Remember the first groove you learned as a drummer? Boom-boom-crack, kabookaboom-crack… kinda rushing on the extra snare hits in the middle and everything. And when you’re young you always play it with a real stiff 8th note pattern on the ride, because you’re too physically tense from concentrating to play with any feel.
I’m mentioning this because I spent some time listening to Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain yesterday. Pavement played a substantial role in forming the early 90’s underground Indie Rock scene, which became the basis for the broad Indie Rock landscape.
Wow… they suck. I mean, SUCK. Crooked Rain sounds like the demo tape my junior high band made in my basement with the internal mic on my boom box. Drummer Steve West plays the groove I mentioned above on what seems like every track. Bassist Mark Ibold has probably the worst pocket I’ve ever heard on a major label recording. Guitars are constantly rushing and out of tune. Stephen Malkmus does the “talk-sing” thing a ton, and every time he does it I’m actually relieved because his pitch while he’s trying to actually sing is so terrible.
Disclaimer: I’m being intentionally provocative. Regardless of everything I just said (which maybe isn’t quite as bad as I made it out to be), I really do enjoy Pavement’s music. There are elements of their sound and direction that I both appreciate and dig. BUT… they still suck, and by that I mean the musicianship is terrible. And I’m not just poking at Pavement either. The sloppiness I’m describing is widespread in the Indie Rock scene. Generally speaking, Indie bands sound like amateurs, and I’m writing this post to ask the question why.
Like I said, for the most part I enjoy the music that Indie bands make. I think most indie fans would respond to my criticism above by pointing out that indie musicians are putting the majority of their effort toward being artistic, original, and creative. In other words, Indie musicians focus so much on being artists that there’s no time left to be skilled instrumentalists. I think that means this discussion now becomes intertwined with the “Genre-ism” idea, because it’s unfair of me to judge a genre of music based on how I want it to sound instead of how those from within the genre intend it to sound. I get that, and like I said before, I really do like a lot of Indie bands, mainly because of the immense creativity that results from the their quest for originality. The soundscape on a Pavement record is definitely super cool, and the songwriting is often clever and elusive. I feel the same way about bands like Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, the Hold Steady, Andrew Bird, and many others.
So again, to clarify, when I say that Pavement “sucks,” what I mean is that they do not sound like proficient musicians. I don’t mean that I dislike their music, because that’s not true. I dig what Pavement does, and the Indie sound as a whole, but I feel like I can still make the observation that Indie bands exhibit (again, on the whole) poor musicianship.
Before I go any further I should bring up the other side of the coin: the session player mentality. This is something I know a little bit about because I’ve been doing a fair amount of session of work lately. The session player takes the opposite approach to music from the Indie band: the music doesn’t need to be creative, in fact it really shouldn’t push the envelope too much, but it MUST be performed PERFECTLY. For instance, a session drummer does lots of typical, stock-option (i.e. boring) grooves and fills, but with incredibly precise execution. This mindset is prevalent in both the Country and Pop/Rock worlds. I remember being in high school and mocking this kind of music because it was so cookie-cutter, but nowadays I really admire it. I’ve come to realize how challenging it is to attain the level of precision that session players reach.
Summary so far: We have the two sides of a spectrum: 1) the session player, who delivers an unbelievable performance that often lacks any real substance, and 2) the Indie Rock band, who plays creative music with distractingly sloppy execution. I’m taking time to clarify as I go here because I’m really hoping for feedback on this stuff, so if you disagree with anything I’ve said up to this point then be sure and comment about it.
I want to be unbiased and fair with my assessment of the situation, so just know that I’m not trying to take one side over the other. Nevertheless, when I really think hard about the two mentalities represented in the session player vs. Indie band spectrum, it seems like the bulk of the accusation against session players can be explained. Session players are often not very creative, but… um, they’re getting paid to play that way. Today’s Pop music world is primarily focused on making money through hit singles and videos, and most of the time the content needs to be fairly watered down in order to become a smash success, financially. Session musicians rarely feel emotional or creative attachment to the music that they’re recording on any given day, but that doesn’t bother them… because they’re just doing a job. They show up to the studio, learn the songs, play standard and predictable parts with perfect execution, and then go home. Do they know the stuff they played is watered-down and not very creative? Of course they do, but a job’s a job.
