Pavement

Pavement made an art of sounding effortless: records that felt rough around the edges yet were full of sly hooks, oddball lyrics and a restless ear for melody. That apparent looseness—most famously on Slanted and Enchanted—became a manifesto for 1990s indie rock, a counterpoint to mainstream alt-rock that rewarded repeated listening rather than radio polish.

The band’s early identity was shaped as much by who kept things chaotic as by who wrote the songs. Gary Young’s weird, slippery drumming and home-studio production gave Pavement’s first recordings their ragged charm and unpredictability. When Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg began refining those ideas, the results moved from charmingly amateurish sketches into sturdier, more song-focused statements—most notably on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which balanced accessibility and off-kilter wit.

Pavement’s sound sits at a crossroad of influences. The jagged textures of Sonic Youth and the terse drive of The Fall are audible in the way songs can swerve into dissonance or repeat a single mantra to hypnotic effect. At the same time, the band shared a lo-fi kinship with Guided by Voices: a belief that rough recording and strong songwriting could coexist. These threads helped Pavement influence countless indie bands that followed, who took the band’s casual approach to composition as permission to experiment.

Individual members also created important side-roads that explain Pavement’s wider impact. Stephen Malkmus’s solo work and Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks extended his taste for winding, literate songs, while Scott Kannberg’s Spiral Stairs projects explored a poppier, more melodic vein. The band’s friendships and scene ties with Silver Jews and other Drag City-adjacent acts further embedded Pavement in a creative network that valued songwriting over spectacle.

Pavement’s catalogue rewards digging: start with Slanted and Enchanted for the vibe, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for its songwriting peak, then branch to Wowee Zowee and Terror Twilight to hear how the band stretched and refined its sound. Even now, Pavement’s mix of insouciance and craft remains an instructive model for anyone curious about how indie rock can sound both careless and impeccably composed.