Song · Pavement
“Summer Babe (Winter Version)” by Pavement
From the album Slanted and Enchanted (1992)
“Summer Babe (Winter Version)” by Pavement appears on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 2019 and 2024. It was first released in 1992 on the album Slanted and Enchanted. Its best result is #91 on The Best Opening Tracks of All Time. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #4,444 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"Summer Babe (Winter Version)" opens Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement's debut album from April 1992, and it's a reworking of the band's very first single: a fresh mix with different vocals of the song Chicago's Drag City had issued as a 7-inch in August 1991, their only release for the label before they moved to Matador in New York. Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg wrote it, and the band recorded it themselves.
It's slacker rock with a crooked grin, all tossed-off melody and shrugging cool, and it never troubled the Billboard charts. The critics caught up later: Paste put it second among Pavement's 15 greatest songs in 2019, Consequence of Sound ranked it fifth in 2022, and in 2024 Rolling Stone placed it at 244 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 256 | KEXP | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time | 627 |
| 2023 | 459 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs of the '90s | 893 |
| 2024 | 91 | KEXP | The Best Opening Tracks of All Time | 738 |
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