I wish I could let the Indie Rock scene off the hook in the same way, but it really feels like I can’t. Will someone actually suggest that Meg White is a skilled and precise drummer who uses bad time feel on purpose? Am I supposed to believe that Clinic’s bassist could lock down a little tighter but just chooses not to? Or… could it be that the guys in Pavement know they suck and just don’t care?
I think this last idea might be more toward the truth than anything else. Perhaps the Indie Rock culture has crafted an environment where low-level musicianship is expected, and it doesn’t matter. I have more to say about this but I want to get some feedback first. I’m honestly just thinking out loud here, and I’m totally open to the fact that I’m unaware of an important perspective.
One last clarification: Of course I know that not all Indie Rock musicians suck. A decent percentage of the players are quite proficient, and I can always really hear the difference. This makes it even more annoying to me that the crappy players don’t get called out for being crappy. I mean, what is the deal with that? Why does the Indie scene pretend that the sucky bands don’t suck?
Ok, I’ll shut up now. I want to read some comments on what you have to say about it.
31 comments
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May 7, 2010 at 9:47 am
JimmyMayor
My first thought was, wow… he likes the outdoors too. 🙂
May 7, 2010 at 9:58 am
B.C. McWhite
I really thought this post was going to be about KG and Susy’s fall. Think about it… See?!
I’ve never much gotten into indie rock, mainly because I always thought it kind of sucked, but I couldn’t really explain why I thought that, and have always felt uncool for thinking it.
Thanks for putting your finger on why it sucks and simultaneously validating my life.
May 7, 2010 at 9:59 am
aaron a
This isn’t contrary to anything you’re saying after reading your “one last clarification” but Wheat is an interesting example to pull up in this discussion. If you listen to every record besides Per Second, Per Second, Per Second… Every Second they are absolutely doing the rough, loose, indie thing. But on that particular record they made a tight, polished and extremely creative record with john Fields. From what I can tell they hated the process of being tightened up, but I can’t say for sure. What I do know is that they were capable, at least in the studio and from what I could tell at the 7th Street Entry, of making a Pop record. For them the other records feel like more of a “decision” as far as the imperfections go– the “why take it again when it feels so sincere?” mentality.
I have no point, just sayin’ is all…
May 7, 2010 at 10:07 am
Chris Morrissey
Steve,
You are fighting the good fight, friend. I watched a pavement DVD recently about their final show, and I wasn’t that familiar with them before besides some tracks off of “Brighten the Corners”. I too was amazed at the amateur level of technical ability but I’d hesitate to characterize it as amateur “musicianship”. I’m a believer (as you know) in avoiding fundamental definitions for things as broad as music. As in, you wouldn’t argue that Pavement is playing music, or musical instruments and their output and influence speaks for itself I believe. So I just would say that “musicianship” is a spectrum from poorly played to perfectly played.
I think Pavement represents one side of the spectrum in rock music. A side that was born out of a reaction to a decade that was going too far into the produced world (80’s) and provided an extreme left turn appealing to peoples desires to hear an obvious humanness in music. A lack of self-consciousness or decadence that people were just fatigued of. Mind you, I think there have been bands like this through the ages but in the cycle of popularity, I think bands like pavement may have just been at the right place at the right time (although I just disagreed with myself reading that, but I’ll leave it up for discussions sake).
It should also be noted that Pavement, while influential to many bands, was never and still isn’t a “popular” band. The most timeless bands I think have pavements humanness but also “Yes’s”, or “Rush’s” otherworldliness and technical prowess. Bands like Nirvana and the Beatles have this immense accessibility because they straddle that line. That’s a crude oversimplification of why those two bands are what they are, but it still proves my point I think.
That’s a long comment.
Chris
May 7, 2010 at 10:36 am
Lars
Well stated and interesting discussion Steve. I was really into Pavement in the 90s, I still listen to them and I can honesty say that I don’t like any of the musicians, the lyrics, vocals, or overall sound. It rarely rocks and at times is straight up awful. But I still like something about it. I think when I listen to Pavement I can hear how many bands that I truly enjoy are influenced by them. I don’t really like Iggy Pop or the Ramones for instance, but their influence is so broad. In essence, I can’t appreciate U2 or the Clash without them. So there is the history piece.
