Pavement - Gold Soundz

Pavement might have come to the world's attention for the mildly abrasive stylings of their debut album, but this track, from the 1994 follow-up Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, is really just a gentle pop song, which could have been a massive hit if, erm, well I guess if the listening public had any taste. (Sorry if that sounds overly harsh, but I have been watching the Eurovision semis all week.) Actually, it reminds me of something the Replacements might have done after they "matured"...but much cooler. Maybe the fear of a comparison like that explains why they felt the need to lower the tone with this silly video.

Lovely song, anyway.

Interpol - Obstacle 1

I know some people have really, erm, strong feelings about Interpol but fuck 'em. This is a brilliant track. Everything I loved about Joy Division, the Chameleons and all the other great atmospheric post-punk bands of the 80s. With similarly silly hair.

This is from some American TV show, I guess.

Teenage Fanclub - Every Picture I Paint

Teenage Fanclub's first album was a lo-fi and rather ramshackle affair, with little evidence of the irresistible Big Star pop that characterised Bandwagonesque. It's much closer to indie rock, really, which makes sense since it was on Matador. I don't dislike it but I wouldn't listen to it nearly as much as Bandwagonesque. Unfortunately I don't think their later material even lives up to the debut, much less its (deservedly) highly-acclaimed follow-up.

Here's one of the handful of songs from A Catholic Education that hinted at what was to follow ... at least for the next album.

Pavement - In The Mouth A Desert

Like everyone else in the universe with taste, I loved Pavement's first album when it came out but lately I'd been having some doubts about it. I suppose because I hadn't actually listened to it as an album in some time and generally only heard the songs that came up on my iPod. And because I have not a proper iPod but a cheap shitty knockoff (I won't give the company more publicity by telling you their name) it doesn't shuffle properly so it was the same Pavement songs that kept coming up again and again. And almost inevitably it was the least interesting songs on the album, like "Zurich Is Stained" and "Conduit For Sale". So I was starting to think, eh, maybe that album wasn't so good after all.

But then I sat and listened to it the whole way through again and my faith was restored. OK, so it has a few boring tracks. So do most records. The good stuff is still really, really, really fucking good. And there's a lot of good stuff on it.

On another day I might have posted "Summer Babe" or "Perfume-V" here instead but today I think I'll go with this one.

Big Heifer - Flowers in our Hair

Here's one from the soundtrack of a mid-1990s film called Half-Cocked - a fictionalised piece about an indie band on tour, although not quite as Spinal Tap as that sounds. I don't remember it too well; I think it was one of those films that was cool at the time because of all the indie rock stars in it. But not exactly Cannes Film Festival material.

I know nothing whatsoever about Big Heifer, apart from this song, which I think is the best thing on the album.