The Musicians
Steven Malkmus – vocals, guitar
Spiral Stairs – guitar
Mark Ibold – bass
Steve West – drums
Robert Nastanovich – percussion
This is a really amazing album. People tend to either love it or hate it. It is rather experimental and exploratory as a whole, and covers a diverse variety of tonal territory. This is not your older brother’s Pavement. They abandon the more straightforward styles of
Slanted/Enchanted and
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and instead add different flavors. There is little sense of an overall coherence, yet the album manages to flow solidly throughout most of its bizarre course. It is either a major breakthrough or maladaption from the band, depending on how one perceives it. Either way, it is a drastic stylistic departure from Pavement, as they focus more on melody (and amelody) than on raw energy.
We Dance
The album starts off with some piano chords and slow acoustic guitar. You have to be in the right mood for this one. It’s a pretty good song, but Steven Malkmus’ cutesy vocals might be better left to the other tracks. “No one will dance with us in this zany town… maybe we can dance, together.” 4/5
Rattled by the Rush
This seems more like Pavement, and the song is more appropriate for Malkmus’ vocal stylings. The main riff reminds me of “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin, and the song steers off into a fuzz-laden chorus with lots of strange background noise. The track is really playful and textured. After another verse and a would-be chorus, there’s a really tight guitar solo. It starts off like a classic rock band, and disintegrates into atonality and beauty. This song is a classic. 4.5/5
Black Out
This is a pretty little song. It isn’t particularly exciting or engaging, but the melody has that Pavement
je ne sais quoi that one looks for in their albums. At this point, one figures that this album will be a departure from previous releases. The focus is still on melody, but it is not as aggressive as other Pavement titles. 4/5
Brinx Job
This is a sort of waste of a track in my opinion. There is gratuitous wah in the chorus. The percussion is interesting, but not the featured element in the song. It ends in a minute and 31 seconds without having done much of anything. 3/5
Grounded
I might be one of the few people who don’t really care for this song. It has a nice little guitar part in the beginning, and some soft, clean guitar in the verses. The chorus has some distorted guitar, straining as the note gets bent. This is a pretty little song, but there’s nothing really special about it. 4/5
Serpentine Pad
Some people have compared this to the Sex Pistols. Yeah right. The Pistols wouldn’t know what to do with this much fuzz. Malkmus’ lyricisms are kind of funny and whiny in this song, and Robert Nastanovich adds some whining above his singing. 4/5
Motion Suggests
This is a slow, organ-laden song with some bluesy guitar in the background. Organ? Pavement? Yes, they have decided to freely experiment with whatever instrumentation they please, and that includes more background sounds. 4/5
Father to a Sister of Thought
Did they lose their desire to rock? This song starts with soft, clean chords strummed on an electric guitar, and adds some country lead as the song progresses. Words don’t really do it justice though. It’s an excellent song. I’m not a big fan of country music, but when a band can incorporate country-like elements into a song and make me appreciate it more than lots of other songs, they get points. It ends with distorted electric guitar that should be out of place, but still miraculously fits. 5/5
Extradition
This song picks up with the previous one left off. It has some twangy lead during the verse, and it ascends into what might normally be a chorus. However, the band breaks it down, and the guitars chirp and wail. A tambourine sounds in the background, the song gets more normal, and it goes back into the verse before ending. 4.5/5
Best Friend’s Arm
This is a rocky, upbeat song at the start. Steven screams some unintelligible lyrics above a balance of twangy and fuzzy guitars, fuzzy bass, and drums. Both guitars play some gratuitous solos, and the song slows to a crawl and the drummer switches up the beats a little. There’s some more gratuitous soloing before the song ends. 4/5
Grave Architecture
The tempo is lazier, and so is Steven’s singing. One guitar plays a line that would fit on
Slanted/Enchanted, and the other lazily noodles throughout most of the song. The song suddenly drops off at about the same time as the previous two end, and proceeds into a slightly hectic, more rocking section for half a minute before going back to a lazier section with some bizarrely atonal guitar playing. The song ends somewhere between the two poles that it explores. 4.5/5
AT&T
There’s nothing really amazing about this song, and the rocking chorus is rather stale. Steven gets a little abstract and weirder than normal with his lyrics, and it works in some parts of the song, but not in others. 3.5/5
Flux=Rad
This comes in with some fuzzy, wavering guitar at the intro, and eventually fades to mostly drumming during the verse. It has the capacity to be annoying, and the guitar break is mostly useless. However, it’s pretty cool overall. 4/5
Fight this Generation
This features, of all things, violins. It begins posing as a sad and poetic song, but like the Pavement catalogue, it isn’t. The guitar has some nice flanger on it or something, and is used in a quasi-percussive way, which is really cool. The lead guitar plays a slow line that descends toward the lower notes, and the song shifts gears. The rhythm guitar plays some strange chords, some sort of keyboard or organ flutters in the background, and the lead guitar hides in the background, playing mostly fuzz. The song breaks down and we get another gratuitous solo, featuring atonal, strangely distorted notes, then the song ends. 5/5
Kennel District
This is a favorite of mine. It’s just a run of the mill rock song by pretty much any standard. There’s a basic distorted guitar riff with something that is either a guitar with weird effects on it or keyboard. Robert (at least I think it’s him and not Steven) does some nice whistling that isn’t quite on key in what would be the chorus. The song ends with the last chord ringing and a little whistle. 4/5
Pueblo
This one is a real let-down. It lazily meanders without purpose like the rest of the songs, but they have the endearing qualities that this lacks. 2.5/5
Half a Canyon
This starts out sounding like faux blues and noise. This is basically a noise jam. It’s heavier than some Pavement songs, but only because it’s played at the lazy pace that most of this album moves at. At about 3 minutes, Steven lets out a digitally altered scream, and the song continues with the mostly the same guitar, bass, drums, and unintelligible/slightly audible screaming. The guitar flies toward sonic chaos for awhile, and then plays some bluesy/twangy lead until the somewhat abrupt end. 3.5/5
Western Homes
This is a strange little song. That keyboardy thing makes some bizarre noises, and Steven’s voice again enjoys some effects. The guitar plays a spacey line with lots of weird effects, the drum breaks down, and a strange noise that vaguely resembles feedback ends the song. 3.5/5
Overall: B+ 88/100 (4/5)
Some regard this album as essential or classic, and some loathe it. It mostly comes down to a preference of taste. If you’re willing to listen to a solid rock band explore the sonic unknown, this is the album for you. If you prefer lo-fi, straightforward indie rock, you’d be best served by listening to their earlier releases. If you prefer more relaxed albums, perhaps later Pavement is more your thing.
Wowee Zowee has about every imaginable style blended into an aural smorgesboard. My main complaint is that there are some rather weak tracks on the album. As amazing as it is, or as powerful as it is, it would be better as a 14 or 15 track album, perhaps less. Removing some songs would give it a greater overall continuity and cohesion, and would make it more appealing overall. This album could very well be Pavement’s masterpiece. However, it is not easily appreciated in the same ways as other classics. As good as it may be, it could be better. There are too many potential improvements that one could make for this to receive an A.
