Are We What We Play??

Are We What We Play?
This 1UP article is one of the best pieces of videogame journalism I've read in some time. And it really did get me to think about how and why I play videogames. I've read and re-read the four unique essays contained in the article, comparing and contrasting to my own experience, and it's made me realize two things.

The first is that most Japanese games completely fail at making any sort of player/character connection. I'm trying to think of any Japanese game where I, personally, felt a connection to a character that went beyond a passive, "member of the audience along for the ride" role, but I'm drawing a blank.

I'm currently--slowly--making my way through Persona 3: FES. This is one of those Japanese games where your character is, essentially, a blank slate. You determine their "personality" with responses you give and the decisions you make. However, the closer a game gets to non-linearity, the more stifling and obvious the limitations become. I was playing the game as if I were the main character. How would I act in these situations?? Well, it turns out that I can't fully play the game like it was me, because I'll never finish its plot if I do. If I had my way, I'd never go into the game's dungeon. Instead, I would focus on studying, the track team, and playing the game-within-a-game MMORPG. Yet every month you are forced into a story scene in which you have to go fight enemies and then a boss in a mini-dungeon. If you neglect leveling up your characters too much, you might get completely stuck and have to start over. Meanwhile, your interactions with the characters in-game don't seem to have much effect other than letting you make new and better Persona fusions. If you ignore people or never talk to them to begin with, they don't hinder your progress or try to poison other people's opinion of you. Instead, you just won't be able to make the Persona fusions that their friendship would grant you.

It's not like I have a choice, pretty boy.

This isn't to say that Persona 3 is a bad game, because it's not. It represents a very unique RPG that combines a dungeon crawler with a dating/life sim. However, it is an odd beast in that it's a Japanese game where you help shape the main character but none of those decisions feel important or game changing. Sure, Western developed RPGs with moral choices and more-open-ended character develop will ultimately condense into totally good/in between/totally evil archetypes, but at least it's something you do. When I'm an anti-social jerk in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Fallout, my decisions have real consequences both for the story and the world I'm inhabiting. You are always saving the world in Persona 3 and almost every other Japanese RPG. You are always the good guy in Persona 3 and almost every other Japanese RPG. Again, this doesn't make them bad games. It just nudges them further to the "fun games" side as opposed to "games I can relate to and/or take meaning from" side.

Oh, I haven't left the Light Side...yet.

The second thing I want to talk about is World of Warcraft. You aren't making decisions in the game that effect the story or your character's personality. The quests you take--which ostensibly are the story--don't let you decide whether your character is evil, good, or in between. However, everything else about it will do this, whether you know it or not. Do you gank other players?? Do you heal and buff random people while running around?? Do you never group with anyone?? Do you take advantage of your guild, if you have one, or are you the person who's always selflessly giving up items and money to help others?? At the same time, which class you play reflects your personality in some way. While it is fun to try all the classes--and I have--it's worth noting that which one(s) you stick with can say something about you. Are you the 'take charge' type?? You're probably a Warrior, the class that almost always leads when your group is doing dungeons. Are you the helpful, support-oriented type?? You're probably a Priest, the main healers/buffers. Are you the "I can't commit to just one thing and want to be flexible" type?? You're probably a Druid. Or perhaps it goes the opposite way: you play in the game what you wish you were in real life.

Moreover, all of these things help create the story for you. For me, and I'm sure many others, the "story" of the game isn't the quests. I would wager that 98% of WoW players completely skip the lore and explanation that accompanies the quests and just want to get to killin'. There has been a lot of the talk recently about how games tell stories and how they should tell stories, and I think this game is of a mind with the "the environment you inhabit and the choices you make create the story" viewpoint famously put forth by Ken Levine, the main mind behind BioShock. The story of my Dwarf Hunter's journey to level 70 wasn't the story of the quests, but the story I experiences in the places I went, the players I helped or harassed, the silly stuff I did in towns (naked, drunk dancing and boxing in Ironforge is always fun), the dungeons my guild ran and the funny/frustrating events that transpired there, and so on. I would actually say that WoW requires a lot of imagination from the player, because when I'm in the ruins of some Troll temple, the explanation I come up with by looking around me is always better than the lore/quest text that accompanies it. Just as things are always more terrifying when you can't see them and/or have no knowledge of what precisely they are, the setting and story of a game is (usually) better when you are making it up yourself.

