Slanted and Enchanted

Release

The album was distributed to critics as early as 1991, months before its official release; the original distribution did not feature the entire band, as several members joined during its production. The recording sessions were split between South Makepeace Studios in Brooklyn, New York (recorded December 24, 1990) and Louder Than You Think Studios in Stockton, CA (recorded January 13–20, 1991).

The first single, "Summer Babe" appeared in August 1991. It was the last release on Chicago's Drag City label before the band moved to Matador. It contained the B-sides "Mercy Snack (The Laundromat)" and "Baptist Blacktick" that were later included on the deluxe version of the album. A different mix of "Summer Babe," entitled "Summer Babe (Winter Version)," became the first track on the band's debut album. The song was also ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as number 286 in its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, and as number 292 in the 2011 update of the list.

The title Slanted and Enchanted is taken from the title of a cartoon made by Silver Jews frontman David Berman. Its cover art was created by appropriating that of an existing album, Ferrante & Teicher's Keyboard Kapers. Slanted and Enchanted was officially released on 20 April 1992 to critical acclaim, originally reaching a peak of number 72 on the UK Albums Chart. A two-disc expanded version of the album, Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe, was released in 2002. In 2003, the album was ranked number 134 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and number 135 in the 2012 update of the list. As of 2007, the album has sold 150,000 copies.

Critical reception

I think Slanted and Enchanted probably is the best record we made,
only because it's less self-conscious and has an unrepeatable energy about it.

In a contemporary review of the album, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was highly positive, writing that Pavement are "good at both tune and noise" and that Slanted and Enchanted yields "a message complex enough to offer hope ... that the lyrics will catch up". Erik Davis of Spin designated Slanted and Enchanted as the magazine's "Platter du Jour" for March 1992, describing the album as "so fine it occasionally seems too perfect."

Since its release in 1992, Slanted and Enchanted has appeared on many critics' best-of lists and is frequently cited as being among the most influential indie rock albums of the 1990s. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine cited the album as "a left-field classic" and "one of the most influential records of the '90s". In 2002, Pitchfork awarded the album their maximum grade of 10.0/10.0 in a review of the album's reissue and ranked it as the fifth greatest album of the 1990s in 2003. Rolling Stone called Slanted and Enchanted "the quintessential indie rock album."

Accolades

(*) designates unordered lists.

Track listing

All tracks written by Stephen Malkmus, except where noted.

Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe

On 22 October 2002, Matador Records released a remastered and extended version of the album with previously unreleased material. This 2 CD edition, titled Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe, contains 48 songs, featuring the entire original disc and, in addition, 3 outtakes of which one is an unreleased song and the other two are alternate takes, plus the B-sides from the "Summer Babe" and "Trigger Cut" singles, 5 songs from two different John Peel sessions, the 4-track EP Watery, Domestic, and 13 tracks of a live performance of the band held at the Brixton Academy in London on 14 December 1992. This expanded version reached number 5 in the US Billboard Top Independent Albums and number 152 in the US Billboard 200 charts.

Personnel