Stephen Malkmus

by

Stephen Malkmus

Edit

This is a great record, and it contains lots of the good things Pavement had going for them the last 3-4 years, plus a more adventurous attitude. The big thing to me is that it's FUN (a way too rare thing). The lyrics are great; they're in the same vein as the last few Pavement records, but still surprising, funny and insightful. The music is faster, more relaxed, and confident. The mood is positively upbeat.

OK, it isn't a classic. But it's best record I can imagine Stephen Malkmus making right now. Considering it's a solo debut following the breakup of the 90's best band AND it's the best record I've heard in a few years AND SM is obviously still moving forward in an artistic sense... don't under estimate it when you listen to it and simply say, "What a great record."

Some people won't like this record for a bunch of predicatably bad reasons. Don't believe it. This record is the sound of being simultaneously optimistic, intelligent and playful. And hey, not everyone fits that description.

Now-defunct indie gods Pavement, while producing a few of the finest albums of the past decade, never made much of a splash outside of indie rock circles and never sold many records. So I'm pretty amazed at how much hype I've seen surrounding the first solo album from the band's frontman -- prominent, glowing essays in Rolling Stone, Spin, and the rest of the music press. Not surprisingly, Stephen Malkmus (the album) sounds an awful lot like Pavement -- after all, setting aside a few songs written by Pavement second chair Scott Kannberg and some instrumental and vocal flourishes by the rest of the band, Pavement essentially was Malkmus (particularly on the last few albums). It's not too far off to consider Pavement's last album, Terror Twilight, to have been the real first Malkmus solo album, much like the final Replacements album (All Shook Down) was really the first Paul Westerberg solo album.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that, for better and worse, the breakup of Pavement isn't the biggest deal in the world, as Stephen Malkmus simply picks up where the band left off. In many respects, this album is far better than Terror Twilight, an album which, while including a few moments of that twisted Pavement alt-pop glory ("Spit on a Stranger," "Carrot Rope," "Major League"), was way too dull for my taste. After re-invigorating indie rock and tossing off two of the greatest albums of the '90's (if not the rock era) -- Slanted & Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain -- Pavement went steadily downhill. While Malkmus' gifts as a lyricist continued to grow, he seemed to abandon his talent for coming up with a unique hook for each song; beginning with their third full-length album, Wowee Zowee, Pavement seemed to add music to Malkmus' lyrics almost as an afterthought. While this worked to some extent on the underrated Brighten the Corners, by Terror Twilight the music was totally lacking in energy. So it's a pleasant surprise that Malkmus has decided that, yes, catchy hooks matter after all. And Stephen Malkmus, while still playing to Malkmus' strengths as the crafter of idiosyncratic lyrics, is a perkier, poppier album than I would have expected. Tunes like "The Hook" and "Jennifer and the Ess-Dog" have that instantly-hummable quality of early Pavement, coupled with the verbal jabs that make Malkmus a stand-out in indie circles. The former is an allegorical I've-Grown-Up-And-Gone-Solo tune reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's first post-Genesis single "Solsbury Hill"; the latter is an almost-melodramatic retelling of a May-December romance between a rich teenage girl and her boyfriend who plays in a 60's cover band. And despite Malkmus' rep as a snide purveyor of slacker irony, the songs are earnest and benefit from the personal warmth he started bringing to his lyrics around the time of Brighten the Corners. It's not a perfect album, and even at its catchiest lacks the go-for-broke abandon of early Pavement, but it shows that, unlike Westerberg, Malkmus went solo with a few good ideas still kicking around.