But even without the historical significance, there is something about Indie music that captures me, and the best way I can describe it is that it’s a genre that lives and dies by vibe. If it makes evinces and emotional response, whether it’s joy or anger, it’s effective. That’s the artistic piece of it. So much of adult pop, modern rock, and CCM is pretty artless. It doesn’t make me feel anything, no matter how good the musicians are.
Of course, the best of the Indie bands are the ones that do both, like Broken Social Scene, Animal Collective, or Arcade Fire. Highly creative and innovative but still good musicians and musicianship.
Not sure I have said anything that hasn’t already been said, but I think the ‘vibe’ piece is a missing link in the discussion.
May 7, 2010 at 10:41 am
Joel
I guess I view indie rock in the early 90s as a backlash against the over-produced, generic-sounding pop music that dominated the 80s (much like late 70s punk could be viewed as going against over-indulgent 70s progressive rock). Maybe they were better musicians than they let on and wanted to be intentionally “bad.” While their musicianship was definitely sub-par, I can appreciate Pavement as being a breath of fresh air for those who were sick of the mainstream music being pumped out in the late 80s – hair metal, anyone?
May 7, 2010 at 11:12 am
Nate Babbs
Indie rock is funny to me. I’m with you in that I like a lot of it for what it is as a whole, but often the attitude makes me giggle. To me, there has always been a hint of it being almost UNcool to be good at your instrument. It probably didn’t start out that way, and I can think of a couple “Indie Rock” bands that have decent-to-great players (Interpol’s rhythm section, Grizzly Bear, Death Cab, Sunny Day to name a few…). But it seems to have gotten to the point where if the players are too good, or if recordings are too produced they don’t sound like “Indie Rock” anymore. After all, Indie is still short for “Independent,”, and “Indie Rock” sounded the way it did at first because they didn’t have the money for the top-of-the-line production…but now, its more an attitude as many bands that would be called “Indie Rock” based on their sound are some of the bigger bands out there.
I agree that poor musicianship does not mean bad music, but it takes a rare chemistry combination of a group of people to make good music with poor musicianship…and THIS is what I think a lot of “Indie Rock” people forget. Just because it’s sloppy and/or executed poorly with bad sounding recordings doesn’t make it automatically cool. Kinda like punks, actually. Only whinier.
But Chris, this actually ties in with what you said about Indie Rock being a reactionary thing…the balls-out aggression and rawness of Punk Rock vs 70’s Pop/Disco, the angst and the “every man” rockers of Grunge vs. 80’s Glam Rock which was ALL about theatricality and production etc. These were both reactions that were based in a LACK of production and/or execution, and “Indie Rock” ala Pavement is another good example of that.
May 7, 2010 at 11:13 am
Matt F
What I want to know is why Andrew Bird made your “not proficient musician” list in “Disclaimer”.
May 7, 2010 at 10:41 pm
stevegoold
Ha… Matt, I misrepresented myself there. That was supposed to be a list of indie bands that I like, some of which suck and some of which don’t. Andrew Bird doesn’t suck at anything.
May 7, 2010 at 11:39 am
Bill R
Steve,
Did momma teach that if you don’t have anything nice to say… ??
😉
May 7, 2010 at 11:40 am
Bill R
Didn’t not did.
fridays.
May 7, 2010 at 1:14 pm
JimmyMayor
Since you are trying to ditch stupid drumming and be a “full-time as a frickin sweet blogger”, you should really analyze why this post was such a hit and received so many replies. You are on to something Steve. 🙂
May 7, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Kevin Holvig
Maybe I can add one thought to the studio player mentality. I don’t think it’s totally a mindless, come in and play well and put no creativity into it. I believe the creativity is coming out in different ways. The effort is put into finding “appropriate fills” that fit the song. Not fills that drummers will appreciate. Also, the feel is creativity on every note to create the right vibe. That’s it.
I don’t know anything about the indie rock deal. I used to love the ramones when I was a kid. They could fit 25 songs on a cd.
May 7, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Bill R
Ramones are a good example. Great band. Technical wizards on their instruments? Would you have wanted them to be?