Yeah, I posted the screencap I took when I hit 70. Deal with it.

The odd thing is, when I play Western style RPGs, I tend to go down the "total jerk" path, and I think that might be as much a reaction to the "goody two shoes" path I'm railroaded down in Japanese RPGs as much as it is my own inner dark tendencies. I say this is odd because when I play WoW, I'm actually altruistic, because I feel that the things I do in the game will reflect on me in real life. I know some of the people I play with, so I play the game like it's really me. Which is stranger yet, because in my mind I think of myself as a selfish prick but I'm always giving away items to guild members or helping them with difficult quests.

So, maybe it's not so much a case of "we are what we play" as "what I play can be who I am or what I want to be."

Album of the Week: My Bloody Valentine- Isn't Anything

Don't worry. I'm not going to try to be an iconoclast and argue that Isn't Anything is better than Loveless. After all, it wouldn't be fair; Loveless is an iconic, landmark release that still sounds like nothing else in music history. It was a bolt from the blue. By any standard, Isn't Anything is a more 'normal' album: its got discernible lyrics, the guitars aren't constantly built up to huge swallowing walls of beautiful noise, and the songs themselves are more traditionally structured.

However, even if Loveless never existed, Isn't Anything would still be one of the crowning achievements of the shoegazer genre. In fact, listening to other bands of this era, you get the impression that they took inspiration primarily from this album. Nobody quite managed to make the jump to a Loveless level, or perhaps knew better than to try. Isn't Anything is more safely grounded in this reality, with an inspiration of its own to work from: The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy. I have to confess that I only very recently listened to that album, but its influence is shot through this album, from the druggy atmospheres and careful mix of noise/pop to the Velvet Underground-esque mystique and seeming danger of the whole project. What My Bloody Valentine did was to make this aesthetic a little more warm and inviting. Listening to Psychocandy is like being strung out on heroin in a crappy apartment after your girlfriend has decided to leave you for good; listening to Isn't Anything is like being stoned and sleepy while snuggling with a girlfriend who you had a serious fight with the night before.

It took Deerhoof to make me realize how much I like Isn't Anything. In 2006, the band released a free MP3-only EP through their website which contained live tracks and 3 covers. One of those was 'Lose My Breath' from Isn't Anything, and in listening to the EP over and over, it finally hit me what great songs this band has. Even the huge reverb monster 'All I Need', with its cavernous guitars, is a fantastic experience. However, Isn't Anything more often adheres to a noise/pop blueprint, with songs like 'Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)', 'You Never Should', 'Nothing Much To Lose', and the aforementioned 'Lose My Breath' all being, underneath all the sonic murk and thrashings, classic pop/rock songs waiting to be uncovered. There is also more of a Dinosaur Jr.-esque rock vibe going on in some songs, like the heady rush of 'When You Wake (You're Still In A Dream)' and 'Feed Me With Your Kiss.'

I love Isn't Anything. I consider it a 5 star album. But--and this is a very big but, indeed--it's no Loveless. Sometimes it's possible to listen to this album and come away with the impression that it's pretty good on its own merits, but it was still a warm-up for Loveless. And though Isn't Anything would prove more influential in the short term, Loveless would be moreso in the long run. Bands like Deerhunter and M83 have taken ideas from Loveless into very different directions, while others--such as Trey Anastasio of Phish and Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices--claim to be inspired by the album in less direct ways. In the end, though, Isn't Anything is worthy of consideration and appreciation on its own. Try to listen to it without the burden of Loveless and you'll find a lot to love.

