90's Jams #31: Pavement "Cut Your Hair" (1994)

"Sell out." High school kids in the early 90's loved throwing around this term with such scornful disdain. You loved a band before they were on MTV, but then suddenly MTV crowns them with a Buzz Clip. It may or may not be the most exciting moment of this band's career, but in your world as a high school kid, that's YOUR band. You loved them and held them close to you, and you didn't want anyone outside of your friends to know about them. And now that they're on daytime MTV, there's a strong chance that the poser who just 2 months ago was wearing Champion sweatshirts 7 days a week is gonna have his mom buy your favorite band's shirt from K-Mart. Cruel betrayal. How could you Rivers? Or fucking Corgan? Don't look so innocent Billie Joe.. I'll fuck you up right the fuck now. How could you do this to me? I look like a fucking asshole now for wearing your shirts and supporting you all these years. Fuckin sell outs... (Sometimes the greater annoyance were the bands who were considered underground weirdos for over a decade, such as The Flaming Lips or Butthole Surfers, who then strangely scored one odd novelty hit...) "Songs mean a lot when songs are bought.."

Pavement never recorded the type of songs that could be considered for this, and "Cut Your Hair" was no exception, as it doesn't even have a chorus. However, it's still somehow their most popular song. Its popularity brings to mind a noteworthy alt-rock phenomena of the mid-90's: An uncharacteristically super-slack or super-grungy single ends up becoming a band's biggest charting song, such as Radiohead's "Creep" or Blur's "Song 2." Malkmus's lack of earnestness was somewhat of an anti-emo unreliable narrator. "Attention and fame's a career! Career! Careuh! KAREA! KOREA! KOREA!"