as Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – QRO live review).  And we waited.  And waited.

Then, last year, everything started to come together.  Pavement bassist Mark Ibold joined the even more iconic (but never broke up) Sonic Youth (QRO live review), while singer/guitarist Scott Kannenberg, a.k.a. Spiral Stairs, released his first solo record in years (QRO review).  And in September of 2009, a reunion show was announced at New York’s Central Park SummerStage (QRO venue review) – for September of 2010 (QRO concert listing).  It sold out in minutes, so another was added, then another, then another.  Pavement were later announced as curators for the U.K.’s All Tomorrow’s Parties, and have since been added to the line-ups of American festivals from Coachella to Sasquatch to Pitchfork to Toronto Island (QRO 2010 Festival Guide).  They just recently played their first show in ten years, starting the worldwide reunion tour in New Zealand.  And to coincide with the much-anticipated reunion comes Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement, their first-ever ‘greatest hits’ record.

With a relatively limited output, and deluxe edition re-releases of all Pavement records on their own tenth anniversaries (QRO re-release review), it’s fairly easy for a fan of the band to have all of their material (especially in this internet music age).  And Quarantine the Past is mostly made up of album material.  In short, if you already know & love Pavement, if you already bought tickets for all four nights at Central Park SummerStage right when they went on sale, you don’t need this record.  But if you never keyed into them at the time (the band certainly got more praise after breaking up than they ever did when together…), are wondering what your indie friends are going on about, or are a kid who never heard of the old fogies in the first place, Quarantine makes a great impression.

One nice move on the album is that it doesn’t stick to the usual ‘greatest hits’ method of organizing the tracks in chronological order.  That can work for a band that has played for a decade or two, showing their growth & change, but it isn’t necessary for Pavement.  Also, fan favorites are largely from their earlier days, centered on 1992’s Slanted and Enchanted and 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, their first two full-lengths, so a chronological track listing would be a sliding album.  And jumbling up the songs means that Quarantine can be weighted towards their earlier days, without it seeming so obvious: there are five tracks from Slanted, four from Crooked Rain and 1997’s Brighten the Corners, but only two from 1995’s underrated Wowee Zowee and just one from final release Terror Twilight.

Quarantine also benefits from avoiding another ‘greatest hits’ staple: being singles-dominated.  But that also comes from Pavement’s relatively short lifespan – there just weren’t enough singles to dominate a twenty-three-track compilation.  So your favorites are still there, from Slanted‘s first single "Summer Babe" (of course, it’s the "(Winter Version)" that gave rise to the name ‘slacker rock’) to their closest thing to a ‘hit’, Crooked‘s irreverent "Cut Your Hair" (not to mention "Range Life", whose kiss-offs to Stone Temple Pilots & Smashing Pumpkins are still apt…) to Brighten classics "Stereo" & "Shady Lane" to the band’s last single, Terror‘s excellent indie-melancholy "Spit On a Stranger".  And the whole compilation opens with Crooked‘s "Gold Soundz", a perfect introduction.

Unfortunately, Quarantine does slide a bit after that, relatively, with rougher early non-singles "Frontwards" and "Mellow Jazz Docent" (though the former may just suffer these days after hearing Los Campesinos!’s cover so often – QRO video).  But from there, it doesn’t really miss a beat, and manages to stretch across the band’s wide range of sounds, from the early indie-shout of "Two States" & "Debris Slide" to mid-career fineness of "Range Life" & "Heaven Is a Truck" to the wistful final days of "Shady Lane/J Vs. S" & "Spit On a Stranger".  Or the early sadness of "Here" to mid-career alt-uproar of "Unfair" to later greatness of "Stereo" – take your pick.

And special mention must be made of the final three songs.  "Box Elder" is the oldest piece, at now twenty years of age, but still encapsulates the energy beneath the band’s indie-slacker exterior (memorialized/defined by Beavis & Butthead remarking on how the band was "so lazy they probably don’t wipe their ass…").  Quarantine closes with indie-uproar of "Fight This Generation", which feels more of place here than it did on Wowee.  And in between those two lay "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence".  The one piece not from a Pavement release, the band’s contribution to 1993’s No Alternative compilation extols their love of R.E.M. (QRO album review), especially early days, even if "‘Time After Time’ was my least favorite song" on Reckoning (QRO deluxe edition review) – and ends with the band’s reenactment of the Rebels fighting Sherman’s march on Georgia.  If only one non-Pavement release song was going to be included, this would be the one.

Though if there were going to be two, Quarantine the Past really could have used "Painted Soldiers", their contribution to the Kids In the Hall: Brain Candy soundtrack.  Also, it was written by Kannenberg, who gets only one song written solely by him on the entire compilation, Brighten‘s "Date w/ IKEA" – shorter shrift than he even got in contributing when the band was together.  A fan can point out songs like that that one wishes were included (also single "Rattled By the Rush", early piece "Zürich Is Stained", late b-side "Roll With the Wind", and enough more to fill a whole second disc), but as an introduction to the most anticipated indie-reunion yet (at least until the one from Hüsker Dü – QRO spotlight on), one can’t do much better.

MP3 Stream: "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence"

{audio}/mp3/files/Pavement – Unseen Power of the Picket Fence.mp3{/audio}

   

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