Tom Goes To The Mayor: Season Two Highlights

With season two, Tom Goes To The Mayor got weirder, darker, and, yes, funnier. Though the show has never been officially canceled, since Tim and Eric moved on after this season to do Awesome Show, it's fairly certain that these will be the last episodes of the series. Here I present the second half of my personal choices for funniest moments from Tom Goes To The Mayor.


Episode: My Big Cups
Funniest Moment: After getting caught passing off his sons' macaroni art as his own in front of a city council meeting, Tom's beeper goes off. The Mayor, making the bizarre assumption that it's the fire alarm, begins spraying people with a fire extinguisher. "Whew, saved by the bell," Tom remarks, as the episode ends and we cut to footage of Dustin "Screech" Diamond doing a strange neck dance.


Episode: Bass Fest
Funniest Moment: The Only Married News Team are caught unprepared when their teleprompter apparently is blank. Jan is petrified while Wayne tries to encourage her. Finally, Jan asks 'Ryan' if they can cut to a commercial. Suddenly, Wayne shrieks "Ryan go to commercial!!" and you can almost tell that Tim was caught unaware by the outburst, giving the show an improvisational feel that would come to the fore with their next project.


Episode: Jeffy the Sea Serpent
Funniest Moment: No, it's not The Mayor forgetting that Tom is inside a fake sea serpent. It's the ending where the "dead" sea serpent is on display in a museum of "Nature's Greatest Mistakes", with a placard that reads "Underwater Bigfoot-Style Monstrosity."


Episode: White Collarless
Funniest Moment: Combining a poop joke with poor spelling is funny no matter how you slice it.


Episode: Wrestling
Funniest Moment: After abusing a drug to help win a boys' wrestling tournament, Tom is reduced to a wheelchair bound wreck. However, his statue is being installed next to The Mayor's, who helpfully puts a telescope in front of his "good" eye. Realizing that not only is his name misspelled, but the statue looks nothing like him, Tom moans out an exasperated cry that gets me every time I hear it.


Episode: Saxman
Funniest Moment: One of the running gags on the show was people circling things on paper like an elementary school teacher might. However, in this scene, it's combined with Tom realizing the music writing process with the creepy Saxman isn't going so well because he's working in the bass cleft.


Episode: Spray a Carpet or Rug
Funniest Moment: As the darkest episode up to this point, 'Spray a Carpet or Rug' also has an ending that is the strangest yet. After being talked into suicide, Tom goes through a surreal scene that recalls the ending of 2001 before he ends up in what appears to be heaven's version of The Mayor's office. Things quickly turn sinister before the camera cuts to The Mayor, revealed to be a demon, who screams a terrifying sound...and then the episode ends.


Episode: Surprise Party
Funniest Moment: This is one of those episodes where things get worse and worse for Tom. And while this business card/spelling joke had been done in an earlier episode (specifically in 'Re-Birth'), Tom's addition of "the phone number isn't current" is especially ridiculous since, well, the phone number is listed as "pending."


Episode: CNE
Funniest Moment: In an episode packed with hilarious things, the commercial for CNE medication takes the cake. It's first introduced as "not just your father's diaper rash medication anymore!!" and then later "though first developed as a dangerous fox repellent..." before Dr. Michael Ian Black turns it off. It's worth noting that Black holds a medical degree from Dr. Peppar's Medical Institute aka the guy behind the Re-Birthing episode's strange adoption legitimizing program.


Episode: Friendship Alliance
Funniest Moment: I have a weak spot for ridiculous products, and Rat Nap is one of the best Tim and Eric came up with. Ostensibly a liquid used to induce sleep or comas in rodents, in this episode it's used in large quantities to put Tom, The Mayor, and Gibbons to sleep for two weeks so John C. Reilly can escape town without legal consequences.


Episode: Zoo Trouble
Funniest Moment: 'Zoo Trouble' is probably my least favorite of the second season of Tom Goes To The Mayor simply because the ending is too arbitrary and silly for its own good. However, they do manage a few good laughs, such as during the ride Tom and The Mayor go on at Bernie Fusterillio's Real Live Animal Experience. Told to "smell the breath of the deadly lion", Tom's smell tube malfunctions and seals around his mouth, giving his face a coat of stinky paste as he chokes and coughs.


