12. Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Quite possibly my favorite summer album. Every time I hear it, it is summertime.

Actually, the same could be said for Pavement’s entire output, at least for me. I have a tendency to immediately associate an album with whatever season I first heard it, and Pavement is perhaps the most notable victim of this, since I heard most of their records for the first time over the course of a few summers (with the exception of Wowee Zowee, which I first heard in the fall, but who cares). And Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the encapsulation of all that.

It’s the record that made me fall in love with Pavement. Slanted And Enchanted was the first one I heard, and while I liked it a lot, it didn’t push me to seek out any more Pavement (just yet). But my reaction to Crooked Rain was immediate - it was warmer, more fully produced, better-sung, and full of some of Malkmus/Spiral Stairs’s finest songwriting. Has Pavement opened an album with a better song than “Silence Kit,” or ended it better than the gorgeous “Fillmore Jive”? And “Range Life” (with its all-too-apt Smashing Pumpkins half-diss) and and “Stop Breathin” and “Elevate Me Later” and “Cut Your Hair”, an honest-to-goodness kinda-sorta hit single! Man!

Wowee Zowee will always be a pretty close second Pavement album, but I think Crooked Rain will always be my favorite. It is the album that began my love affair with one of my favorite bands, and that means a whole lot. “Gold Soundz” is the song I am posting here because it is another one of those perfect summer songs.

I don’t know if it is obvious, but I had a ticket to see Pavement last week and I LOST IT. Not to mention that it was in Central Park and I wasn’t gonna be able to make it anyway. But still, listening to this record again makes me feel a lil wistful.