Stephen Malkmus — Stephen Malkmus
A retrospective on his under-appreciated solo debut
Pavement’s rise is a an all too familiar story at this point. Right as the band finally seemed like they were going to make their break for the mainstream the fame became too much to handle and Pavement dissolved. Things got so bad for the group late in their run that, as is plainly stated on the Pavement Wikipedia page, there were times on their final tour where Malkmus would put his coat over his head, refuse to speak to anyone, and call himself “The Little Bitch”.
While Malkmus seemed mentally defeated and physically exhausted in 2000 he did not let it affect his productivity. After his divorce from the band was finalized he wasted no time at all, immediately getting back in the studio to record with his new group (which would soon become“The Jicks”). The results of those sessions culminated in his eponymous solo release Stephen Malkmus, an album that stands up with Pavement’s best. It showed that Malkmus still had a lot in the tank, proving to be both one of the most purposeful and whimsical albums he ever made.
Stephen Malkmus is not a far departure from the sound Pavement cultivated during the 90’s. Album opener Black Book sounds like a more expensively produced version of something that may have come out of the Slanted & Enchanted sessions. Many songs here continued with the Pavement tradition of seeming like they were going somewhere only for the listener to realize three quarters of the way through that the song is ultimately about not really anything. For this phenomena you’ll have to look no further than JoJo’s Jacket, a song which seems to start off as a tune about what it’s like to be Yul Brynner. Before you know it he’s singing about medicinal jelly and not leaving your house on Christmas and it becomes hard to tell exactly what role Brynner has in this whole affair.
However this release is markedly different tonally from anything Malkmus made with Pavement. It was evident that it was not all too enjoyable being in Pavement in the late 1990’s. The stress of being “a generation defining band” as many a critic had deemed them had gotten to Spiral Stairs and Malkmus (see “the little bitch” incident). It is thus clear from the onset of Stephen Malkmus that the stress and pain of his previous gig was not going to effect his new work in the slightest. More than anything this album feels like the work of someone who is finally having fun again. Song shimmer and shine as Malkmus bubbles right through. Second song Phantasies bounces about, children assist with the chorus while goofy vocal samples and the harpsicord fill the background. The song would quicker be confused with a Nick Jr theme song than it would a Pavement B-Side.
Malkmus also seems to be making a conscious effort to write fully fleshed out songs on this album. Where Pavement spent most of their time jamming about carelessly hoping that whatever they recorded would slowly turn into something worth putting on a record, here we have some real attempts at structure. Songs have verses and choruses and slowly build to a climax. It kind of feels like a young film student finding Vine and being pushed in a new direction by the limiting structures of the format. Furthermore Malkmus goes as far as to show off his storytelling chops here and there, keeping a consistent cast of characters for full songs. The Hook follows the life of a captured sailor from Cyprus who slowly works his way up the ranks of the Turkish pirates who abducted him. By thirty one he has found himself as the captain of a galleon, happy with the life that the world has provided him going as far as to call himself “Poseidon’s new son”. It’s silly in a way that Malkmus didn’t seem comfortable being towards the end of his tenure with Pavement. It finally seems that Malkmus is turning the whimsy of his previous work and channeling it purposefully. The Hook even features a **gasp** classic sounding guitar solo! Our friend is growing up in front of our very eyes.
The penultimate song, Jenny and The Ess-Dog, follows two star crossed lovers. Jennifer is our eighteen year old high school senior and Sean (the Ess-Dog if you wish) is our the thirty-one year old guitarist in a sixties cover band. Our couple ultimately grow apart after Jenny goes off to college and they can no longer make up for the strain that the both physical distance and distance in age between the two. A definite album highlight, Jenny is tender and respectful of the two in question and makes for a much more beautiful love song than can probably it should. These two were never meant to be together and they sound like even when they were together they probably weren’t that fun to be around, and I doubt Jenny looks back fondly on those “awful toe rings” that she wore. But that doesn’t mean that their time together was meaningless or that growth didn’t come from it. It’s about how relationships can be an escape from the doldrums of everyday life, even if that escape proves to be temporary. Its beautiful because most love isn’t the fairytale love that so many songs go on about it. Most relationships are complicated and destined to fail, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthwhile and that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own dignity and beauty. Its intimate and stunning in a way that no Pavement song ever really attempted to be.
Stephen Malkmus is as consistent and purposeful as anything Malkmus made in his career. It is a particularly interesting album to think about in the context of where Malkmus was in his life. Pavement had brushed up against fame without quiet getting all the way there, Malkmus had a picture perfect opportunity to use this as his “Morrisey Moment” where he broke out from the shackles of his previous band to try and assert himself in the pop conscious. However, Malkmus’ ambitions weren’t as large scale as a guy like Morrisey. The fame Pavement garnered was merely incidental, all he really wanted to do was make some good songs he liked playing with his friends. That being said Malkmus knew that he still did have something to prove, both to himself and audiences at large. He showed that not only was there was a life for him after Pavement but that life was going to be completely on his own terms and as goofy as he could get away with. While it is not nearly as iconic as any album he released with Pavement, Stephen Malkmus shows that regardless of who he is playing with Malkmus is one of his generation’s best songwriters, and that he doesn’t need to be going through hell to prove it.
