Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

The music on Crooked Rain has been characterized as "graft[ing] a shadow history of '60s and '70s California folk-rock and psychedelia onto the abrasive, Fall-inspired noise of their previous sound." According to Elizabeth Nelson of Pitchfork, the album's tracks "are alternately sparkling and insinuating, mournful and ominous and finally cathartic, variously evoking the desert swoon of the Flying Burrito Brothers, the swaggering two-guitar overdrive of Buffalo Springfield, and the eerie chill of jazz pioneer Dave Brubeck."^[3]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, "Crooked Rain strips away the hiss and fog of [Slanted], removing some of Pavement's mystery yet retaining their fractured sound and spirit. It's filled with loose ends and ragged transitions, but compared to the fuzzy, dense Slanted, Crooked Rain is direct and immediately engaging." The album makes use of guitar feedback, as well as fuzz and wah guitar effects. The album contains elements of pop music. The album also incorporates elements of country rock, making use of cowbells. Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times said, "the players frame Malkmus’ vocals with music of constant invention, from soft meditations to full-out fireworks. Sometimes it’s so relaxed it nearly stops, then it’s suddenly taut and jumpy." The music has drawn comparisons to the "loopiness" of the Meat Puppets and the country folk of the Rolling Stones and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Cromelin also noted the presence of "a chirpy pop tunefulness" on the album, though not without what he said was "enough contrary abrasiveness to keep you from getting too comfortable with them."^[4]

Lyrically, NME described the album's tracks as "New York stories about coming to terms with the city and its excesses, about finding yourself in a world of drug-addled rock piggery and platitude-slinging fools and still, somehow, keeping archly calm.”^[5][6] According to Jim DeRogatis, writing for Chicago Sun-Times, the album's lyrics "are less important than the way Pavement uses catchy vocal harmonies to establish different moods."^[7]

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was released on February 14, 1994, by Matador Records.^[8] As of 2009, the album had sold about 500,000 copies.^[9]

In 2004, Matador released Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins, a compilation containing the album in its entirety, as well outtakes and other rarities from the same era.^[10]

More information Review scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[11]
Chicago Sun-Times	[12]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[13]
Los Angeles Times	[14]
NME	8/10[15]
Rolling Stone	[16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[17]
Select	4/5[18]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[19]
The Village Voice	A[20]

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AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave Crooked Rain a perfect five-star rating, describing it as "the Reckoning to Slanted & Enchanted's Murmur." He concluded that the album was "a vibrant, dynamic, emotionally resonant album that stands as a touchstone of underground rock in the '90s and one of the great albums of its decade."^[11] Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave the album an A grade, describing it as "a tour de force melodywise."^[20] Entertainment Weekly's David Browne gave the album a B+, writing that "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is just a bunch of guys dwelling on topics like skateboarding, plane crashes, girls, and mocking Stone Temple Pilots. When they set those sentiments to bumpy-road drones or a bit of a country lilt...the result has a subtle, ingratiating beauty."^[13] Los Angeles Times critic Richard Cromelin gave the album 3.5 out of 4 stars. Cromelin wrote that the album contains "some of the Meat Puppets' loopiness, a Stones/Burritos folk-country resonance, and a chirpy pop tunefulness — along with enough contrary abrasiveness to keep you from getting too comfortable with them."^[14]

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain has been called "the quintessential slacker rock album."^[21] In 2003, the album was ranked number 210 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 212 in a 2012 revised list.^[22] In the 2020 update of the list, the album's rank dropped to number 434.^[23] It was also ranked number 10 on their best albums of the Nineties.^[24] In 2003, it was ranked number 8 on Pitchfork's list Top 100 Albums of the 1990s,^[25] and in 2010, the song "Gold Soundz" was listed as number one on Pitchfork's 200 Greatest Songs of the 1990s.^[26] In July 2014, Guitar World ranked Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain at number 21 in their "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.^[27] The photo in the middle of the cover was taken from the March 1978 issue of National Geographic. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[28]

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was included in the 2014 reference book Gimme Indie Rock by music journalist Andrew Earles. He wrote: "The pre-release hype and hoopla for this album was like a somewhat smaller-scale version of the anticipatory climate that awaited Nirvana's In Utero."^[29]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote: "Many bands attempted to replicate the sound or the vibe of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but they never came close to the quicksilver shifts in music and emotion that give this album such lasting appeal. [...] By drawing on so many different influences, Pavement discovered its own distinctive voice as a band on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, creating a vibrant, dynamic, emotionally resonant album that stands as a touchstone of underground rock in the '90s and one of the great albums of its decade."^[6]

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.^[32]

Pavement

• Stephen Malkmus – vocals, guitar, bass
• Scott Kannberg – guitar, vocals, organ, percussion
• Mark Ibold – bass, vocals
• Steve West – drums, percussion
• Bob Nastanovich – percussion, vocals

Technical

• Pavement – production
• Bryce Goggin – engineer, mixing, piano (9)
• Mark Venezia – engineer

• Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins