Ranking All Slint Songs: From Tweez, Spiderland, their Untitled EP and live performances.
List does not include songs by The For Carnation, Squirrel Bait, or King Kong. Evanston riff tapes not included.
22. Snoopy (Unreleased, Live 1990)
A warm up song for the band to play before their set, it’s a fairly jubilant-sounding number and also brief with a clock-in time of just over a minute. It gets the crowd pumped up but that’s pretty much all it’s got going on.
21. Warren (Tweez, 1989)
Slint were fans of Steve Albini’s band Big Black and it’s quite evident on “Warren.” Featuring Edgar Blossom on vocals, the song abruptly transitions to a field recording of Walford taking a shit during its latter half. The composition itself isn’t as impressive as other Tweez songs with its stop-and-start structure taking the song nowhere memorable. Unlike Big Black, “Warren’s” moments of immaturity don’t seem to do much for the song other than play into an inside joke for the band to laugh at while leaving their listeners confused.
20. Charlotte (Tweez, 1989)
The members were between the ages of 16-18 during the recording of Tweez. For their debut album, Tweez isn’t half as bad as people like to point out. There are some strong points throughout the album but “Charlotte” takes the dip. Featuring undecipherable lyrics by Brian McMahan and lined with segments of random distortion, “Charlotte” aims for the net but hits the backboard and falls off.
19. Kent (Tweez, 1989)
The song opens with a rather spontaneous sample (a common theme for most of Tweez) of someone gulping down a drink. The opening riff hits and starts the song in a moderately delicate fashion. Kent has some of the tension building you would come to expect on Spiderland with the sudden rhythm change grabbing the listener’s attention. Buckler and Walford play a repetitive pattern for the rhythm section before the main riff is reintroduced along with Pajo’s chorus-laden guitar soloing while the bass and drums fade back to normalcy.
18. Pat (Tweez, 1989)
“Canker loaf. Tweezer fetish. Snatch feast.”
“Pat” reminds us that at this point in time, Slint were still teenagers undergoing musical development. Despite impressive drumming and riffing, it falls short with its unstructured composition that sounds like a spontaneous post-hardcore jazz-style jam session. The broken-record style vocals get boring fairly quickly after being endlessly repeated.
17. Darlene (Tweez, 1989)
An example of their narrative-style songwriting that would come later, “Darlene” is a modest-sounding song without excessive experimentation. Its lyrics beat around the bush but detail a couple who becomes intimate as one can easily gather. It leaves us wondering though, you know [sic] what happened to them?
16. Brian’s Song (Spiderland – Remastered, 2014)
With the 2014 Spiderland reissue, we finally got to hear music from their 1992 sessions when the band attempted to reform. Plans were shot down afterwards but we got to hear this work-in-progress for the first time. An instrumental song, it does a good job of setting a melancholic image but that drum machine is incredibly distracting.
15. Carol (Tweez, 1989)
One of the more memorable songs on Tweez, “Carol” bounces along a catchy rhythmic funk that peaks during its sudden change around 2:10 which is also where most listeners tend to rewind the song. “Carol’s” lyrics are nonsensical but also some of the most memorable it gets for an album where lyrics mostly serve as a backdrop for everything else going on.
14. Ron (Tweez, 1989)
“Steve these headphones are fucked up, it’s only coming out on one side.”
More relatable words have never been spoken. A chaotic song that features a very palatable guitar riff laden with pinch harmonics coupled with jazz-heavy drumming, “Ron” gives us a good introduction to Slint’s teenage years via Tweez.
13. Todd’s Song (Spiderland – Remastered, 2014)
Another 1992 session song, it details Brashear trying out a composition of his own that still feels connected to Spiderland’s gently dissonant moments. Incomplete, if it had been polished more, it would’ve rivaled Spiderland songs. That first hypnotic guitar riff does a good job at drawing listeners in though.
12. Rhoda (Tweez, 1989; Untitled, 1994)
The only song on Tweez to not be named after a band member’s parents (Walford’s dog in this case), “Rhoda” is a satisfying conclusion for the album featuring equal parts intricacy and abrasiveness.
11. Washer (Spiderland, 1991)
The only Spiderland song with traditional melodic singing, fans tend to have a love-hate relationship with this song. Its tragic lyrics are its main focus. When McMahan’s girlfriend initially found the lyric sheet, she mistook it for a suicide note.
10. Pam (Spiderland – Remastered, 2014)
One of their faster paced and heavier songs, “Pam’s” 4 track vocal demo features an impressive vocal performance by McMahan. It’s also reminiscent of the hardcore music scene in which they grew up in and reminds us of their roots. Composed during the early Todd Brashear days and also supposedly named after his mother, it’s evident the band was attempting to find a middle ground between harsh post-hardcore noise and darker post-rock tonality.
