A very good friend of mine equates listening Pavement on the stereo to drinking a series of cold gin fizzes on the porch during a summer afternoon. I agree. There is something of a tonic quality in these sardonic gods of cryptic, low fidelity rock that defines a generation of the American underground.
As an individual album, Wowee Zowee is the middle album in the Pavement catalog, both literally and figuratively. Sitting smack dab in between the genre defining Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and the laid back sensibility of Brighten the Corners, it is one part triumphant mess and another tempting experimentation. The band branched into a vast array of music styles, successfully incorporating folk, jazz and country in with the guitar rock that gave them sudden fame. In classic Pavement form there are extended works of near genius ("Grounded" and "We Dance"), fragments suggesting genius and ragged constructions that can split an audience with maddening ease. One listen to "Brinx Job" and "Serpentine Pad" and the whole definition of "pop" goes out the window. There is no qualifier though when the legacy of a work like Wowee Zowee comes into question: any band in the ten years since its release to call itself artfully low fidelity owes these off-kilter monsters a debt of gratitude. An argument might be made against the "Sordid Sentinels" edition that there are few new tunes offered. Disc two is largely comprised of live tracks, BBC in studio recordings and alternate versions of the source material. The vault was apparently emptied in making Wowee Zowee, so the bonus material can only be considered supplements, certainly not pieces deepening the original release.
It's November. Now is not the time for porch sitting, and the weather is more apropos a hot toddy than it is a gin fizz. This analogy doesn't necessarily need to hold strictly to definition however. The tonic effect is near the same. Pavement as an entity may be gone, but their legacy hasn't neared its zenith. A generation of imitators, rock pundits and fanatics are still to be made, and the lasting effect of these fuzzy, murk lined songs still to be determined. The Sordid Sentinels of Wowee Zowee edition might lack those new tunes that a packed second disc might suggest, but its depth and role of "album-as-time-capsule" makes clear the need to preserve and cherish the mechanism of their genius. |