Comments on: 20 best pavement songs ever

By: Shutthe Fuckup

Shutthe Fuckup — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:01:15 +0000

Okay, you like Pavement? Kudos for you.

But the thing is, few Pavement fans will agree on a list like this. Sites are there where fans have voted, and there is no consensus. It’s all over the board.

What that means is if you’re going to list your own, you better have some damn good reasoning why you choose what you did. With yours, I only made it past the top two and had to say something.

Pueblo? Good call, definitely among their best. So you were driving in your mother’s - sorry, stepmother’s - Taurus, and almost put a long white pole (I won’t even get into the phallic imagery here) through your mouth - er, head, and that’s a reason for this being your favorite Pavement song?

Man, seek therapy. That’s seriously fucked up. And - I mean this - lay off the Pavement. For your stepmom’s sake, if not yours.

Oh, and people who drive a Taurus are kinda losers. People who trash them are kinda cool, but if you do it by accident that doesn’t count. Doesn’t matter what the soundtrack is.

Next comes “Texas Never Whispers”. Not a terrible choice, but second best? Okay, the opening guitar rips all else to shreds, but after that? There’s a reason S.M. chose Box Elder over this in concert. But okay, I’m open to a new argument, so let’s have it.

“some phrase that Peter Bogdanovich or even John Lennon would think of, and then do their best to repeat at every instance”

I have no fucking idea what the fuck that even means, and neither, I’m gonna bet, do you. Bogdonavich did one truly great film, maybe two or three others that were pretty good and then acted on the Sopranos. Maybe you mean “The Last Picture Show?” That was Texas whispering. And John Lennon? in Texas? Shit.

Blog posts like this give blogs a bad name. Please don’t do that anymore.

By: Billy

Billy — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:35:21 +0000

Is Gold Soundz too obvious?

By: Jether Fation

Jether Fation — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:30:16 +0000

yeah, ’shoot the singer’ should be on here. i can never get enough of the guitar part when it kicks into “and in the morning light, you hold that ashtray tight”… never gets old.

By: ee

ee — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:05:08 +0000

really nice list. good call on so stark and give it a day. the way that song falls apart at the end bugs me so much but it is too infectious to dislike. you’re missing ‘trigger cut’ ’shoot the singer’ and ‘father to a sister of thought’ though.

oh and best track title goes to ‘angel carver blues/mellow jazz docent’.

By: Jose

Jose — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:08:02 +0000

Good list…I would only take issue with the (relatively) low ranking of In the Mouth of a Desert–probably my #1 pick. No doubt that Frontwards (probably my #2 favorite) has one of the ultimate Pavement lyrics with the “I’ve got style” line, but let’s not forget the equally definitive (and, if nothing else, descriptive) chorus of Mouth of a Desert, where Malkmus exhorts us to “Wait to hear my words, and theyre diamond sharp.” Musically, I think it stands as the most complex and sophisticated example of the layered, occasionally clashing riffs and unexpected twists and turns that the early Pavement became famous for.

Oh, and its opening line–”Can you treat it like an oil well, when it’s underground, out of sight?”….well that might very well be the coolest first sentence in the history of rock.

By: AC

AC — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:39:10 +0000

Wow, great list, and totally agree with the No 1. Though my 2 and 3 are nowhere to be seen … Father to a Sister of Thought, with that outstanding steel guitar, and “and then …” the Carrot Rope 7inch b-side, which must the best version of the Hexx.

By: jizzface

jizzface — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:46:50 +0000

Good list, i think summer babe should be number one tho it is an incredible song, trigger cut aswell. Also one of my favourites is the song Jackie false grips: the lonesome era, really psyceldelic and different to most other pavement songs

By: Daniel, Esq.

Daniel, Esq. — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:00:16 +0000

I just don’t get Pavement. They’re not made for my ears, I guess.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:41:43 +0000

I agree with a lot of your list…which is weird I would say, for pavement fans. I’ve got this playlist on my Ipod, (80 mins long) where i try to rank pavement’s best songs. We probably overlap about 10-12 in our top 20.

I definitely have a bit more of a balance (not that that’s better), with all of the albums actually getting at least a few songs. Oh, how hard it is to pick out 80 minutes of pavement!

So anyway, I tinker with it all the time. My top 5 is soo hard to sort out. Pueblo is my number one, too. Goodness that song….the way it just all comes together without really being cohesive at all. Beauty, from perhaps america’s greatest homegrown band.

GREAT list

By: smitty

smitty — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:18:06 +0000

great stuff - just saw slow century and remembered again how amazing pavement was… “it’s a brand new era, but it came too late”.

Seriously tho, no “Conduit for Sale”??? I’m tryin! (to convince)