Pavement - Wowee Zowee Album Review

Pavement
Wowee Zowee
Album Review

Wowee Zowee sounds like a band trying hard to not do what was expected. A couple of years before Radiohead tried the same, Pavement followed up their successful album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (and its hit single Cut Your Hair) with this wilfully obscure, eclectic and all-over-the-place disc. Like OK Computer, however, Wowee Zowee has some incredibly compulsive music - loosened up and noised up nods to where Pavement had been when they started. It is also, unexpectedly many hardcore Pavement fans' favourite album. Thankfully, we're being truly spoiled with this rerelease, in a Sordid Sentinels version containing 50 tracks in total - unreleased stuff, B-sides, BBC Evening Session tracks, tracks from various compilations: the whole kit and caboodle. Although critics pretty much hated the disc at the time, 12 years later, artists like Beck, Sparklehorse and Wilco have educated the palate enough to make Wowee Zowee a great, modern, listen. The world may finally be ready for this album. Truly excellent, and self-evidently timeless.

4.5/5

Mike Rea