Pavement - Sensitive Euro Man Picture Disc

Matador (2020)

Twenty-five years ago in 1995, Pavement released Wowee Zowee.  It was the first album I heard by them and to this day it remains my favorite.  I'll always be thankful for my friend Scott in high school playing the record for me.  In my opinion it is just an absolutely perfect record.  For its twenty-fifth anniversary, Matador has reissued the record on vinyl, and while I don't need another copy of the full length, I did need to pick up the little bonus record they put out with it.

This shaped picture disc is meant to mimmic the speech bubble on the cover of Wowee Zowee and the flip side image on this is all yellow and says "PAVEMENT?" across it, along with the track information. It contains two songs.  The A side is "Sensitive Euro Man" originally from the I Shot Andy Warhol soundtrack.  On the B side is "Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad."  This was from a 1994 radio session that was recorded in Australia.  Both songs are interesting and showcase the weirder side of Pavement, but I don't think either really warrant a standalone shaped picture disc.

These tracks were both collected on the special edition 2xCD Wowee Zowee set that came out some years ago, the Sordid Sentinels edition.  That release contained a ton of B-sides and rarities.  I really wish that rather than creating an expensive picture disc with two songs, Matador had gone forward and released all of that material on vinyl.  They started that process awhile ago by putting out Secret History Vol. 1, focusing on the extra tracks from the Slanted and Enchanted era, but the project never went past that release.

I for one would have taken Vol. 3 over this release any day.  While this picture disc is neat looking, it's mostly just a fancy trinket to add to my collection of Pavement records.  There's no way I wouldn't have bought it as I need to keep my collection as complete as I possibly can, but it's not something I'd ever listen to all that much.  Now Secret History Vol. 3?  I'd listen to that all of the time.

Pavement - "Sensitive Euro Man":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFDbhqkr4iw

Pavement - "Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGTzHvMOUa4