Light up gold

I suspect I'm in the minority in regarding Pavement's fourth LP Brighten The Corners as their best, and to tell the truth I'd be hard-pressed to explain why, other than to suggest in general terms that it finds them at their most melodic and cohesive without compromising the creative quirkiness for which they'd made their name. The Quietus' Lesley Chow argues the album's genius lies in Stephen Malkmus' lyrics - I'm not sure about that, but the evidence presented does suggest that the words deserve closer attention.

Meanwhile, Malkmus has spoken on a recent episode of the Talkhouse Music Podcast about the band's fateful final album (and successor to Brighten The Corners) Terror Twilight, describing it as "a real, classic rock, overproduced $100,000 record" and arguing that "With that much money you should be able to make something good. We made some things that weren't as good as they could've been." A harsh assessment, perhaps, and certainly one at which producer Nigel Godrich appears to taken umbrage, noting on Twitter: "I literally slept on a friend's floor in NYC to be able to make that album..."