May 7, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Danny Warnock
To me,
Sounding bad on purpose, or even not trying hard enough to sound good, is like a chef making bad tasting food as an artistic statement. It might be bold, unique and artistic. And maybe it captures the emotion and angst of the chef while reacting against norms. But to me it seems juvenile, obnoxious and even self-centered. A good chef finds subtle ways of adding his own art to cooking but his food must taste GOOD (of course good means different things to different people). I’m sure everyone might not like this analogy. But I really feel this way with poor musicianship. It’s just as annoying to my ears as a bad odor or a bad taste.
But like people have been saying there are many great indie bands who find ways to explore new things in music and still be excellent musically. I just think being sloppy is the quickest way to sound different. Is it just laziness? I guess I don’t get the scene that digs mediocre to bad musicians.
-danny
May 7, 2010 at 8:15 pm
karakris
i think you have to take it one band at time…
in every genre you can pick out the musicians that shouldn’t have made it… but did.
i think we all know that music is more than just music… i think the imperfection of the nineties has a different meaning to the imperfection of the bands now…
what i mean is that music (or art as a whole) is a very reactive and expressive means by which people communicate more than just a musical message — it’s layered.
I don’t think there’s one easy answer as to why some musicians like to play sloppy… nor do I think that’s good… but I do feel that most (good) indie today is not like the indie of the nineties…
I also think this isn’t an easy answer because the genre “Indie” is placed in all sorts of places with bands – it’s used to describe a lot of types of music that don’t necessarily “sound” the same.
here are some examples of “Indie” bands I really like…
http://www.myspace.com/inharbour
copeland. this doesn’t need a link 😉
don’t get me wrong – i agree with you on having a big issue with sloppiness…
but most legit bands i know play with clicks now – and they don’t sacrifice the creativity just because they use one…
All this to say – I’m not a fan of the sloppy – but don’t think Indie should get too hammered about it… well at least anymore 😉
May 8, 2010 at 12:42 pm
MJ
First, every high-standard music listener needs a few guilty pleasures for reasons of nostalgia, motivation, entertainment, inexplicable enjoyment, etc. Steve, don’t beat yourself up too much. Allow yourself to enjoy Pavement for what it is.
To piggy back on Nate and Kara’s comments a bit, Indie means different things to different people. What makes an artist or band “Indie”? The artist? The album label? The lyrics? The bold statement of “I’m not _____”? The instrumental style? The lo-fi recording? The musician’s lifestyle? “Indie” has become a subculture, a target market, a fashion statement — and this “indie trend” has gained enough critical mass to attract all sorts including large media corporations. Some fans/musicians care more about being “Indie” than being “musicians.” Aren’t some Indie bands are just “unsigned” mainstream pop bands? (Replace “Indie” with “Christian” in above paragraph for analogous ponderous critique.)
At some point, I realized the obvious — a bit too slowly:
* some music on KFAI, Radio K, and The Current doesn’t get mainstream radio play and doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter pop mold because it’s creative, unpolished, and amazing OR because it sucks (and everything in between).
* some Indie music sounds raw and unpolished due to its production/engineering values (no autotune, lo-fi, fewer retakes, etc.) and some Indie music is raw and unpolished because the musicians don’t take the time to tune their instruments, play with metronomes, learn how to sing, etc.
* Many successful “indie” musicians are on major “indie” labels, suck at the craft of musicianship just as much as (or more than) mainstream artist, and owe their success to the same reasons mainstream artists are POPular: radio-overplaying, overly-repetitive pop jingles, and clever lyrics that aren’t that clever.
On the different emphases of different genres, I desire musicians with vocals of opera or R&B or country, the creative syncopation and rhyming of hip-hop, effortless modal and metric shifts of jazz, clever-intelligent lyrics of Alternative/post-punk, the emotional honesty/simplicity of folk, the production minimalism of Indie, and the layerd compositional orchestrations of classical. My Brightest Diamond, Bat for Lashes, Martin Dosh, Andrew Bird, Jelloslave represent the closest this aesthetic / personal bias that I’ve discovered. I also dig Imogene Heap, Mogwai, Band of Horses, Snow Patrol, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, Rob Dougan, Ladytron, and Heiruspecs.
Don’t get me started on Vampire Weekend, Anni Rossi, Arcade Fire, or The Thermals — i will rant a longer post than this.
May 17, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Vee Ray
thanks for the post. I just think they are terrible. Sorry to say it. I believe in production value, musicianship, and hard work which pays off.
September 20, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Tim J
Just saw Pavement on Colbert.
Pavement sucks.
