If we were to exchange a few home truths here, we’d have to acknowledge that the rise of Pavement in the popular imaginations of us Brits stems squarely from the gamut of namechecks none too liberally sprinkled by Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon of Blur during their 1997-1999 period. At this time the band’s mouthpiece, Stephen Malkmus was chums with Albarn and Albarn’s then girlfriend Justin Frischmann. There’s no doubting they were a major influence on Blur, but just what kind of impact Pavement were making on the British psyche at the time depends on which system you use: the ‘click your heels three times and make a wish’ system favoured equally by girls in red slippers and men on death row or the ‘let’s not carried away and heap all kinds of undeserved plaudits on them system’ traditionally reserved for incoming Prime Ministers and bands like Pavement. That said, the band’s signature slack-jaw sound and their leader’s smart-arse way with a lyric did practically empower a whole generation of post-shoegazing failures, oddballs and misfits. In this respect, a ‘best-of’ compilation is long overdue, but given the band only scored a handful of legitimate ‘hits’ in their seven-year career (‘Cut Your Hair’ peaking at number 10 in the US and ‘Terror Twilight’ at Number 27 here in the UK), you may say that this selection overshoots the mark by some twenty tracks or so, but as a belated introduction to a legendary (if inconsistent) mid-90s indie band who probably influenced more great records than they actually made, ‘Quarantine The Past’ works a treat.
Whilst the compilation contains some of the band’s most famous singles ‘Stereo’, ‘Trigger Cut’, ‘Range Life’, ‘Gold Soundz’, ‘Shady Lane’ and ‘Cut Your Hair’ the record’s success is that it’s a fan-sensitive account of the band’s fairly considerable and topsy-turvy recording career and offers remastered versions of each. Purists and collectors may balk that it doesn’t include any B-Sides or alternative recordings but given Pavement’s fairly exhaustive re-release schedule to date, it’s understandable. Besides you’ll get to hear all that stuff on the band’s 2010 reunion tour.
C’mon, admit it, how many British ‘fans’ of the band could really name two singles by Malkmus and the boys, with the exception of ‘Country House’ and ‘Song 2’?