Pavement
Pavement strikes me as a prefab cult band, two parts Fall, one part Camper Van Beethoven. Since the lyrics are often verbose and the music deliberately but carefully tossed off, Pavement is model college rock. As slacker-dandies given to lo-fi snobbery, the band were clever, very clever. I used to hate them. Today, though, the rubble feels warm and inviting. Which makes it fun. (Key track: “Kennel District,” Wowee Zowee [1995].)
Pixies
With plenty of cheek, cactus and Dali, theirs is a ghost-town approach. (Key track: “Havalina,” Bossanova [1990].)
Radiohead
Twenty-plus years on, the sound of both The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997) remains full and bright. People hoped these records would be their next (not just Radiohead’s). Believers sang like Thom Yorke. They couldn’t wait for Jonny Greenwood to play the guitar again.
But after virtually everyone extolled that one-two punch — and the band seemed destined to follow in The Beatles’ footsteps and excel at culturally beloved pop art — Radiohead got weirder. And aside from occasional flickers of brilliance, they became (gasp) boring. More and more, contrivance was boss — and while pure sonic artifice had its rewards, I sorely missed the gift for melody, the feel for good old-fashioned hooks. And for far too long, it seemed, the band insisted on being abstruse, on being almost inordinately mad at Tony Blair. Still, art rock can be stubborn like that; and In Rainbows (2007) was largely transcendent, a return to form that felt fresh and new.
I keep listening. (Key track: “Fake Plastic Trees,” The Bends [1995].)
Stereolab
Patisserie for Commies. Put differently — they made furniture music that smells like vinyl. (Key track: “Les Yper Yper Sound,” Cybele’s Reverie EP [1995].)