Track Listing

1. Silence Kit
2. Elevate Me Later
3. Stop Breathin
4. Cut Your Hair
5. Newark Wilder
6. Unfair
7. Gold Soundz
8. 5 - 4 = Unity
9. Range Life
10. Heaven's a Truck
11. Hit the Plane Down
12. Fillmore Jive

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32255 in Music
• Released on: 1999-06-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com
On their second full-length album (not counting a compilation of early singles and EPs), Pavement emerge from the noisy clang and clutter to reveal the once-hidden songcraft and passion that made their previous recordings so mysteriously fascinating. The mystery may have receded on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but the fascination increases, for this album confirms what we only suspected before: Pavement are a great rock & roll band. The two Stockton, California, slackers who founded the band in 1989 have mastered the pop alchemy of transforming the collision of impatient youthful desires and a hostile world into aching, melodic vocals and driving, melodic guitar riffs. The band's cofounders use an element of suspense to illustrate just how fragile romantic optimism really is. When Steve Malkmus yearns for a human connection in his suburban community ("Silence Kid," "Range Life") or in the alternative-rock scene ("Cut Your Hair," "Fillmore Jive"), the elegant melodies let us know that the yearning is unironic, while the unstable guitars let us know the prospects are bleak. On the album's last song, they bid "good-night to the rock & roll era" even as they're giving it a new lease on life. --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews

not really a review as much as a....
i was asked once what my favorite pavement songs were...

there are some pavement songs which fit certain moods *perfectly*, and at those times, i don't have a choice but to count them as my favorites. for instance...i was in new york a few springs ago, spending the evening with the girl i'd had a brief-yet-effective romance with the summer before. she was there with a guy; i was there with two other girls, mutual friends. the five of us were in an underground, literal-hole-in-the-wall-type bar, tucked away inside a subway station at 50th street (i think). the bar was called siberia, and was a total punk/russian (prussian?) paradise. every light bulb was red, and there was writing on every inch of the walls and tables. the lone bathroom stall had a gaping three foot hole busted out of the wall on one side, through which you could see only blackness. the sofas had long ago collapsed on their stumpy legs and fallen to the sticky floor, where they laid dejected and off-balance. cushions were missing and the beer was extremely expensive. i got drunk and watched her...got drunk on the beer and the nostalgia both, pressed myself into a musty corner of the couch, and after a while, closed my eyes. there was a jukebox. it was the brightest and biggest thing in the whole place. it had "crooked rain, crooked rain" in it. i played "fillmore jive," wallowed in its brilliant decadence...i played it again then got up and roamed around manhattan for 5 hours. alone and happy.

that night, "fillmore jive" was my favorite pavement song.

Gold Sounds
1. Silence Kit
"Conduit For Sale!" was music for driving through the one-story cement chain stores of America. "Silence Kit" is music for cruising down Highway 1, cliffs on your left and the Pacific Ocean on your right.
2. Elevate Me Later
Yet another "girl left me and moved to Los Angeles" song, but Pavement does it with more poetry than, say, Reel Big Fish's "She's Famous Now". Some great lyrics in here: "Does he sleep with electric guitars/Range roving with the cinema stars/And I wouldn't want to shake their hands/Because they're on such a high-protein plan/And there's 40 different shades of black/So many fortresses and ways to attack"
3. Stop Breathin'
A slow song about death. Weird lyrics. Not great, not bad.
4. Cut Your Hair
Pavement's only "hit" song. Definately more pop than what you'd find on Slanted and Enchanted and Wowee Zowee, but the lyrics are definately Malkmusian. Speaks of people's shallow judgement of music, referencing how before they got big, all anyone talked about was their hippie drummer's long hair.
5. Newark Wilder
Creepy, uneasy jazz. You could see Christopher Walken walking through a rainy city on his way to kill somebody to this song.
6. Unfair
A song declaring Northern California's supremacy over Southern California over distorted punkish guitars, comparing our Shasta Gulch and Tahoe Lake to their "manmade deltas and concrete rivers". Sort of a continuation of Slanted's "Two States".
7. Gold Soundz
In a sort of pre-emo song, Malkmus sings of angst and self-loathing over heartfelt guitars with an intelligence and way with words that a modern emo band like Death Cab For Cutie could never duplicate.
8. 5-4=Unity
Very un-Pavement, an instrumental piano-centered jazz song.
9. Range Life
Chill country rock that references 1994 youth culture: skateboards, Walkmen, the Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins.
10. Heaven is a Truck
The companion to "Range Life," another country ballad, with a little bit more of a late night edge to it.
11. Hit the Plane Down
People say that they sound like The Fall on this song. I'm gonna come right out and say that I've never heard anything by the Fall. A repetative guitar riff plays as a man who isn't Steven Malkmus sings weird lyrics about crashing a plane.
12. Fillmore Jive
An amazing song. A six minute epic about the future of music. The first minute just has Malkmus singing over a single guitar, with lyrics that develop into the refrain "I need to sleep," which is complimented by a burst of music (drums, bass, and guitar). The following verses reference a music scene featuring glum "kids on vespas", streets full of punks, rockers with their long curly locks, all saying good night to the rock and roll era. The song has a melencholy optimism to it, like the band is saying goodbye to an era of music, while welcoming a new era in, one that filled with drug addicts, skinny arms, and the "dance faction/a little too loose for me".

The crown jewel of the Pavement discography!
Every once in a while an album comes along that makes you completely rethink the way you listen to music. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is that album, and in one word-Perfection! From the opening jangly guitars of Silence Kit to the feedback sputtering finale of Filmore Jive, Pavement orchestrates what may be the greatest rock record of all time. Steve Malkamus' Lyrics are sharp and sarcastic, yet they evoke strong nostalgic feelings of good times and lazy summers. "Range Life" is the kind of song that makes you long for the worryless days of youth when life was so simple, and is easily one of the best Pavement songs ever written. Every note on this record is so well placed yet it always retains a feeling of looseness and improvisation. At times it almost feels like Malkamus could crack up laughing at his own offbeat lyrics (heaven is a truck, it got stuck)and he even takes a few jabs at pop music icons like the Smashing Pumkins and STP. Crooked Rain is fresh, polished and full of indie attitude, and would definitely be the one CD I would grab if the house caught fire. If you don't own it yet... Go get it! You won't be disappointed!