Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock
Titolo: una rece di Crooked Rain (Pavement)

Review by LarryG
Pavement were one of the most interesting bands of the 90's, putting out a
series of challenging records. Some prefer the looser, more scattered
Slanted & Enchanted but I think CR, CR is their best, showing their ability
to work within the format of a standard rock record but definitely showing
their own personality. Leader Stephen Malkmus is a gifted guitar player and
a bright guy who knows how to construct a great rock song but seems bored by
doing things too straigt. Cut Your Hair, the catchiest song Pavement's ever
done, crystalizes the Pavement ethic. Its enjoyably dopey hooks, complete
with perky background vocals, show they can make accessible music that would
appeal beyond their adoring college radio base. But the song is about
"selling out". In the middle Malkmus screams about the tension of "career,
career, career" as if to admit that doing music for a living instead of just
to goof around is embarrassing. Still, the band's desire to do things
differently, without pop sheen, is its great appeal. Not every band would
dis alternative stars and presumed fans Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing
Pumpkins like they do on Range Life. Crooked Rain is the band's most tuneful
record. Silence Kit is surprisingly reminiscent of Buddy Holly's Everyday.
Gold Sounds makes fun of pop convention, including the line "we're coming to
the chorus now" but is a charming pop song, using Malkmus' wavering vocals
and loose playing but building to a rocking climax. Malkmus mixes flip smart
ass lyrics and sincere expressions. When he wearily sings in the dreamy
finale, Fillmore Jive, "I need to sleep", he sounds like he's been through a
lot and means what he says.
Here's what others reviewers have to say:
"...an album that's darker and more beguiling than their heralded previous
efforts....CROOKED RAIN's clean production and insidiously catchy melodies
hardly signify that Pavement have sold out--if anything, their vision is
more warped and caustic than before...."  4 Stars (out of 5)     Rolling
Stone 2/24/94, p.55
"...at heart, CROOKED RAIN is an album that celebrates and denigrates
itself....an album largely about the plight of rock bands that, like
Pavement, are poised between critical and popular success...." New York
Times 3/13/94, p.38
--
Fabio Lenny
_____________________________________________________
paint my walls blue, but don't forget smiling sun
paint my walls blue, but don't forget floating clouds
paint my walls blue, but don't forget singing birds
Don't you think that I can be like a butterfly?

un' altra rece tratta da 
www.westernhomes.org
, dove c.r. è considerato
(giustamente, dico io)il miglior disco dei '90...
I own a lot of records. A lot. Really. But I have no problem identifying the
most important one. It's a no-brainer. For I wouldn't have half -- strike
that, a tenth -- of those records if it weren't for Pavement' Crooked Rain,
Crooked Rain. Even if I did, I don't think I would have the appreciation and
understanding, not to mention the passion needed to actual seek rock
criticism as a career, were it for my accidentally buying that record in
1994.
I say "accidentally" because there's a story attached, as there always are
in these kind of affairs. Late spring/early summer '94: my last day of
junior high. A group of people from my class were going to Baker's Square
after class got out to celebrate. My mom taught at my elementary school, so
I ran to her classroom to bum a few bucks off of her so I could get some
pie. She didn't have anything lower than some twenties, so she gave me one
of those. We took the bus out to the Square, which in my suburban community
was located across the street from a Coconuts Music & Movies. I wasn't
actually all that hungry, I realized, so I figured I'd just get a soda and
some fries (and pie), then go spend the rest of my mother's cash on a CD for
the new stereo I had gotten for my birthday. (February 26th.) I had a few
discs, but most of my peers had more, and I felt a need to compensate. I ate
my pie and crossed the street.
The first CD I eyed (I will admit) was Hints, Allegations And Things Left
Unsaid by Collective Soul. Fortunately, it was $15.99, which with tax I
could not cover. I put it dejectedly back in the rack and began to shuffle
away. I paused. Something was not quite right. The even rows of Collective
Soul albums were broken by one odd-looking, gray CD cover. What was this? I
picked the thing up. Mysterious scrawled phrases, ring-bedecked hands...a
bandshell? Why is the title repeated? I don't get it!