9. For Dinner… (Spiderland, 1991)
The only Spiderland song without vocals, “For Dinner…” is an example of what Slint does best, volume control and tension building. It serves as a refreshing breather song before the emotionally conclusive “Good Morning, Captain.” It sounds like the score for a horror film where someone is driving a car through a forest in heavy rain with a body in the trunk. Either that, or ominous toilet sitting music. Whichever one you’d rather imagine. I prefer the former.
8. Nan Ding (Tweez, 1989)
“Nan Ding” is a perfect math-rock song with a dash of dreamlike David Lynch surrealism. A two minute mostly-instrumental song, it shows a more mellow side of Tweez with carefully laid out songwriting in place before more chaos comes later on the album. Everything about it is perfect and satisfying. It shows the band’s technical competence from a young age without being overly flashy. Also, about that money thing? Forget it.
7. Don, Aman (Spiderland, 1991)
“Don stepped outside…”
A story introverts can relate to, Walford takes lead vocals and guitar on this one. With intricate lyrical detail, it describes the inner turmoil of a socially alienated individual named Don who views others through his disfigured, misanthropic, and evasive perspective on the outside world. Its final verse is memorable with some even interpreting that it references Don contemplating suicide whilst he looks into the mirror to see himself as his only friend.
6. Nosferatu Man (Spiderland, 1991)
Rightly named after the famous 1922 German horror film, “Nosferatu Man” takes a turn with its lyrics reminiscent of 19th century dark romanticism. It’s based on Dracula who serves as the song’s protagonist and is outfitted with vampiric imagery -“My teeth touched her skin and she was gone again.” The song leads into an extended jam session with ever changing time signatures before it resolves.
5. King’s Approach (unreleased, live 2007)
A glimpse into what new Slint music would sound like post-1994, it doesn’t disappoint and it’s quite the euphoric nail biter. With the stylings of Red-era King Crimson and elements of contemporaries Don Caballero, they knock it out of the park. If only we got more where it came from.
4. Glenn (Untitled, 1994; Spiderland – Remastered, 2014)
A glimpse into their musical evolution between Tweez and Spiderland with the arrival of Todd Brashear, this purely-instrumental song puts you in a certain mood that’s hard to describe. Although it was made public three years after Spiderland was released, one listening to this song retrospectively could foreshadow what would come later. It also captures some of Steve Albini’s best production work to date as it was also his last time working with the band. That drum sound, though.
3. Good Morning, Captain (Spiderland, 1991)
Perhaps their most famous song; “Good Morning, Captain” reads like Edgar Allan Poe. There’s an element of suspense with despair and features classic ever-so-present Slint tension building. Its lyrics describe a captain as the sole survivor of a wreckage coming home to (presumably his son) who doesn’t recognize him at first due to the captain’s time away at sea. An example of genius songwriting, Pajo plays a harmonic riff which resembles a ship’s anchor being pulled up. The best part of the song is its climactic ending during which McMahan screams “I MISS YOU!” with such intensity that he vomited shortly after recording his vocals.
2. Breadcrumb Trail (Spiderland, 1991)
A ‘boy meets girl’ story, “Breadcrumb Trail” does an amazing job at being unsettling. It’s visceral and feels like something’s about to creep up on you the entire time leaving you at the edge of your seat but still manages to satisfy an indescribable intrigue that just doesn’t seem to go away. From the guitar harmonic intro to the volume change during the chorus, it represents one of their best and manages to throw you into the air just like the chorus itself. “Breadcrumb Trail” is an excellent introduction to Spiderland which itself gives us memorable characters (Don, the Captain, the young child, the fortune teller, the risk taker, Dracula, Washer’s narrator) and makes us form strange bonds with them through their conflicting narratives. With Spiderland‘s turmoil, it sometimes feels like you can accidentally drown in that quarry they’re swimming in.
1. Cortez the Killer (Live in Chicago 1989) (Spiderland – Remastered, 2014)
“We’re from Louisville and we thought you needed to hear this.”
Closing out their 1989 Club Dreamerz gig in Chicago, Illinois, Slint performed a cover of Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Cortez the Killer.” Before the song starts you can hear the audience heckling the band mispronouncing their name as “Shit” and telling them to go home, a common occurrence that evening. One of the most famous covers of the song, Slint delivers a version that’s shockingly beautiful and mysteriously entrancing. For decades it existed as a fan-favorite bootleg until it was given an official release for the 2014 remaster of Spiderland. McMahan’s withdrawn ‘not so pitch-perfect’ vocal delivery favors comparison to Murmur-era Michael Stipe. One can wonder if the Clams from Minneapolis managed to come remotely close to topping that performance when they went up next. Once again, they’re not Flint, they’re Slint.
