Pavement:
Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement

Pavement

Label: Matador








Like their bastard brethren reissues, best of/greatest hits compilations have a way of inspiring a mixture of weariness and venom in many fans' hearts. Typically a way for a group or label to initiate the unfamiliar and make a quick buck in the process, the saving grace of these exercises in recycled sound is that they at least sometimes include a meager peace offering - a previously unreleased track or two, a live bonus CD, a smattering of B-sides, outtakes or other rarities - to appease seasoned fans as well. Not so with Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement, which does a passable job as a career overview but fails to offer anything that would entice lifelong supporters to purchase this material again. Yes, the songs have been digitally remastered (exciting news if you're an A/V geek, I suppose), but if, like many fans, you already have the band's catalog in tow, all it takes is a new playlist on your iPod and you, too, can quarantine the best of Pavement, free of charge.

With the band's long-awaited reunion tour finally set to begin in March, the timing of this compilation is impeccable, even if the content - or lack of original content - leaves plenty of room for disappointment. Far from a legitimate "best of" - such an effort would require more representation from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and especially Slanted and Enchanted - Quarantine the Past could more adequately be described as a career retrospective, covering the band's grimy, skateboard-and-graffiti-pocked classic early material, the experimental sounds of Wowee Zowee, the somewhat under-appreciated Brighten the Corners and even the aptly-named swan song Terror Twilight. Throw in a couple choice tracks from the Watery, Domestic, Perfect Sound Forever and Slay Tracks EPs and you get the point: this walk down 1990s alternative nostalgia lane is as close to a comprehensive Pavement perspective as one could ask for, and a decent preamble for novices. Novices only, that is.

Since only one song - "Cut Your Hair" - ever approached any semblance of a radio-friendly "hit," the tracks the band chose for this compilation sound as arbitrary as they do familiar. Just as there are no obvious inclusions here, there aren't many glaring omissions either (though fans could make cases for "Conduit for Sale!," "Zurich is Stained" or any number of tracks from Slanted and Enchanted). It's obviously a daunting task for a mostly underground group to choose the best numbers from their collection of cult favorites, but for the most part the band succeeds, supplementing early favorites like indie pop single "Summer Babe" and the pensive, oddly melodious "Range Life" with a hodgepodge of unheralded efforts ("Mellow Jazz Docent," "Grounded," "Embassy Row") from lesser known EPs and later-career full lengths.

Pavement may have been a staple of 1990s indie, but many of these tracks sound as contemporary as they do vintage. There's a whole world of quality Malkmus-and-company tunes beyond the realms of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Slanted and Enchanted, and if nothing else, Quarantine the Past reveals that fans who are only familiar with these two classic albums are missing out on some quality stuff. Though skeptics may grouse that the best orientation to the band will always be the first two records, not some hand-me-down "hits" compilation (which is tough to argue), Quarantine the Past, in its defense, doesn't force an unnecessary amount of the hit-and-miss Terror Twilight down listeners' throats or feature an inordinate number of overtly obscure efforts for the mere sake of unorthodoxy. It's easy to resent this record for its lack of innovation, but among its weaknesses, trying too hard isn't one of them.

Still, if someone were to tell me a year ago that Matador Records would release a new Pavement album in 2010, a second-hand 'best of' would have been the last thing to come to mind. Granted, the reunion tour may merit a retrospective glance at the band's familiar faves, but it's still tough to not be disillusioned by the lack of fresh material or lost gems on this release. Kudos to Pavement for quarantining the past, though we'd rather have something to hang the future on.

by Marcus David