Brighten the Corners


I woke up today and I was happy to see my favorite weather outside. Somewhat overcast and 18 degrees. The perfect day for a human furnace. This weather triggers a good memory in me. Back in 1997, around this time, was when I found Brighten the Corners in the free bin at Encore Records. I remember seeing the video for Stereo on The Wedge around that time, so I figure why not take the free sampler cd from Matador records. Life has not been the same since. Slowly but surly this album became one of my all time favorites. It opened the doors to not only every other Pavement album, but other bands like Silver Jews, Guided By Voices, and Sebadoh. Little did Encore know how many hundreds of dollars my brothers and I would spend at their store all because of one free CD.

Every time spring rolls around and the weather is nice out, I feel an uncontrollable urge to roll down the windows on my car and crank BTC as loud as possible. Every tune is incredible. Start to finish. It has my second favorite Pavement tune of all time on there, Starlings of the Slipstream. Second only to Grounded, which is the worlds greatest song from any band ever.

Everyone has one album that changed their take on music, for me its Brighten the Corners.

A fucking classic, and I don't care what anyone says.

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4 comments

  1. This album is the Valencia of La Liga.

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  2. Dude, we were spending thousands at Encore before that beast ever came out! Think the first time I was there was 1986 when it was at a different location? Believe it was Aerosmith Permanent Vacation I scored on tape that day.

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  3. Yea for sure, all I meant was we ended up spending hundreds on Pavement cds....the Bekavac boys collectively.

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  4. Ahh, my bad.

    Valencia...that's gold.

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