Episode: Layover
Funniest Moment: Fun Fact: According to the commentary, this is among Tim and Eric's personal favorite episodes of the show. While the other restaurants they came up with were funny--WW Laserz, Gulliver's buffet, Sauceman's--Fishanelli's is the best yet. A seafood establishment where you can choose your fish, dip, and waiter, the small legal text at the end of the commercial is comedy gold. You probably can't read it from an image this small, but it informs the viewer that the "squid snaplins" may contain up to 94% of a few disgusting sea creatures that clearly aren't squid. Also that color and salt have been added to maintain appearance and consumer appetite.


Episode: Couple's Therapy
Funniest Moment: During an exercise to help get some more romance into the bedroom, The Mayor is told to say something erotic without using words. He leans toward Tom and makes a series of the most strange human sounds you've heard in a long time before Gary Shandling, as the leader of the couples cruise they're on, says "Mayor, that's turning the whole boat on."


Episode: Glass Eyes
Funniest Moment: During a barrel goat hunt, the Only Married News Team are singing a song to urge the participants on. When the goats escape from Memorial Park, they begin to sing about the events unfolding. I don't know, I just think it's really funny that they quickly cut from a scripted, pre-filmed song to "breaking news" in the form of a song.


Episode: Undercover
Funniest Moment: Tom's height reduction surgery in order to pose as a child at the school was funny. So funny that Zach Galifianakis, as a doctor, laughs hysterically while describing it to Tom. However, his re-heightening is funnier still, and probably the best ending reveal of the whole series. Tottering on stick legs with an idiotically throaty voice, Tom tries to lean in toward the microphone to thank the city council before his legs snap and he falls over.


Episode: Puddins
Funniest Moment: This episode is the blackest humor Tim and Eric have ever produced. I happen to think it's among the funniest. The poem that Tom reads at his son's memorial service at the school is genius in its awkwardness, only trumped by his ensuing grief and furthering madness. Appearing at The Mayor's office, who mistakes Tom for a baboon, he tries to introduce his new son "Brindon Again." Of course it's not a real human baby: rather, it's an irritated cat, who jumps out of the empty Puddins container and crashes through a window while Tom collapses into despair. I dunno, you'd have to watch it to think it's funny.


Episode: Joy's Ex
Funniest Moment: Here we are, the last one. This episode is a fairly appropriate note to end on, especially given the psychedelic vibe the whole thing has. I mean, they do get stoned in it. Anyway, the best bit comes when Tom explains that he shouldn't go outside in the thunderstorm because his briefs have a lot of underwire. "You know, for support," he offers, striking a hilarious pose.

Video: Iron and Wine- Naked As We Came

I know that Sam Beam is trying to say something with this video, but honestly it's something that a lot of people have done and said better before. It's a muddle of death, renewal, things running backwards or forwards in time, love, food...The imagery is lousy with symbolism and metaphor but it'll be lost on most people. It's a nice enough video otherwise.

The only thing I can add is that death is often used as a metaphor for orgasm or sex. "Naked As We Came" could mean dying or, er, coming. "One of us will die inside these arms" helps make this clear, but also if you know that the French sometimes refer to orgasm as la petite mort: "the little death."

Tom Goes To The Mayor: Season One Highlights

With the recent release of the first season of Tim and Eric's Awesome Show: Great Job!, I felt compelled to go back to their first series, Tom Goes To The Mayor. As the 3 DVD set contains both seasons of the show, I figured I may as well split this post into two convenient halves highlighting what I consider the funniest moments from each episode.


Episode: Bear Traps
Funniest Moment: As The Mayor introduces Tom to the Jefferton City Council, he mentions that Tom is a real astronaut, not like that imposter. Cut to newspaper clipping seen above. Doubly funny because Tom is also not an astronaut.