The band's name: Pavement. I searched my at that time tragically
underdeveloped musical database for the name. Finally, I was able to make a
connection. The band was, if memory served, responsible for the funny
"ooh-ooh-ooh" song Q-101 (Chicago's New Rock Alternative) had played twice
the last week then strangely stopped spinning altogether. (Perhaps some
astute management figure noticed the record was not on a major label and
quickly fired the DJ responsible for inflicting such patently unacceptable
music on the Q's zombie fanbase.) I normally wouldn't buy something so
strange. None of my junior high pals owned this album!
My brain began to work furiously. Maybe if I couldn't own as many records as
the other kids, I could own odder records. Quality not quantity, right? I
eyed the pricetag. $12.99? SOLD!
Crooked Rain's brilliance didn't kick in right away. It was actually that
summer, when I was taking a journalism course in summer school. I agreed to
write music reviews, because I figured it was something I could do with out
investing any effort or (horrors!) having to talk to any upperclassmen. I
reviewed Soundgarden's Superunknown (I gave it four stars, sorry, I was
young) and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (three stars). Of course, I've since
sold all the Soundgarden I ever owned, and I've gotten every Pavement
release the day it's come out (or sooner). I don't remember when exactly I
realized it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard, but I figured it out
eventually. I bought Slanted & Enchanted soon afterwards and that pretty
much ended my chances of ever living a normal, non-music obsessed life.
I suppose there's not much else to say that hasn't been said already, in
terms of specifics about the album itself. It's great. "Silence Kit" is a
stumbling, shambling say-left-and-go-right album opener, with a false ending
and the single most dramatic cowbell ding in modern rock history. (Thanks,
Bob!) "Elevate Me Later" instructs us all to "sleep with electric guitars,"
solid advice, and lopes with a perverse anti-urgency that remains
unparallelled. "Stop Breathin" proves Pavement can play it even subtler if
they feel like it, and can make instrumental noodling sound like something
you'd kill to hear the resolution of. "Gold Soundz" and "Cut Your Hair" are
gorgeous, golden pop songs, with the kind of intelligence and honesty you'd
think they'd banned from catchy music judging by what you hear on the radio
today. "Hit The Plane Down," oft-maligned in some circles, is really a
genius, weird critique of dance music, or maybe just an intentionally
ignorant-sounding celebration of it. "5-4=Unity," bewilderingly, covers Dave
Brubeck. "Range Life," less bewilderingly, tells Billy Corgan he sucks. I
still don't know what's up with "Newark Wilder." "Unfair" rocks my world,
even more so that I live in Northern California and really know what it's
about now.
Then there's "Fillmore Jive," a multi-part, guitar-laden essay which
attempts to bemoan the staleness of three-chord rock boredom by employing an
additional chord, some very strange lyrics about spiders and chalices, and
another abrupt ending. Credit where credit is due to Mark Ibold, whose most
exciting bass-playing on the album comes at its very close -- and it's only
one note! Wow! Imagine what he could do with say, two!
Well, whatever. It doesn't make sense it words because Pavement music is
about more than words. Wait! Damn! Didn't mean to call up visions of Extreme
there! Strike that from the record! Well, what I meant to say was...oh, damn
it, never mind. Everyone has their Pavement story, or ought to have one. No
one tells it right, or at least not in the way they really feel it. Pavement
saved me, they probably saved you, they may have saved untold thousands, the
truth may never be known. All we have are the records, and the words.
And in the beginning was Pavement. And the kids saw that it was good, and
they said, "Geez, all these Warrant and Nine Inch Nails records are all
right, but I have always needed something that engages my mind, that goes
where I've never been, that takes me to places that I wasn't aware of before
but have always wanted to go to. And also I want lyrics about concrete
rivers and either tennis or familial breakdown and a career or possibly
Korea, not sure which, if that can be fit in there, thank you. And this is
it. Everything makes sense now. Thank you, Pavement. Could you possibly now
test my trust by releasing maybe three or four really confusing,
occasionally brilliant but mostly disappointing albums that are just good
enough to make me keep loving you and appreciating just how great those
first two records are?" And Pavement listened, because Pavement love you,
and they love me, they love all of us, and they will take care of us all.