Pavement – PAVEMENTS OST (Matador) (13th Floor Album Review)
Legendary indie-rockers Pavement have made their way to the silver screen with the Alex Ross Perry directed experimental-musical-concert-biopic film Pavements. While the soundtrack has been floating around on streaming services for a few months, it is making its eventual release to LP and CD this Friday.
Pavements is a terrifically novel approach to a music documentary. There are the classic old-school clips, cut with voice-overs, live performances and footage of interviews that you would expect to see/has been done countless times before in this medium. Cut into this is the band re-uniting and rehearsing for a concert after a lengthy hiatus (again, also been done before). Then, just to add to the quirkiness that I would normally associate with the group, they’ve spliced in a documentary-within-a-documentary about Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical. There is also a dive into the Pavements 1933-2022: A Pavement Museum.
And if that wasn’t enough, they’ve cleverly inserted a parody biopic hidden in there too (often played at the same time as the aforementioned). This part I really enjoyed. Joe Keery (Stranger Things) does a fantastic job trying to method act his way into the role of Stephen Malkmus. I really found it a great dig at the over-the-top dramatization that comes with the biopic genre (I’m looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody!).
But, alas, I’m not a film critic. It’s the soundtrack you’re here for. And, let’s be honest, you’re possibly/probably already a Pavement fan and have seen it. I’ll get onto the music.
Firstly, I’d like to admire the fact that the band has not tried to make this a greatest hits album (they released a second one of those for the Tik-Tok generation earlier this year – see Hecklers Choice – Big Gums and Heavy Lifters). A majority of the album is live takes and rehearsal recordings. There’s nothing hugely obscure here, except a cover of Jim Pepper’s Witchi Tai-To. They’ve given it a decent rendition. In fact, without knowing the song, I honestly thought it was a Pavement song I’d never heard on first listen.
Overall, the quality of the audio from these live takes are decent. I happily listened with rose-tinted lenses/earbuds and really enjoyed each song. There’s a bit of live variation at times to songs you may know well already. For those fans who are not particularly impressed about Bob Nastanovich’s input into Pavement shows (when we saw them play, my wife asked if he was the younger brother of a member of the band whose mother said he HAD to be included), it’s fairly minimum.
As I mentioned, the documentary joins together (sometimes in the same shot) the four segments that make it up. The phony biopic segment was a real highlight. So, there are no surprises that they have put some of this onto record. I watched the movie one evening, then listened to the album the next day. So, while I’m not sure I’d put Pavement & Joe Keery & Jason Schwartzman & Nat Wolff – The Band That Ruined Lollapalooza (Movie Clip) on at a dinner party, I did really enjoy listening to it’s parody of an overdone genre.
Which leads me to the final main part of the soundtrack; the songs of Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical. Not being a huge musical theatre aficionado, I’d liken this jukebox musical performance to something you’d find halfway between Broadway and The South Canterbury Drama League in quality (particularly as a few of the recordings are from rehearsals). I honestly thought this parody in itself.
Slanted! Enchanted! Finale! (Jukebox Musical Version) is possibly the most notable number, which loops a variety of famous Pavement lines over the song Major League. It’s very sincere and worked in the movie. For fans of the band, you’ll find some enjoyment there.
This is an incredibly niche product to go out and buy a physical release for. If you’ve read this far, I am sure you are already a fan. This would be a great addition to the 3+ Pavement albums you’ve already got in your vinyl collection. For those who enjoyed the movie, but perhaps are new to the band, there are probably other albums you need to listen to for this to truly make sense. If you’re a Djo/Joe Keery fan, while it’s cool to hear him purposely stumble through Range Life, I’m not sure it’d be worth the purchase just for that!
Daniel Edmonds
Pavements OST is due out Nov. 14th via Matador