He is not a “genius”.
Their song was a lame 4 bar groove, with a 2/4 bar. Boring as hell.
Why do people like it? Because its simple.
September 21, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Ryan
I agree with Tim, that Colbert is what inspired me to look up more Pavement, at which point i found this. The author here pretty plainly states the polarities of indie music, it offers some creative originality in terms of digressing from the average tone of music, but it lacks in musical innovation or ability to play beyond the surface tone. Maybe I’m biased but i like Animal Collective quite a bit, i feel like they can creatively make music that doesn’t lack in quality or force me to ignore their ability to play intricately, not necessarily technically and full of “chops”, but they can do something i can appreciate as a music lover, and a musician.
December 15, 2010 at 4:04 pm
joey
I like to think of myself as a fairly creative thinker who is open minded to all forms of artistic expression.
However, Pavement really confuses me and I don’t quite understand them. Perhaps that is their appeal and why I do listen to them… Ironically I quite often can’t even judge for myself if they are good or bad. I am always left wondering do other people really like this part? or how do they ever play the same song twice?
Niche artistic expression is probably the safest way to describe it.
January 18, 2011 at 9:16 am
Jeremy Ringsmuth
This same phenomenon is found in every art form whether it’s Picasso or Pollack or Langston Hughes or Coltrane. I even see this in mediums such as typography and graphic design (look at the Olympic 2012 London logo) Deconstruction becomes a necessary component of culture that lures in each new generation. Deconstruction has a capacity to bring the fringes into the fold of culture that more esoteric arts leave out as they develop and perfect themselves. I think when you say ‘bad musicianship’ what you are saying is ‘poor technical’ performance. The question about art is not “is it bad?” but “can it speak?” Regardless of proficiency, if it can still speak, even when it lacks proficiency entirely, it is good. If it can’t, it has failed.
And the White Stripes speak volumes and volumes, regardless of Meg White’s inability to play the drums properly.
January 18, 2011 at 6:29 pm
stevegoold
You’re correct, Jeremy. At least, I agree with you. But here’s the question I’m really trying to get at: Do you think the White Stripes would “speak” more if Meg honed her skills a little? Or would the music then speak less? What if she only improved a little bit?
Also, thanks for the fb shout-out… 🙂
January 19, 2011 at 9:06 am
Jeremy Ringsmuth
Apparently Natalie’s Grandparents saw my status and watched some of the clinic video. They replied with their sincere thanks, but thats just “not their style of music.” Ha!
There was an interview with Jack White where he explained that he had been in numerous bands that never went anywhere, but, one day he heard Meg practicing the drums and her rather lack luster boom-chick style actually spontaneously and inexplicably inspired his songwriting which started the white stripes down that path. Now, if Meg was a better drummer, would Jack have been inspired in that same way? Who knows. Lets also not forgot his infatuation with Meg, which might have had more to do with his inspiration than her drumming.
Never the less, I don’t enjoy Jack’s newer projects as much as I enjoyed the old stripes.
June 17, 2012 at 10:50 am
Otid
Since when is sloppiness bad? Well people are so stuck up in their head that they think everything has to be so goddamn perfect when there isn’t such a thing. Pavement doesn’t suck one bit
June 21, 2012 at 11:36 am
Steve Goold
Thanks for the feedback, Otid. I wonder if you misunderstood my point? I hear you that sloppiness doesn’t necessarily equate to BAD, but… it’s still sloppiness. I’m just calling a spade a spade here, and asking the question of WHY the sloppiness is present. Do sloppy Indie bands WANT their stuff to be sloppy? Do they wish it was less sloppy but aren’t willing to work toward that? Or do they perhaps not even know that their stuff is sloppy? Again, Pavement is cool. I like a lot of aspects in music they produce. I’m just wondering where the sloppiness fits into the whole mix.
June 28, 2012 at 6:53 am
Marsnotheplanet
A lot of rock bands aren’t really into ‘music’ as much as they are into the ‘rock band’ thing. We have to realize that, separate the two, and therefore avoid using the same criteria for appraisal. As for the music, Pavement are outclassed by most of the 8-bit soundtrack of Game Boy games, to put it bluntly. When speaking of ‘reaction to overproducted records’ or other amene aestethic or sociological issues (like the ‘artistic’ fact that they were totally incompetent musicians, that the singer couldn’t sing etc, BUT their smartness and cleverness was enough to sustain, ahem, the music…) well, i think we are on a very different field. Pavement were able to convert the sloppiness and awful musicanship -their limits- into something that most people would call ‘artful’. I think they knew they sucked. And I think they knew that clean college faces, attention-whoring lyrics (like the ones on ‘Range Life’) and an arrogant attitude were all effective strategies to emerge from the inde turf and be called ‘artists’.
