Purists, this is your stop. For the slightly pretentious Malkmusian, Wowee Zowee was the last step before the boys hopped the bus to Sellout Central. I would have to agree that the chaos becomes more ordered from here on out and if that's all that you were staying for than this is the appropriate time to leave. There's ups and downs on this album like you wouldn't believe. All out aural assaults that plague any decent person's iTunes library and moments of randomized sublimity that will hopefully never depart from our edified eardrums.
I would hazard to say, at the risk of sacrilege, that this double packaged collection is Steve and Spiral's weakest set of output. Maybe I'm just missing the point I've been espousing: that their greatness was a result of their absurdity. But this one ventures too often into unlistenability for my (possibly) untrained ear canals. Any good Darwinian would say that Crooked Rain is the common ancestor to both Wowee Zowee and Brighten the Corners. We can scream and shout all we please about whether they sold out or not, but the fact of the matter is that if Malkmus is nature, he selected the more produced path of Brighten as the next step of evolution. Brighten the Corners set the path he continues on even today with the Jicks; Wowee Zowee is there too, but like an antsy kid in school trying to get called on Still, let's give credit where credit is due. 'We Dance' through 'Grounded' (my favorite song by them) is enough to make even a confused sellout like me go wowee zowee. You tell anyone I made that last pun and unpleasant things will happen to you.
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