Episode: WW Laserz
Funniest Moment: After being knocked unconscious by an angry, asthma suffering child's brick projectile, Tom comes to days later in a dumpster. The Mayor explains that he has been keeping Tom there because he was "too tender to move" and has been feeding him cat food. In what would become a series signature moment, a real life hand and cat food are shown, with the fingers disgustingly breaking up the canned feline treat.


Episode: Pioneer Island
Funniest Moment: Though technically the second episode aired, the DVD lists it as the third episode. Anyway, the best scene in 'Pioneer Island' is after Tom writes a postcard to his family while helping with the Pioneer Island renovations. As he mispronounces the word "brochure" it shows up on the screen as a subtitle. This would become another series staple: mispronunciations, sometimes with subtitles. See also constant misspellings, often of Tom's full name, Tom Peters.


Episode: Toodle Day
Funniest Moment: This is one of those episodes where you just have to go along with the ridiculous premise to have any fun with it. Basically an annual town festival where dogs are married off, The Mayor has decided that for this year's Toodle Day they should train a matchmaker dog to help pair off the canines, as dog divorces are extremely high due to inappropriate husband/wife combinations. So it's up to Tom to train this dog, which he does so in ridiculous attire. The blackboard, complete with "by Tom Peters" on it, seals the absurdity of the whole thing.


Episode: Rats Off To Ya!
Funniest Moment: I don't know why I think it's so funny, but this whole episode spoofs America's tendency to latch unto one cultural fad and take it to extremes. In this case, it's a t-shirt that Tom makes, the titular 'Rats Off To Ya" with a rat presenting a hat to the t-shirt viewer. A local business owner steals the idea from him, and the whole thing ends up with Rats Off To Ya wristlets, electric scooters, bongs, and this hilarious, teen pop skewering music video. Truth be told Eric Wareheim's outfit and dance moves--foreshadowing his amazing 'Casey and his Brother' stuff on Awesome Show--are a funnier visual gag this the singer chick grinding on a man in a rat costume, but I'm a sucker for bestiality.


Episode: Porcelain Birds
Funniest Moment: We're roughly halfway through the season, and I think it's with this episode that the series came into its own. There are a lot of hilarious moments in this one, but the ending is what always gets me. It's not even the surprise screeching giant bird that pops out of the huge toilet dedicated to a despondent Tom at the very end. For me, it's just the huge toilet itself, because it makes for a great reminder that the same thing that useless shit like porcelain birds are made out of also goes into the thing that we use to shit in.


Episode: Vehicular Manslaughter
Funniest Moment: It's impossible not to love the dance/handshake thing that The Mayor and Dr. Michael Ian Black do. There's just something inspired about the weird gestures and nonsense words that Tim and Eric come up with for these kind of situations.


Episode: Boy Meets Mayor
Funniest Moment: Though I will admit that I think it's funny that The Mayor seems more concerned with Tom's broken sandal than he does with his sex scandal, I also think it's far funnier when they both find themselves in a hot air balloon race/record attempt and lose their minds. There has always been something disturbing and creepy about The Mayor, something inhuman, but this is the first time he truly gives off a serial killer vibe. When Tom argues that they need to give up and land before they all die, The Mayor grabs him and, with a dagger to Tom's neck, calmly intones "I wouldn't do that if I were you."


Episode: Calcucorn
Funniest Moment: Like 'Porcelain Birds', 'Calcucorn' is funny from start to finish, and its best scene comes at the end. I would have to summarize the whole episode to help contextualize the hilarity of this part, but just know that as Tom sinks in a heavy, unwieldly unicorn suit he politely offers something along the lines of "this suit is making me sink, that's the only problem I have with it right now." Much of the humor from this show comes from awkward situations or Tom not standing up for himself, and this is one of those situations where Tim and Eric absolutely help you understand what they were going for with this show and this character.


