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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Sun 28 September 2025 23:00, UK <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been disappointed by mainstream culture,\u201d Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus<\/a> told Salon magazine back in 1999. \u201cThings slip through, like The Simpsons or Nirvana, but you\u2019re always making the best of a bad situation.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a very on-brand Stephen Malkmus quote for the era, as the 33-year-old indie icon was out promoting what would prove to be the final Pavement studio album (probably), Terror Twilight. The general malaise with the culture was nothing new, of course, but after a decade or so in the business, with somewhat diminishing returns and an unexpected drop in critical adoration, Malkmus sounded like a guy with one foot out the door. <\/p>\n A quarter-century later, with a recent re-issue<\/a> to re-argue its case, Terror Twilight has gained a little more appreciation among Pavement fans who originally balked at its relative slickness and spacey Nigel Godrich production. It was the only time Pavement worked with an outside producer, and they seemed to regret the choice themselves for a while. Still, pound for pound, Terror Twilight has some of the best licks and lyrics in the band\u2019s catalogue, with Malkmus really on his oddball A-game as a combiner of words that have never been sung together before or since.<\/p>\n \u201cWatch out for the gypsy children in electric dresses, they\u2019re insane,\u201d he warns on \u2018You Are a Light.\u2019 \u201cI hear they live in crematoriums and smoke your remains.\u201d<\/p>\n If you judge lyrics on their literal meanings, that\u2019s just some wildly ignorant misinformation there. But Malkmus, much like another California-born slacker icon named Beck, is a different sort of lyric writer.\u00a0\u201cMaking a song is about trying to create a mood,\u201d he told Salon, \u201cor make some sort of game. But not so much a tricking game. The lyrics aren\u2019t planned. Whatever comes out comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n That approach is part of what hooked Malkmus and Beck with the slacker tag to begin with; the sense that they were irony-obsessed, middle-class smarty-pantses with nothing meaningful to say. But Malkmus\u2019s approach to wordplay probably wasn\u2019t much different than prime Bob Dylan\u2014supposed \u201cvoice of a generation\u201d\u2014who had great tomes written to decipher his lovely-sounding nonsense. The quest for hidden meaning was ultimately no different among hardcore Pavement<\/a> fans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe secondary stumbles \u2019cause the cadence of the count has led them astray,\u201d Malkmus sings on Terror Twilight\u2019s \u2018The Hexx.\u2019 \u201cPray their intuition leads them crashing into bodies in a perfect way.\u201d<\/p>\n Actually, that line is just an extended reference to American football for some reason, so that kind of makes sense. It\u2019s just harder to attach it to the lines just before it: \u201cEpileptic surgeons with their eyes x\u2019ed out attend to a torn up kid \/ Who salivate and reckon with all the sick things that you did.\u201d<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t a story there or an obvious, relatable observation about life, but there is certainly a mood or a feeling created by it; quite an unnerving one at that.\u00a0Malkmus has always had the general vibe of a writer who wound up in a band, and he certainly wasn\u2019t drawn toward playing music by the traditions of the rock and roll lifestyle.<\/p>\n