I can't believe someone would call this band "pretentious." That comment must be coming from a person who has never heard the band, but knows that critics tend to like them. If you want to call Sonic Youth or the Kronos Quartet or Patti Smith pretentious, fine. But Pavement was just a bunch of guys without any cares in the world backing a lead singer whose crazy words served as the perfect lead to their music. Those crazy lyrics take the listener through a maze of feelings. The words usually don't make sense and, therefore, could not possibly have any arty pretentiousness about them. But they work incredibly well as *songs* that you want to hum to yourself. One of my favorite bands ever.
