Pavement - Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
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CD Details
Artist: PavementEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2008-12-09
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:
- Stereo
- Shady Lane
- Transport Is Arranged
- Date with IKEA
- Old To begin
- Type Slowly
- Embassy Row
- Blue Hawaiian
- We Are Underused
- Passat Dream
- Starlings Of The Slipstream
- Fin
Music reviews of Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
Music Review: Best reissue of 2008
Rating: 5 Stars
Every two years since 2002 Matador Records has cashed in on what has become their flagship band, 90s indie-rock outfit Pavement, by reissuing a cleaned up and expanded version one of their five proper studio records. Defunct through the whole of this reissue process, Pavement were not the kind of band who would come up with - or likely even be too excited about - such a seemingly capitalist-minded scheme. Fumble around. Make songs for fun. Play shows. Be somewhat happy when anyone listens. That was Pavement, one of the foremost bands of the budding 90s indie-rock scene. But don't fret: these Matador reissues come loaded with purpose.
Lackadaisical as they seemed to be at the time, the classic Pavement lineup - guitarists/vocalists Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs, drummer Steve West, bassist Mark Ibold and utility man Bob Nastanovich - always worked harder than anyone realized, often recording 20, 25 and even 30 songs per studio album (thus the need for these two-disc reissues and their endless bonus tracks and perks). Piece together the quality sounding non-album tracks from any of the reissues, including the latest edition, Brighten the Corners, and you have an additional studio album's worth of Pavement tunes per release. That's right, **per release**. Those not up on their 90s era Matador newsletters need only know one more thing: most of the best songs Malkmus wrote never made it on the proper studio albums. Most have never been heard by the everyday fan.
Officially titled Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creeders Edition, the core original tracklist for the album made for the most consistent, professional and universally approachable album the band ever made. Malkmus' vocals sound far better than they ever had prior; each song comes drenched in its own crop of ideas and pop-turns; the production - assisted this time by Mitch Easter and Bryce Goggin - plays a factor for the first time, thus catering to a wider fanbase; Malkmus (and Spiral Stairs, for that matter) shows that he can **really** play the guitar (and not just in an art-damaged manner); and most importantly, the cutesy quirks, both lyrical and instrumental, feel far less gimmicky. To put it plainly, Pavement grew up in-between the release of their stoned classic, Wowee Zowee, and 1997's Brighten the Corners.
The one-two punch of "Stereo" and "Shady Lane," two of the best singles Malkmus ever wrote, kick things off in a non-pretentious, energetic fashion. The lyrics on these two songs (and much of Brighten) are more **written** than anything the band had offered to that point, with most songs full of one-liners and sung by a slacker who'd finally perfected his **Funnybutwhocares** style. The best song Spiral Stairs ever wrote, "Date With Ikea," is still a head-scratching college radio hit, driven by awkward vocals and one of the band's most sing-along-worthy hooks ever. More so than any other Pavement or Malkmus record, Brighten manages to offer no filler or sub-par material, though the best of the bunch - "Starlings of the Slipstream" and "Fin" - do stand above the rest.
If you have not yet heard the core 12 tracks on this album and consider yourself a fan of pop-, indie-, 90s- or even brit-rock, do yourself the favor. And if you **have** heard the core set, know that the remastered version sounds amazing. It pops, but not in a way that doesn't sound like the pleasantly semi-lo-fi Pavement you've come to know. The main event here, as implied above, is the generous amount of quality bonus material. Let's dig in already ...
It can't be said enough, Pavement were only slackers only in theory. Say you're only a casual Pavement fan (or even a big fan): chances are you didn't collect all the band's EPs, singles and compilation tracks. Be that the case, then yes, as Malkmus said some years ago, you **do** get a **whole extra album's worth** of Brighten-era studio originals with this reissue - 14 proper studio songs to be exact. While seven of these tunes have more or less never been heard, the other half have been underground favorites for years - songs like "Harness Your Hopes," "Roll With the Wind," "No Tan Lines" and "Westie Can Drum" are all greatest hits caliber tunes that were included on EPs. So that's the major draw, but wait, there's more. Seven live-in-studio songs from the Brighten tracklist, five alternate versions of album cuts and four excellent studio-quality cover songs, including a must-hear take on Echo & the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon."
Years ago Malkmus said two then unbelievable things about the material left off the his band's 1997 classic: 1) The cutting room floor stuff could've make for a whole second album; 2) That album would be better than the album the band released. Now that we know that to be true, or at least plausible, then why, we have to wonder, didn't Matador put out these studio songs as a "lost Pavement record?" Generous as they're being with the bonus material, a more focused approach would've much better suited the band's typically album-minded fanbase. Oh well; it's a good problem to have, even if it doesn't much add to the band's legacy.
Brighten the Corners may not have been the best album of 1997 (OK Computer, duh) or even Pavement's best (Slanted and Enchanted, du-uh!), but today, in retrospect, it stands as one of the very best examples of a solid, front-to-back good, indie rock album. Timeless. Cool. Strange. Worthy of obsessive listening. It's the kind of record that can take an audiophile from their teen years to their 30s and beyond. Now fleshed out and tweaked, Brighten the Corners, initially considered to be a somewhat misunderstood (and therefore overlooked) transitional work, should finally get the attention it's always deserved. (Greg Locke)
Description of Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
Vinyl edition of one of the Pavement deluxe re-issues, "Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed." from 2008. A rather joyous pop explosion after the complications of "Wowee Zowee", "BTC" received both critical acclaim and commercial success. This four-LP vinyl box set includes eight extra tracks not on the CD, five of which are previously unreleased, plus one great unreleased song. Also includes material from the CD version: the remastered original twelve song album, ten non-album B-sides, ten outtakes, and fourteen live radio session tracks. Super deluxe M-Pak accordion style box set, 16-page, 12" x 12" full color booklet, MP3 coupon, and huge essay by New Yorker critic Alex Ross. The wealth of extra material testifies to the extraordinary creativity of the band in this period.Alternative Rock CDs
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