| | Pavement Brighten The Corners CD Pavement Discography of CDs
 (3 Customer Reviews)
The 2008 deluxe reissue of BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS contains a second disc of rare, live, and unreleased tracks, including the band's cover of the Clean's "Oddity" and a truncated take on Faust's "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl."
1997 release 'Brighten The Corners' is a record that reveals its gifts gradually, giving you enough information the first time to make you want come back for more. Matador Records.
A surprisingly divisive album when it came out in 1997, BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS was seen as too much of a softball to champions of the bizarro WOWEE ZOWEE, while those left scratching their heads after ZOWEE actually welcomed it. Whereas the latter has seemed more obviously great with each passing year, CORNERS remains what it always was--a catchy set of rockers and ballads, frontloaded with the attention-grabbing "Stereo," which gives the album its quirk. (Real fans know the secret that the last three or four tracks are the real classics.)
Pavement: Stephen Malkmus, Mark Ibold, Spiral Stairs, Bob Nastanovich, Steve West.
Rolling Stone (p.98) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "In 1997, these slacker romantics slowed things down and serenaded their fans, delivering an album short on noise and long on artfully dissonant ballads."
Rolling Stone (2/20/97, p.68) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...reaffirms what was likeable about Pavement in the first place: their angular but graceful melodies, their languorous anti-anthems and, of course, Malkmus' labyrinthine--and often funny or poignant--lyrical turns..."
Spin (1/98, p.87) - Ranked #11 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums of the Year."
Spin (3/97, p.99) - 8 (out of 10) - "...these tunes want you and they're not shy about it. They catch you up, charm, rouse, and freak you, and don't often ridicule....BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS is a guitar-rock album invigorated by hip-hop, in the same way MARQUEE MOON was a guitar-rock album invigorated by reggae..."
Entertainment Weekly (p.69) - "[A] trove of effortless pleasures, from the pogo-party frolic 'Stereo' to the rickety, fuzzed-up gem 'Date w/ Ikea.'" -- Grade: A
Entertainment Weekly (2/21-2/28/97, p.125) - "Curbing their smarty-pants indulgences, these wiseacres get down to business, crafting indie guitar rock that ebbs and flows with delicate power....BRIGHTEN proves there are still signs of life in this otherwise moribund genre." - Rating: B
Q (3/97, p.110) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...Pavement have fallen into a more straightforward emotional gush on BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS....It's like Husker Du playing lo-fi pop punk with a spiked, almost newsworthy literate prosemaster, high on Pixies-flavoured twists..."
Alternative Press (3/97, p.73) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...The licks are still crispy, and the hooks are still catchy. Toe-tappingly catchy, in fact, to the point that [BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS] is likely to appeal broadly..."
CMJ (1/6/03, p.18) - Included in CMJ's list of "Top 25 College Radio Albums of All Time"
Melody Maker (2/8/97, p.49) - Recommended - "...melodic, accessible and...Sixties-influenced....In the same way Pavement's early material could've been seen as a loving tribute to the off-kilter eccentricity of The Fall, their fourth album is Britpop seen through a trans-Atlantic cultural prism..."
Village Voice (2/24/98) - Ranked #10 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll.
Billboard (p.46) - "[T]he singles 'Stereo' and 'Shady Lane' are among the band's best..."
Q (Magazine) (p.124) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Moments of melodic pop genius such as 'Shady Lane' and Byrds-influenced 'Date w/Ikea' sit snugly next to the quieter likes of 'Transport Is Arranged' and beautiful 'Starlings Of The Slipstream.'"
Mojo (Publisher) (p.122) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS remains the indie subersives' sturdiest selection of songs, with a slight return of the Gen X anthem in the switchbacking, Geddy Lee-invoking 'Stereo' and a resurgence of mainman Stephen Malkmus's needling wiseacre persona..."
NME (Magazine) (12/20-27/97, pp.78-79) - Ranked #24 in NME's 1997 Critics' Poll.
