#434 Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)
Coming in with a very textbook indie album for you today. That's not to say this work isn't original or creative, but it frames the alt and indie scene of the 90's well. From what I can gather, the post punk 90's were all about slow and sad rock songs with slow and sad intentions. This is the second of five albums released by Pavement which ended up being their most popular album and contained some of their more well know tracks like Cut your hair and Range life. My initial reactions to this album is that it's firmly in the depressive, question everything, what is my life worth?, type of music. Even when the music is upbeat, the lyrics and vocal style are usually talking about how shitty it is to be where we are right now, and how cool it would be to be anywhere else in the world. This is a sentiment I think a lot of teens and pre teens go through, at least in the US where I grew up and still live. Some of the reviews and critiques of the album and the band focus on them complaining about teenage problems specifically but I think that's a cleaver way for the band to bring more existentialist topics into their music.
The most popular song on this album is Cut your hair which pokes fun at the importance of image in the music industry. I can't think of a more 90's indie band thing to do than make a song that makes fun of the industry that you are a part of. Not only that but it's done in a sarcastic and ironic way that you would only expect a group of lanky white dudes from California to be able to pull off. We do get a good display of lead guitarist Scott Kannberg's style in songs like 5-4=Unity and Stop Breathin' (could there be a more emo name to a song???) which in my mind blends popular rock styles like Red Hot Chilli Peppers with nods to slower and more introspective groups like maybe The Pixies. I've gotta say that this is a pretty well rounded album for a 90's indie band. They paint an immensely clear picture of who they are and what their mission is. I wasn't even alive when this album came out but from what I can gather about the early 90's is that the new generation of people was not super excited about the future that had been laid out for them by their parents and grandparents and the best way to solve it was to get angsty and get loud.
Give it a listen, see what you think.














