255: WOWEE ZOWEE | PAVEMENT
Stephen Thomas Erlewine at AllMusic: With its vast array of musical styles, Wowee Zowee isn't as accessible as Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain or as immediate as the bracing, noisy pop of Slanted & Enchanted. Pavement never abandon their warped pop aesthetic, they simply expand it, incorporating elements of folk-rock, English music hall, soul, jazz, country, as well as adding asides to such contemporaries as Suede ("We Dance"), Ween ("Brinx Job"), and Stereolab ("Half a Canyon"). Alternating between majestic epics like "Grounded" and ragged narratives like "Rattled by the Rush" and "Father to a Sister of Thought," to song fragments like "Brinx Job" and the punkish "Serpentine Pad," the record might seem disjointed at first. After repeated listens, the songs play off each other, creating a dense collage of '90s rock & roll that recasts the past and present into one rich, kaleidoscopic, and blissfully cryptic world view.
Wiki: Wowee Zowee is the third studio album by American indie rock band Pavement. It was released on April 11, 1995 by Matador Records. The album showcased a more experimental and spontaneous side of the group, returning them to the clatter and unpredictability of their early recordings after the more traditional rock sound of 1994's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.
Rolling Stone speculated that the relative success of their previous album (having sold 169,000 copies by this time[citation needed]) was a reason for this album's eclectic nature; the magazine's review claimed Pavement were afraid of success. Stephen Malkmus refuted this, saying that, while his judgment may have been clouded by excessive marijuana usage, the songs "sounded like hits" to him.
Matador Records released an expanded two-disc edition of this album under the title Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition on November 6, 2006, which featured extensive liner notes, outtakes and B-sides.