Blender (Magazine) (p.67) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "This 1997 set showcases the band at its breeziest...as singer Stephen Malkmus muses slightly less cryptically than usual over loose-limbed guitars and honest-to-goodness hooks."
Clash (magazine) (p.108) - "[With] some of Pavement's finest moments; from 'Shady Lane' to 'Stereo,' it's a welcome revisit to one of the most 'indie' bands ever."
Record Collector (magazine) (p.100) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[Pavement] could breathlessly churn out melodies and riffs." Brighten The Corners Music Pavement Brighten The Corners Songs | 1. | Stereo |
| 2. | Shady Lane / J Vs. S |
| 3. | Transport Is Arranged |
| 4. | Date With Ikea |
| 5. | Old to Begin |
| 6. | Type Slowly |
| 7. | Embassy Row |
| 8. | Blue Hawaiian |
| 9. | We Are Underused |
| 10. | Passat Dream |
| 11. | Starlings of the Slipstream |
| 12. | Fin |
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Brighten The Corners Music Brighten The Corners Music Review Average Rating: (4 out of 5 stars)   Best band of the '90s
personally i think this is their best album. With Stereo and Shady Lane in the highlight, the entire CD runs smoothly from beginning to end; really good ending song too.
Submitted by jug144 (State College, PA, USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
 A band to beat them all
probably most favorite album by pavement, it's got a smooth flow from beginning to end. A couple songs weren't to great, but as a whole, the album played like liquid. Especially the last track, mmm mmm.
Submitted by jug144 (King of Prussia, PA)
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better and better
Pavement's personality is starting to get somewhere...influenced by 60s rock, mocking hip hop rythms, and of course...the whole underlying irony behind Stephen Malkmus's singing style.It may take them five albums to make themselves heard but bit by bit, by brightening the corners, they have left the low raw underground and have stepped into the classier alternative scene...
Submitted by tom (sydney)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No | Have you heard this album? |  |
Purchase Brighten The Corners CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Pavement Westing (By Musket And Sextant) CD (1993) By Musket & Sextant
Brighten The Corners album
 $14.69  
WESTING (BY MUSKET AND SEXTANT) collects all the material from Pavement's first four vinyl releases--the 7" EP DEMOLITION PLOT J-7, the 10" EP PERFECT SOUND FOREVER, the 7" SUMMER BABE and the 7" SLAY TRACKS--along with other early material and compilation tracks.
Listening to WESTING ...
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| | Pavement Wowee Zowee CD (1995)
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WOWEE ZOWEE is a knowing, minor-key discombobulation of heavy post-punk and rock experimentalism amidst a slew of expansive country-rock songs. Production-wise, it's a clean record, a step closer to the mainstream. Structure-wise, it's a step away. You can easily read this sound as a reaction to Pavement suddenly having turned into a hot commercial commodity after 1994's critically praised CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN. Pavement is now a next-big-thing that doesn't want to be one. Both in structure and lyrics, songs like "Rattled By The Rush," "Brinx Job" and "Serpentine Pad" sneer at thoughtless alt-rock careerism, even as they try to figure out a way to survive it with the soul intact.
But while it works to offend and confound listeners, Pavement can't hide a certain sheer-pop glee that ...
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Where 1997's BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS saw Stephen Malkmus and his merry band of indie rock pranksters shine a light on the band's rock-centric qualities, TERROR TWILIGHT harkens back to '95s WOWEE ZOWEE, when Pavement were all about the shambolic sprawl of Alternative possibility. Of course, four years later the context is entirely different--the band's fate as rock's (commercially unsuccessful) great post-Nirvana hope is nearly sealed. And maybe that's where both the terror and the twilight come into play--in the realization that preaching sprawling possibility to the converted is more a noose than an open field, that failed expectations are a setting sun.
So, a downbeat spirit pervades TWILIGHT's songs. And in this gloom, Malkmus ...
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The title refers to the night when three men, Randy (Matt Dillon), his cousin Carl (Paul Reiser) and Detective Dehling (John Goodman), all meet Jewel Valentine (Liv Tyler) at a bar called McCool's. ...
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EMI. 2004.
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