Zak recommends, Pavement - Quarantine the Past

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Matador Records

I'm sure that all Pavement fans are aware that they are re-uniting this year and will be touring. To go along with this the band has hand-picked 23 tracks for this greatest hits compilation. I don't normally review greatest hits collections in this space but I feel this release is warranted as it is filled to overflowing with many great tracks and for anyone who has not heard Pavement before this is a great place to start. Most of the faves & classics are here however there is also some oddball choices to keep things interesting. They are also not in chronological order, which I have no issue with. The whole is cohesive and it works well. There is a wide enough range of material represented here to give the listener a good spectrum of the range of this great bands work.


Pavement's lo-fi slacker rock was probably the best indie music of the 90's. There are probably going to be many who will complain about some of the omissions in this collection but that is bound to happen when you try to distil their work down and still try to maintain a solid cross section. there are tracks from their first EP right up to their final studio album. Although not a commercially successful band these guys are cited as major influences by many artists that came in the decade after them. A chance to see them this year on the tour should be memorable.

Tracks:

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 and Enchanted)
20 Embassy Row (Brighten the Corners)
21 Box Elder (Slay Tracks 1933-1969 EP)
22 Unseen Power of the Picket Fence (No Alternative compilation)
23 Fight This Generation (Wowee Zowee)
Official Website:  http://www.myspace.com/pavement

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