Summer Babes (not like that)

As I mentioned in a tweet last week, I'm currently assembling a list of my top-5 summer albums for a column [a follow up to my 2009 piece on Egan's top-5 spring albums, where I explained my premise that all good albums should pair with seasons, much like wine with food]. If you know me, it goes without saying that Pavement makes this list...but which record? My first thought was Slanted and Enchanted, given the anthemic weight of the first track, "Summer Babe (Winter Version)," along with its general sense of careless artistic expression.

But what about Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain? My favorite album, it bears mentioning, but also the most angsty in Pavement's catalog. "Gold Soundz" is summer love ("so drunk in the August sun/ and you're the kind of girl I like/ because you're empty, and I'm empty/ and you can never quarantine the past)" and the epic "Range Life" is guiltless summer apathy: hopping turnstyles, riding aimlessly on skateboards, sniping at the Smashing Pumpkins..."school's out/what did you expect?!"

But wait! Then I gave Wowee Zowee a fresh listen, and I'll be damned if I didn't come away thinking that the album's sprawling ebb and flow made it Pavement's most dynamic document. There's blistering heat on there ("Rattled by the Rush") and sad, rainy days (the alt-countryesque "Motion Suggests" and "Father to a Sister of a Thought")...and isn't that what summer is all about?

Sure...but then there's Brighten the Corners, widely considered Pavement's attempt to find musical maturity rooted in a more classic rock sound. Tell me that "Shady Lane" isn't about innocent summer romance. I mean, who has oysters and dry lancers in Winter? And Terror Twilight? You mean the album that basically defined my first summer in Boston, 1999?

You see where I'm going with this. I've basically come to the conclusion that Pavement is a summer band. To see if my wistfulness had carried me too far, I decided to test my hunch by looking at recording and release dates for each of their major albums:

Slanted and Enchanted: Recorded Dec-Jan 90-91/ Released Apr 91

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain:......Aug-Sept 93/ February 94

Wowee Zowee:...................................Nov 94/April 95

Brighten the Corners:............................Jul 96/ Feb 97

Terror Twilight.....................................Jun-Dec 98/Jun 99

Three out of five ain't bad. Even if the evidence isn't conclusive, I swear there's something there. Maybe it has something to do with that too-cool-to-care Northern CA identity. It just seems fitting that Pavement got back together after a ten year hiatus this summer...right?*

None of this, of course, helps me with my decision. Which of these albums best embodies the summer essence? I'd be interested to hear some thoughts. I think I've made up my mind, but you'll have to stay tuned to see which album best fits my summer bill.