There’s something in Stephen Malkmus’ voice that keeps him from sounding morose, depressed, or even angry. His songs approach those feelings, but there’s something about his personality and the very sound of his voice that downsizes negative emotions or dilutes them, leaving just an insidious trace of fear, doubt, and longing. He sounds as if he can shrug off anything, and for all I know, he can. I’m not sure if I’d cast Malkmus as an optimist, per se, but he seems entirely incapable of approaching the worst in life without levity and perspective. This may be the root of why I identify with his music so completely — the subtle emotional gray scale of Malkmus’ body of work comes closer to feeling like my baseline state than any other music that I know.
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