Pavement - Brighten The Corners

For many hard-time fans, Brighten the Corners is part of the holy trinity with Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee. It combines the anarchy of the band's previous slop with an expert grasp on hook and pop dynamics. Before we get all nostalgic about how great this record is let's just consider the songs in cold contemporary light: the wild pop ecstasy of Stereo, the sweetly melancholic Shady Lane, the crooked joyful Type Slowly and the lo-fi poet punk of Embassy Row. All of these tracks are embedded in the indie psyche and for good reason.