Episode: Gibbons
Funniest Moment: While the majority of the humor in this episode comes from the interplay between The Mayor, Gibbons, and Tom, they also manage to sneak in a great bit about what Tom is trying to sell at the Friendship Expo. The show usually managed to sneak in little bits of text on posters, postcards, backgrounds, or just other funny details that you only notice on the second or third viewing. However this one's side humor is delicious: Tom's wife Joy has him selling 'friendship skirts for men' ("to be worn in tandem", Tom explains) while he is trying to hock his BOTCs--books on tiny cassette. Somehow, Tim and Eric always manage to push something that already is funny--a motivational seminar on an outdated audio format from a man who constantly fails and has no backbone--to something funnier yet--the same thing only on an even more useless audio format that practically no one has heard of.


Episode: Pipe Camp
Funniest Moment: I have actually seen official Pipe Camp shirts in the wild. I just wanted to note that because I think this image speaks for itself: Tom in another stupid outfit, with his fly undone, trying to motivate kids to exercise at a camp that, unbeknownst to him, is teaching kids proper pipe smoking and what fatty meats would complement what blends of pipe tobacco. I should add that Tom mispronounces aerobics, too.


Episode: Re-Birth
Funniest Moment: As with 'Toodle Day', you just have to roll with the premise of the episode to like 'Re-Birth.' However, I hope I'm not alone in thinking that what Tom renames his three sons--Brandon, Brindon, and Brendon--is one of the funniest running gags of the series from here on out.


Episode: Vice Mayor
Funniest Moment: Tim and Eric's 'Married News Team' bit gets better with time. Though taken to even loftier and creepier heights later in the series, and in Awesome Show, this scene from the last episode of season one ranks up there for me with one of the best images from the series. Even not knowing anything about what is going on in this picture, you could probably get some amusement out of it. That Jan is pawing at the image of Tom's house, where the hobo stink wave originates, while Wayne nods adoringly from the bottom right of the screen is simply sublime.

Album of the Week: Andrew Bird- Armchair Apocrypha

The cover of Armchair Apocrypha is some kind of bird, though all you can see is its back. You can't detect any wings, any facial features, the claws, etc. It's as if you're wandering through a grandparent's attic, seeing all kinds of strange and seemingly foreign things from years past via only one angle--you do a doubletake and either look closer or turn the object over before you realize what it is. This is more or less what listening to the album is like. The songs seem familiar to you but you aren't quite sure what they are until you give them closer inspection.

Andrew Bird is one of those American musicians who you're almost sure can't be an American because he seems so multicultural. The phrase "citizen of the world" comes to mind because his songs seem shot through with imagery and words from across the world. There's something of a worldly 19th century European aristocrat vibe going on, too, from his violin/stringed instrument mastery to his highly skilled whistling to his voice pitched somewhere between the operatic ecstasy of Rufus Wainwright and the sensitive-but-full-bodied Jeff Buckley. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but combined with his lyrics--filled with words, places, and people you'd only expect to hear in various history or sociology courses in college--Bird really seems like a truly intelligent person who knows a lot about everything. A Renaissance man, basically.

The true accomplishment of Armchair Apocrypha is not its intelligence, though. Like other brainy indie rockers such as the Decemberists, you don't need a Bachelor's degree to appreciate the album. That's because with songs like 'Imitosis', 'Plasticities', and 'Scythian Empires' Bird has proven himself a genius of pop songwriting. Though these three songs are too long and nuanced to work as radio smash hits, they are as catchy as catchy can be. Like Sufjan Stevens, Bird is able to write infectious and memorable songs utilizing a vast array of instruments. Also similarly, those songs can be about unconventional subjects. Where Stevens has released two albums that are ostensibly "about" the states Michigan and Illinois, Bird's songs can be about, well, the Scythian Empire and heretics; however, it's also true that Stevens and Bird's songs are not just about these topics. They're often used as metaphors or red herrings for the true meaning, which is usually left up to the listener to decide.

I feel like I should have more to say, but other than "the lyrics are really good, too" nothing comes to mind. Perhaps that's the point. This is one of those albums that people simply have to experience themselves, have a reaction to emotionally/intellectually, and return to often for ever-richer enjoyment. I can't fully explain to you what the title of the album means to me, or what I feel when the intro to 'Plasticities' starts and Bird materializes with the line "this isn't your song/this isn't your music." But you wouldn't, and shouldn't, understand even if I tried to. So. Get this album.

