Slanted and Enchanted
album by Pavement
Slanted and Enchanted is the debut studio album by American indie rock band Pavement, released on April 20, 1992, by Matador Records. It is the only Pavement album to feature drummer Gary Young.
The title Slanted and Enchanted is taken from the title of a cartoon made by the band’s friend David Berman. Its cover art was created by appropriating that of an existing album, Ferrante & Teicher's Keyboard Kapers.
The album received critical acclaim and is seen as a landmark for indie rock, with Rolling Stone ranking it 199th on its 2020 edition of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". As of 2007, the album had sold 150,000 copies. In 2022, Alex Ross Perry adapted the album into a rock opera titled Slanted! Enchanted!
Background and recording
Slanted and Enchanted was recorded at the home recording studio of Pavement drummer Gary Young on what was described as a "tight budget" over a span of ten days. The process was said to have been "relaxed."
Stephen Malkmus recorded playing a Fender Stratocaster, and Scott Kannberg recorded with a Fender Mustang and a Gibson SG. Kannberg played through a Fender Silverface Twin Reverb amplifier, and Malkmus played through a small boutique Epiphone amplifier that was borrowed from the father of one of his friends.
“Slanted and Enchanted” enters the record as album by Pavement. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Slanted, Enchanted and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Slanted and Enchanted” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Slanted, Enchanted and album provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q120712. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992, 2020, 2007 and 2022.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Slanted and Enchanted”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Slanted and Enchanted primary sources, Slanted and Enchanted archive and Slanted research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Slanted and Enchanted”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Slanted and Enchanted” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.