You can’t even call yourself a fan of indie rock if you don’t own and love this album. “Summer Babe,” the opening track, is as perfect piece of slacker rock as has ever existed. From there Stephen Malkmus and the gang take you on a tour of what a crappy, old electric guitar and a drum kit can bring to the life of every white guy who’s ever wanted to start his own band. I rarely deem something a classic, but this one with all of its hisses and crackles and shambling choruses filled with bedraggled greasy-headed wonderfulness really is a gateway album (in the way weed is a gateway drug). One dose–at least in the context of the time and place in which I first experienced it–will change your musical world for the better. Every listen makes me love it just a little bit more.
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