“Cut Your Hair” by Pavement

"Cut Your Hair" came out in February 1994 on Matador as the single from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement's second album. Stephen Malkmus wrote it and sings it, and it's a smirking swipe at an industry that cares more about how a band looks than how it sounds, complete with a verse that reads out a mock musicians-wanted ad with a perfectly straight face.

The joke lands because the song is so ridiculously catchy. The guitars wobble and chime, the chorus is little more than a gleeful shout, and Malkmus sounds like he's rolling his eyes and grinning at the same time. Bryce Goggin mixed it without scrubbing away any of the slack charm.

Fittingly or not, a song mocking the star-making machine became the band's best-selling song, breaking into the top ten of Billboard's alternative chart that spring and hanging around for 12 weeks. NME later placed it at 28 among its 50 greatest indie anthems. Collectors take note: the 12-inch single hid an unlisted instrumental, "Rain Ammunition", that has never been reissued.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.