Primer: Pavement Part 6- Terror Twilight

The final albums by bands often have a fascinating quality about them that has nothing to do with the music contained inside. It's tempting to throw the lyrics across a table like owl bones and try to read coded messages about a break-up or inter-band acrimony. At the same time, it's also tempting to compare the final album to the subsequent solo material and/or side projects of the former band members. Would the band have naturally headed in those directions, or did it take the end of the band and a "clean slate" mindset to create those changes??

Terror Twilight has a reputation that has nothing to do with the music. Fans see in the lyrics from 'Ann Don't Cry' Stephen Malkmus's farewell to the band--"I am not having fun anymore"--while a literal farewell was in the alternate title for the album (according to The Slow Century DVD, a working title was Farewell Horizontal). However, I've never bought the assertion I see sometimes that this is a proto-Malkmus solo album. Though all the songs are written by Malkmus, there is still that distinct Pavement-ness to the album; in fact, despite the production of Nigel Godrich, it's actually more unhinged and off-the-cuff than Brighten The Corners.

Coming at the end of the 90s and the end of the band's lifetime, Terror Twilight is their secret masterpiece. I would wager that as time has gone on, and continues to go on, more and more people will come around to it. As it's the band's last album, it's had too much stigma attached to it for people to peel back those surface layers and get to the meat beneath. That is to say, it's the band's most overtly psychedelic and 60s inspired album. For the video for 'Shady Lane', Malkmus's vision for director Spike Jonze was to create something that was "psychedelic but not retro." That vision, it seems to me, was carried over to the Terror Twilight album.

In many ways, too, Terror Twilight is like a mini-Wowee Zowee in terms of its variety. The MOR pop ballad 'Major Leagues'--which I initially hated and have only recently come around to, thanks to its sublime "they'll wear you down sometime" bit--butts up against the dense, three-part, bluesy (no pun intended) 'Platform Blues', with harmonica soloing from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. Elsewhere, the cool, groovy 'Speak, See, Remember' (the one song that even people who don't seem to like Terror Twilight will admit is awesome) gives way to the the intense guitar meltdown 'The Hexx' (the first of many Malkmus long jams that either end or help bring an album to a close), which then gives way to the impossibly catchy 'Carrot Rope', complete with overlapping sing-along vocals.

Pavement's album covers, lyrics, and music have always been odd and sitting outside the mainstream, but Terror Twilight pushes the whole thing into 'psychedelic.' For instance, 'Spit On A Stranger' is about kissing another person for the first time, though you would really have to think about it to understand that. With these skewed lyrical nuggets comes a more overtly psychedelic/60s inspired sound. Though some of this credit must be given to producer Nigel Godrich, who had Radiohead's OK Computer from 1997 and Beck's Mutations from 1998 under his belt (two albums that have similar psychedelic/60s leanings), Malkmus must take the main brunt of the credit/blame for this album. Guitar effects pedals and mostly-subtle squiggling and burbling keyboards are used prominently alongside clean guitars with slight reverb. At the same time, some of the songs are Malkmus's most ambitious, like the aforementioned 'Platform Blues' and 'Speak, See, Remember.' Watching the band play these songs live in The Slow Century DVD, you get the feeling that Malkmus broke up the band partially because they simply weren't tight and practiced enough to do these justice. It simply wasn't in Pavement to have that much discipline; in the same DVD, bassist Mark Ibold points out that he sings on 'Carrot Rope' but they don't play it live because he couldn't teach himself to play bass and sing at the same time.

I will concede that Terror Twilight isn't their best album. That title rightfully belongs to one of their first three depending on your taste. However, Terror Twilight also isn't as mediocre as people have been saying since its release. While Brighten The Corners needs a reissue to help flesh out its era and give it some context, Terror Twilight is the album that people need to return to without the baggage of context. If you merely listen to it and let it reveal itself for what it is, you'll find a lot to like here.