And here it is. The third track by Pavement that I’d ever heard. ‘Cut Your Hair’ was the first. ‘Shady Lane’, second. One day, either when I was 11 or 12 and flicking through the music channels like I did on the regular in those days, I switched back to MTV2 and playing on the screen was the video for ‘Stereo’. It was nearing its end, but there was just enough time left that the graphic stating ‘PAVEMENT – STEREO’ popped up on the screen. It left me with a good feeling. “Hey, it’s that band again.” The song sounded great. But it seemed that whenever the video was playing, I’d be on another channel. I’d switch back to MTV2 on some days, and there it was again getting to the end. I don’t think it was until YouTube was a thing that I was able to watch the whole video. It also revealed to me that Stephen Malkmus was the singer in the band, as it showed him fully miming the words. He’s headless in ‘Shady Lane’, so I still didn’t know, and in ‘Cut Your Hair’ all the members are mouthing the lyrics. Malkmus wasn’t playing the guitar, though, so I thought Bob Nastanovich was the second guitarist for a while.

‘Stereo’ is the first track, the enigmatic opener on Pavement’s Brighten the Corners – the band’s fourth album, released in 1997. You’re probably well aware of this now, because it’s the third time I’ve written about a song from the record during this ‘S’ section. A quarter of the songs from the record begin with ‘S’, I guess that’s neat. I call the song “enigmatic” because, really, trying to think and gain an understanding on what it’s about would probably be a futile task. stephen Malkmus conjures up phrases and words that sound good together, coming up with lines that’ll make you chuckle. The “What about the voice of Geddy Lee” one is a classic in the indie-sphere. “Pigs, they tend to wiggle when they walk” is one way to start a song off, let alone a whole album. And of course there’s the chorus, “I’m on the stereo/Stereo/My baby, baby, babe/Gave me malaria/Hysteria”. All very much a stream of consciousness feel throughout, and yet if you’re singing along once you get the lyrics down, the words roll right off the tongue.

If I were to hazard a guess at what the song’s going for, I think it’s Malkmus’s way of trying to make a radio hit while making fun of the idea at the same time. The random nature of the words is the main signifier for this thought, and the way he caps it all off with “Lots of details to discern, lots of details” after providing a lyric that doesn’t really need to be analysed at all seems very tongue-in-cheek. The way he sings “Wave to the camera/It took a giant ramrod” using the “Ring a Ring ‘o Roses” melody, or the “na-na-na-na boo boo” one, sounds like he’s even making fun of himself and us with his delivery. And then there’s the intro and the instrumental breaks, which consist of erratic strums and picking on the electric guitars alongside some harmonics to boot, while the rhythm section keeps things nice and sturdy. In all those ways, it’s a song that shouldn’t work, but does. It was released as the first single from Brighten the Corners, two weeks before the album was released. It got to #48 in the UK. Maybe not a complete commercial smash. But it’s a beloved Pavement number, probably one of their most played out on the road, and I’ve got a liking towards it too. If that wasn’t made clear already.