Pavement Album: “Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement”

With hindsight it was no great surprise that when Damon Albarn tired of the rat race that had become Britpop he turned his focus to Pavement possibly the greatest American band (along with Wilco) of the past 20 years. The subsequent album "Blur" did indeed caused significant tensions between one time friends Albarn and the creative genius behind Pavement, rocks answer to Einstein, Stephen Malkmus. No need to recount the feud here suffice it to say that I would give up every Blur album I own if it came down to a straight choice to retaining any one of the following three Pavement albums namely "Brighten the Corners", "Slanted & Enchanted" or "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" by Pavement.

Why is such an endearingly shambolic band so loved? After all some of their incoherent performances were legendary and generated such antagonism that they were often booed off stage. Indeed at one time they revelled in the self appointed label of "The Band That Ruined Lollapallooza" as a result of a particularly anarchic performance. It was because of this that they were often dubbed the American "Wire" or more precisely the American "Fall"/ These are comparisons that in this reviewers eyes can only be viewed as wonderful compliments to reputation of an already great band and you will do no wrong checking out Pavements cover of Mark E Smith's "The Classicist".

"Quarantine of the past" is a thorough if rather badly sequenced "best of" (what do you expect?) and contains enough delights to keep both old and new Pavement fans roundly satisfied. Yes there are curious omissions, not least of the truly brilliant "Pueblo" and "We Dance" from "Wowee Zowee, "Major Leagues" and "Carrot Rope" from the admittedly flawed "Terror Twilight" and that Pavement perennial and great lo fi anthem "Zurich is Stained" from Slanted. It does contain however Pavements greatest hits (oh the irony) which include "Summer babe (winter version)", Trigger Cut/Wounded kite at 17" "Cut your hair" "Here" "Stereo" and everyone's favourite "Range life" with the Malkmus showing yet again that he is best lyricist this side of Morrissey. Who else could have got away in "Stereo" with "Well focus on the quasar in the mist / The Kaiser has a cyst / And I'm a blank want list"

Clearly for this "best of" the albums compliers this must have been a terrifying task. Pavement fans are Obsessive Compulsive Disorder types of the most extreme kind (Yes your honour I too am guilty) and there is no substitute for the owning the three albums a highlighted above. Pavement never sought the big time, no great archive of MTV videos exists and on times they were truly dire. Yet like Television or the Velvets their influence is enduring and persuasive and can be heard in REM, Nirvana, Blur and Grizzly Bear et al. Never has such a shambolic and awkward band cast such a giant shadow.

Can't post my review from [...] because it refers readers to earlier reviews of Wowee Zowee, Brighten the Corners and Stephen Malkmus' Pig Lib, all GREAT albums. But this CD is noteworthy to Pavement fans because 1) the remastered tracks are well done and are yet another step to improving the sound quality of your digital library; 2) while tracks are, yes, out of order (big deal), there are some curious selections (apparantly made by Pavement themselves), which makes it more of a "Songs The Band Wants You To Remember" release; and finally, 3)I am just completely psyched that the band will tour this year. Last saw them in 19-dickety-doo (like, 1994ish in Asheville, NC) and they were a tight band.

Not much of a review, because there is nothing all that new here. Love the band, great new remastered versions of an eclectic selection of Pavement tunes. Fans should suck it up and buy it. Newcomers to the band should start from scratch in order to appreciate the band's evolution in sound and style.

A great collection, made even better by the quality of the vinyl edition and the inclusion of the download. NICE!

Pavement was the last important band. This collection is pretty strong - how could it NOT be? It inspired me to put my own comp together & I wound up only replacing 4 cuts with 5 of my own. Also, I put it in chron order - the QTP order makes no sense. Here, IMHO is the ultimate Pavement mix:

Box Elder

Mellow Jazz Docent

Debris Slide

Summer Babe

Trigger Cut

In the Mouth a Desert

Here

Frontwards

Shoot the Singer

Silence Kid

Cut Your Hair

Unfair

Gold Soundz

Rattled by the Rush

Grounded

Father to a Sister of Thought

Fight This Generation

Stereo

Shady Lane

Date w/ IKEA

Embassy Row

Spit on a Stranger

Major Leagues

Carrot Rope

I'm really confused as to why the band chose to release an album like this. Sure, remasters are always nice, but who are they trying to reach here? Most fans already have the three albums mentioned in the above review, and "Slanted..." and "Crooked..." account for most of this compilation. If it had been heavy on the later, less popular stuff, this might have had more impact IMO.