The early nineties saw America gripped in grunge mania, led by Nirvana, as several bands washed up from the underground and invaded the charts. Grunge provided an antithesis to the pop music that dominated the charts, and like punk did with English teenagers, it became a voice for the disaffected and disillusioned. Like many great musical movements, grunge failed to last the course; its demise in popular culture intrinsically linked to Kurt Cobain’s tragic death. Grunge was at the peak of its power in 1992, though, dominating the airwaves, bolstered by the commercial success of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten.
Pavement’s Enchanted and Slanted may have lacked the commercial bite of some of their contemporaries, but it is an undisputed masterpiece of the nineties. Pavement didn’t pioneer lof-fi music, but nobody did it better, with their ability to combine warped and distorted rhythms with beautiful melodies, all tied together by Stephen Malkmus’s languid, shoulder-shrugging delivery. Pavement were initially consigned to the underground, where they were happiest, avoiding major labels and media fanfare. They briefly stuck their head above the parapet with ‘Cut Your Hair’, but Pavement never lent great weight to success, staying true to their indie ethos.
Many bands spent the nineties tripping and stumbling over the weight of their early releases, fading into obscurity, never to be seen again. Pavement provided a pillar of consistency through the nineties, releasing five albums until they broke up in 1999, not wishing to outstay their welcome, having quietly defined the nineties alternative scene. There was something quintessentially cool about Pavement’s laissez-faire approach, a shaggy slackness that gave the impression that they weren’t trying hard, something Beavis and Butt-Head famously took note of. Malkmus’s humorous, wry observations often led to people perceiving him as aloof, the price you pay for being smart and showing it through your music.
Pavement was initially formed in 1989 as the studio project of vocalist Stephen Malkmus and guitarist Scott Kannberg. The duo were childhood friends who had previously performed together as part of the punk band Bag O Bones. After playing open mic nights, the duo recorded a series of EPs at producer and musician Gary Young’s Louder Than You Think Studio. The pair recorded three EPs alongside Young, Slay Tracks (1933-1969), Demolition Plot J-7, and the ironically titled Perfect Sound Forever. Young ended up drumming on all three EPs, which garnered underground praise for their distinctly lo-fi aesthetic, a sound that initially baffled Young.
Neither Malkmus nor Kannberg had great experience; they didn’t even own a bass when they first started recording. Contrastingly, Young was a reputable figure in Stockton’s music scene, a well-established face. Even if the sound confused Young, he channelled it superbly, helping create one of the greatest debut albums ever. Regarding Velvet Underground’s debut album, Brian Eno once said, “It only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band”. Slanted and Enchanted can’t be granted the same power, but its influence is undoubtable, showing that you don’t require all the gear to create a great rock album.
Musically, it’s not so much stripped-back as it is totally stripped apart. It’s wonderfully ramshackle and occasionally wacky, full of hard, angular guitars, all dropped in a big bucket of static. The constant, almost menacing distortion is what makes it continually thrilling; every time you listen to Slanted and Enchanted, the messiness greets you like an old friend. But amidst all the fuzziness, Malkmus demonstrates his awareness of pop music, with melodies lurking beneath the fuzz. The semi-cryptic love song, ‘Summer Babe’, has a hazy, melodic warmth, while ‘Trigger Cut’ features a catchy call-and-response chorus. ‘Zurich is Stained’ hums with a gorgeous sentimentality, while ‘Here’ has a gorgeous, soft, tired rhythm, Malkmus sounding all strung out.
There are some less-than-subtle nods to the Fall, a fact Malkmus acknowledges, with Mark E. Smith proclaiming at the time, “It’s just the Fall in 1985, isn’t it?”. ‘Conduit For Sale’ strongly resembles the Fall’s ‘New Face in Hell’ with its spoken verses. While rhythmically similar, it’s a lot fuzzier, and you can’t begrudge Malkmus as his storytelling is so good. The stompy bounce of ‘Two States’ has a distinctly Fall sound, especially as Malkmus abandons his familiar Californian drawl, creating something very northern England. The warped pogoing of fame rejection anthem ‘Fame Throwa’ has tones of Smith in its delivery, and Malkmus admits the tinny sound of the closer, ‘Our Singer’ was based on the Fall’s Hip Priest.
Elsewhere, they enter very different territory. ‘Perfume-V’ drowns in electricity, like Malkmus’s melodic tones are emerging out of a 1950s television. ‘Loretta’s Scars’ is driven by this brooding rhythm, Malkmus’s voice hiding in the background, while ‘Chelsey’s Little Wrists’ is a warped, out-of-tune, electric piece of psychedelia. ‘No Life Singed Her’ is wonderfully chaotic, drifting from quiet rock to death metal screaming, all while Young maintains this unrelenting rhythm. ‘In The Mouth A Desert’ is one of the album’s highlights, a lovely piece of slacker rock with its gently rumbling bass, but thrown in with a thin wall of distortion for good measure.
The noise is supplemented throughout by Malkmus’s cut-and-paste style lyrics, often ambiguous and metaphorical, wistfully witty and occasionally elusive. There’s the hilarious rhyme opening of ‘Trigger Cut’, “Lies and betrayals/Fruit covered nails”, and the playfully biting “Painted portraits of minions and slaves/Crotch-mavens and one-night plays” on ‘Here’. Each song’s meaning embeds itself in the distortion; even the more obvious ‘Summer Babe’ is cloaked in some subtlety until the song’s conclusion. There’s an air of romance to some of Malkmus’s lyrics, even flirting with the vulnerability on ‘Loretta’s Scars’, singing “How can I make my body shed for you”. Sometimes Malkmus opts for the indiscernible or shouted repetitive mantras, like the howled repetition of “I’m trying” on ‘Conduit For Sale’.
What makes Slanted and Enchanted so good? Despite its ramshackle, DIY approach and perpetual distortion, there’s an instant air of accessibility thanks to its melodic undertones. Malkmus’s varied delivery makes things constantly interesting, drifting from a punky snarl to a melodic drawl, with an ability to create a sense of sentimentality through his voice. It’s a record that shifts between sharp and urgent to soft and tender, creating beauty out of chaos. It’s fantastically raw, and Malkmus regards it as the band’s best album “because it’s less self-conscious and has an unrepeatable energy to it”. Pavement’s discography is exceptionally tight, but it’s hard to disagree with Malkmus.