Album Reviews
Stephen Malkmus recalls similar solo debuts by Television's Tom Verlaine and the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed: Freed from the constraints of a band that didn't constrain him all that much, the auteur grapples with the problem of what to do with all the empty spaces in the music. There are tentatively eclectic instrumental touches - love that toy-piano solo in "Troubbble" and the Basement Tapes organ of "Vague Space." But mostly, Malkmus wants to goof around, winging his most playful, lighthearted tunes since Wowee Zowee. "Jo Jo's Jacket" may or may not be a vicious attack on Moby, but it's ridiculously funny either way, while "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" tells a plaintive tale of young hippie lovers making out to Dire Straits. Sublime American beauties like "The Hook" are studded with elegiac asides about saying goodbye to your twenties (best line: "I had the taste of death and many other things/I had to pay the piper with my wedding ring"). A bold new direction? That's kid stuff. Instead, on Stephen Malkmus, Sweet Baby Steve maps out his adult style of indie slop with casual grace, the sound of a full-grown summer babe cultivating his patch of rock & roll fun with autumn closing in. (RS 863)
ROB SHEFFIELD
(Posted: Feb 5, 2001)
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