Record Review: Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement

By Alex Brenner

Just in time to coincide with the much anticipated Pavement reunion comes a greatest hits package from Matador Records. I don’t know if I’d call them “hits” but it’s definitely a decent best of compilation. For those of you unfamiliar with Pavement this is a great introduction to the band.

The tracks range from 1989-1999 and cover just enough – although I fear some fans may argue the selection. There is always that one song you wish was on a record like this. Where’s my “Zurich is Stained” from Slanted and Enchanted? Boo hoo fan boy, never look a gift horse in the mouth. There are no new songs on this compilation, but if you bought Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels edition or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain LA’s Desert Origins or Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe you should pretty much have everything here.

Between 1993 and 1997, I must have seen this band live ten or so times and they were always great. Believe the hype of this reunion, Pavement have been an essential influence on just about every indie rock act you can think of.

“Go back to those gold soundz,” Stephen Malkmus pleads on the lead off track. Wow, this takes me back to 1994 when Crooked Rain Crooked Rain was just one of those albums that blew my mind. Luckily there are about five tracks from that album on here, including the band’s only sort of hit “Cut Your Hair” – a mock of alternative rock bands “where attention and fame is a career,” or is that North Korea?

Quarantine the Past will surely get you singing along with “Stereo”, “Shady Lane,” and “Summer Babe”. Pavement always had a knack for hooks and especially great lyrics. “What about the voice of Geddy Lee?”, a sweet name check to Rush on “Stereo”. “A redder shade of neck on a whiter shade of trash” from “Shady Lane” or “Run from the pigs the fuzz the cops” from the alt-country twang of “Range Life”. This is what Pavement fans go nuts over.

Sure, they had great albums but what really made Pavement special were their B-sides and EP’s. One of the best EP’s had to be Watery Domestic, song after song. Two of those four songs appear on Quarantine the Past, “Frontwards” and “Shoot the Singer.”

There is also “Unseen Power of the Picket Fence” from 1993′s No Alternative compilation with an R.E.M. name check where Malkmus screams “Time after time was my least favorite song” from the Reckoning album. As far as “best of” albums go this is quite comprehensive collection; they even included “Box Elder” from the Slay Tracks (1933-1969) EP (later covered by The Wedding Present) and “Mellow Jazz Docent” from the Perfect Sound Forever EP.

If I were to make a proverbial “mix tape” of Pavement it would probably look very similar to Quarantine the Past. If there is a problem with Pavement, it is that all their records are amazing; you can’t just narrow it down to twenty odd songs and please everyone.

This reunion is a very important moment for rock music. Especially for a band that has they have not played live since 1999. It’s not a “just for the money” scheme either. Bassist Mark Ibold has been a member for Sonic Youth since 2006; Stephen Malkmus has played on the last several Silver Jews records and recorded and toured with his own band The Jicks; Scott Kannberg, aka Spiral Stairs, played with his own band The Preston School of Industry.

Sure, most of the late 80s and 90s bands are reuniting and for good reason: because too much of today’s music sucks. It just does. The reason I can say this is because back in 1992 two guys from Stockton, CA put out a record that changed indie rock forever, Slanted and Enchanted. Bands just do not make records like this anymore; not only great records but consistent records.

Pavement was just one of those bands that set the bar so high without even trying. Their music sounds effortless yet their complex arrangements are astounding and lyrics about quasars in the mist and scenic quays just keep us wondering. What Quarantine the Past does best is remind us how timeless and how relevant Pavement still is. It also makes us remember a time when alternative was alternative and not just the new fad blaring on an Apple commercial.

Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement will be available on Tuesday, March 9, at Decatur CD and Criminal Records.

Pavement will play the Tabernacle on September 26.

Listen: Pavement – Gold Soundz

Track Listing:

1. Gold Soundz (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
2. Frontwards (WATERY, DOMESTIC EP)
3. Mellow Jazz Docent (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER EP)
4. Stereo (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
5. In The Mouth A Desert (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
6. Two States (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
7. Cut Your Hair (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
8. Shady Lane / J Vs. S (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
9. Here (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
10. Unfair (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
11. Grounded (WOWEE ZOWEE)
12. Summer Babe (Winter Version) (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
13. Range Life (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
14. Date w/ IKEA (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
15. Debris Slide (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER EP)
16. Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse) (WATERY, DOMESTIC EP)
17. Spit On A Stranger (TERROR TWILIGHT)
18. Heaven Is a Truck (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
19. Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17 (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
20. Embassy Row (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
21. Box Elder (SLAY TRACKS 1933-1969 EP)
22. Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence (NO ALTERNATIVE COMP)
23. Fight This Generation (WOWEE ZOWEE)