Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement (Matador)
Rating: NNNN
Pavement’s legacy can’t be contained on a single disc, but this compilation sure tries its darnedest. Put together by the band members and conveniently released to coincide with the start of their reunion tour, it presents a non-chronological cross-section of the quintessential 90s band, attempting to summarize a career that can’t be summarized.
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The album contains some indisputable classics (Here, Summer Babe, Shady Lane) but aims to dig deeper than the hits. (That Pavement never really had any hits makes that a dubious proposition.) It’s nice to see non-obvious selections like Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence, but when that leads to the exclusion of essentials like Father To A Sister Of Thought, it doesn’t seem worth it. Still, to give a collection of 23 remastered Pavement songs anything less than four Ns would be blasphemy.
Top track: Summer Babe (Winter Version)
Pavement play Toronto Island on June 19.
