Review:
“Slanted & Enchanted is a left-field classic.” STE The band’s “intention was simply to make a ‘cool record’ – but Pavement’s debut was a generational touchstone, bundling a selected history of maverick music into an album that’s still an integral part of the alt-rock curriculum.” BL It was “a record that came out of nowhere to help establish a new subgenre of rock & roll” STE – it was “the Nevermind of cerebral indie rock.” BL
“It never charted [in the U.S.], but fans believe the band never bettered it” BL and the influence of the “fuzzed-out masterpiece…on Beck, Blur, Radiohead and countless other musicians of the ‘90s is incalculable.” TL “It’s a complex, enthralling record, filled with fractured riffs, strong melodies, and cryptic melodies, and with all the hiss and static, Slanted & Enchanted sounds like listening to a distant college radio station – melodies and hooks keep floating in and out of the mix, with individual lines instead of full lyrics surfacing through the murk.” STE
“Pavement had already sketched out their sound, as well as their amateurish lo-fi aesthetic, on a series of indie singles before recording their debut, but Slanted & Enchanted is where they pulled all of their disparate sounds together into a distinctive style. At first, the primitive sound of the record is the most gripping thing about Slanted, but soon the true innovations of the record appear through the songs themselves.” STE
“Lead singer and former Whitney Museum of Art security guard Stephen Malkmus expressed alienation with the same lo-fi guitar grit of Kurt Cobain, but his lyrics and vocals are models of cryptic passion.” TL “Malkmus and Spiral Stairs subvert conventional pop structures, turning melodies inside out, reinterpreting and reworking older songs, and bending genres together.” STE
“Summer Babe could pass for a rougher than normal bit of classic rock if Malkmus weren’t singing, ‘She waits there in the levee wash, mixing cocktails with a plastic-tipped cigar’ before finally getting to the money line – ‘You’re my summer babe!’ Somehow his word salads communicated both the ennui of a suburban smart ass as well as an awareness that ennui isn’t tragic.” TL
“This unique song structure as much as the sound of the album itself makes Slanted & Enchanted an individual, signature work and one of the most influential records of the ‘90s.” STE
Review Source(s):
- BL Blender Magazine’s 100 Greatest American Albums (10/08)
- STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
- TL Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light, Time Magazine’s “All-TIME 100 Albums” (11/13/06)
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