Cut Your Hair

"Cut Your Hair"
Single by Pavement
from the album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
B-side
  • "Camera"
  • "Stare"
ReleasedFebruary 1994 (USA)
RecordedAugust–September 1993
StudioRandom Falls Studio (New York City, New York)
Genre
Length3:09
LabelMatador
Songwriter(s)Stephen Malkmus
Producer(s)Pavement
Pavement singles chronology
"Trigger Cut"
(1992)
"Cut Your Hair"
(1994)
"Gold Soundz"
(1994)

"Cut Your Hair" is a song by American rock band Pavement from their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. It was written by Pavement songwriter and lead singer Stephen Malkmus. The song snidely attacks the importance of image in the music industry.[citation needed] In one verse, Malkmus sarcastically recites a fictitious ad looking for a musician to join a band: "advertising looks and chops a must/ no big hair".

The song was released as a single and became the band's best-selling and most popular song. "Cut Your Hair" obtained strong airplay on U.S. indie and alternative radio stations, reaching the top ten on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart in the spring of 1994, spending 12 weeks on the Alternative Billboard chart.[3]

Both B-sides are included on the reissue Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins. The unlisted B-side track on the 12" version of the single is an instrumental recording of "Rain Ammunition," and has never been reissued.

In May 2007, NME magazine placed "Cut Your Hair" at number 28 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever.

  1. ^ Hudson, Alex (June 19, 2015). "Wilco "Cut Your Hair" (Pavement cover) (live video)". Exclaim!. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  2. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  3. ^ "Alternative Airplay (June 11, 1994)". Billboard. 2 January 2013. Archived from the original on November 20, 2021.