June 28, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Steve Goold
Well said.
January 31, 2013 at 4:28 pm
Tyler Shenk
I think I disagree with your defense of the session mentality for two reasons:
1. Like you said, it often lacks any real substance. I agree that “the level of precision that session musicians reach” is impressive, but I do not think that technical precision makes good art. I think that the beauty of art that separates it from what is not art IS creativity, and creativity often incorporates some element of not-perfect execution and unique-ness (surely that’s word).
Imagine if someone had a conversation with you vocally, and all of their sentences followed PERFECT grammar, their inflection followed one or two repeated contours, and their pronunciation of each word was identical to the sound-clips from a web dictionary. I don’t know about you, but if someone talked to me like that… I would probably literally be offended haha. I might wonder if I was talking to a of robot. At the very least, I would not consider that person to be an effective speaker or communicator or even “good at talking,” regardless of their technical perfection or the impressiveness of reaching this level of consistency. Maybe I’m being overly idealistic and unrealistic here, but I can’t find worth in art that is cookie-cutter and devoid of originality. I think that robbing music of its beauty (creativity) and replacing it by a formula to “perfection” (AKA maximized profits), although certainly reasonable from a businessman’s perspective, is not respectable from an artistic perspective.
2. I think that this kind of mentality will be the death of the studio musician. What separates a man playing the drums “perfectly” from a computer spitting out a beat “perfectly,” other than the relative cheapness of the computer program? If perfection is really all that matters and creativity isn’t what “they’re getting paid to play,” then how long will it take for the stigma around programmed tracks to fade enough to allow cost-cutting computer programs to become the norm?
I’d like to suggest that there’s some happy medium behind crummy musicianship and robotic, creativity-starved “perfection.” Yes, Pavement sucks, but so does a lot of pop, the only difference in my mind being that Pavement sucks because the musicians suck and much of pop sucks because music that is easiest for most people to not-dislike sucks.
In your YouTube-d church clinic from 2010, you mentioned the plastic-ness of some modern jazz because it exhibits dazzling technique, but that is all. If groove can be so formulated as to be “perfect,” than how is it anything more than an element of technique, and how can it be any more than plastic on its own?
January 31, 2013 at 11:29 pm
Steve Goold
Off the cuff responses to your well-crafted comment…
– You might benefit from reading through all the other comments in this post. The other readers have some great insight here and there. Also, the “Pavement Part 2” post has some additional talking points.
– “Music that is easiest for most people to not dislike sucks” isn’t necessarily true just because you say it. I’m not sure you could defend that statement with any objectivity. I frankly find it amazingly hilarious that so many musicians will openly mock massively successful pop music and then complain about people not liking their own band, as if the only thing keeping them from cranking out smash pop hit after smash pop hit (and becoming millionaires in the process) is some noble and principaled commitment to “art” and “true creativity.”
October 30, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Mike Telander
Fyi im a huge pavement fan so im biased. I can appreciate your point about indy v studio musicians. However I can’t believe you’re dissing pavement, and sm in paticular, on their technical ability. First of all im no drummer, so I will defer to your opinion on the drumming and bass.
I think you singled out pavements worst album “crooked rain. I cant argue with the lack of polish on that album. But your accusation of out of tune guitars is probably undoubtedly a reference to the track “stop breathing”. That is intentional dissonance resulting from weirdly tuned guitar. I think it gives that track an onimous cool vibe. But enough about that album it is hardly their best stuff. You want proof malkmus is an innovator and a technical wizard listen to “the hexx” or “cream of gold” or “grave architecture” . Tracks like those speak to their musicanship. Also malkmus’s solo stuff show his technical prowess on tracks like “1%of one” and “witch mountain bridge” .
Sorry for the rant , like I said I appreciate your point and agree with it. But I think pavement became a more refined product as their career progressed and cannot be judged properly on crooked rain alone.