Guided by Voices
The Best of Guided by Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates
2003, Matador Records
With such an enormous body of work to ponder, a discussion breaks out every now and then among fans about whether or not Robert Pollard is a genius.
What inspires all of this stuff? And what keeps some of us so interested in it? Why am I buying five new albums a year from this guy?
It’s a big thing to wrap your head around, but, to me, genius is the least interesting answer to those questions. I much prefer to credit the work that lead up to the mad skills. The years of filling up notebooks and cassettes and singing to the void. Writing bad songs. Writing good songs. Writing bad songs that became good songs in their final versions, sometimes rewritten decades later. Being obsessed enough to independently press up six records from 1986 to 1992 even though no one was paying attention. Using his obscurity wisely.
Genius is abstract and intimidating, but hard work is concrete and inspiring.
Obviously there are certain blessings from the universe that all of the hard work in the world may never achieve. A compelling personality. Interesting tastes. A listenable singing voice.
But if Pollard is a genius, I think his genius is his rare energy that keeps him going even when everything else tells him to stop. Pollard’s work is full of lessons on creativity and inspiration and if I had to boil it down to a single idea, that’s it. Don’t stop. Get old doing it. Beat your head against the wall. Keep doing it even when your band falls apart. It’s not about success or failure; it’s about trying again and again. Keep going and maybe you’ll write your masterpiece eventually. How many great songs aren’t in our lives because some young artists couldn’t stand the world’s indifference and gave up?
That’s what I think about when I listen to this crazy Best of that attempts to gather the highlights of the strangest, messiest, and most improbable indie rock watershed band to rise to prominence in the 90s… and then refuse to stop.
There are two main things that you need to know about this disc.
#1 is that Robert Pollard selected the songs and arranged the sequence. This isn’t one of those shady contract fulfillment releases. Matador Records did it right and put out a mix straight from the auteur himself. Pollard fills the CD to the brim with thirty-two tracks and goes for most of the group’s singles, several of their crowd-pleasers, and a few under-the-radar highlights. Let’s also note that he pointedly leaves out “Hold on Hope” and the album version of “Teenage FBI” while five other tracks from the TVT period make the cut. Meanwhile, Pollard’s songs dominate, but Tobin Sprout gets a nod with his gorgeous “To Remake the Young Flyer” and Doug Gillard’s “I Am a Tree” earns a necessary slot, as well.
#2 is that the selection is about half lo-fi and half hi-fi and they’re all mixed together into one stiff cocktail. Pollard’s sequence pinballs back and forth between eras and is all about contrasts. The basement-recorded “14 Cheerleader Coldfront” from 1992 sits in between “My Kind of Soldier” (2003) and “Twilight Campfighter” (2001), two full-bodied studio bangers performed by a completely different band, The ultra-slick “Chasing Heather Crazy” from 2001 stands flanked by two lo-fi classics, “Shocker in Gloomtown” (1993) and “My Valuable Hunting Knife” (1995). There aren’t five tracks in a row here that don’t contain a bold leap like that.
I’ve seen some people wish that this collection took after old school classic compilations (The Beatles’ red and blue albums, maybe, or The Stones’ Hot Rocks) and went for a chronological order that would neatly seperate GBV’s lo-fi years from the hi-fi years, but I disagree. That’s not the Guided by Voices way. Guided by Voices records thrive on the patchwork and Pollard’s collage artist instincts, They find energy in moments that don’t seem like they should belong together, but make a psychedelic sort of sense when you hear it in action. A good GBV sampler should reflect that wild ride.
A chronological version of this disc DID come out, as part of the Hardcore UFOs box set, up next in this series, so maybe that approach was on the table before Pollard decided that, no, this set needed to be weirder than that.
Or maybe he thought that it should reflect the range of the group’s live set. The first two tracks here are “A Salty Salute” (1995) and “Things I Will Keep” (1999) and I wouldn’t be surprised if the band has opened a few shows exactly like that.
Or, hey, maybe Bob just wanted to make the stinging joke of slotting the 23-second “Hit” from 1995, which ridicules the music industry game, in front of 2001’s “Glad Girls”, Pollard’s last ditch attempt at playing that game himself. For that to work, the whole sequence needed to be a crazy quilt.
Another thought: What makes a great rock band?
Does it mean that they’re totally original? Hell no. In fact, you dismiss that question right away. Everything nods back to something.
Does it mean that they ROCK hard? Not always. Some great rock bands can do a lot with a light touch.
Does it mean that they have great songs? We’re getting warmer with that one, but rock ‘n’ roll blurs the lines. Sometimes an idiotic song is great (see “Louie, Louie” or “Surfin’ Bird”).
Here’s what I think.
Great rock bands are ones that open up new worlds. They change you. Without ever seeming to try hard to do it, they alter your perception of things. They have a point of view and even if it’s not a particularly original one, they make you hear it and feel it like no one else does. There’s no single way to do it. There are endless ways to do it.
Every rock band that people love gives that feeling to somebody.
Guided by Voices can give you that feeling. Maybe they do it by showing you that the best song you’ve ever heard can be recorded on cassette in a Dayton, Ohio basement (and thus can be recorded anywhere). Maybe they do it by showing you that the best album you’ve ever heard can be a maze of melody and quick spontaneous blurts. Maybe they do it by making unfashionable influences (like prog-rock in the 90s) sound cool and weird and alive.
New worlds don’t open up gently. It always takes friction and sometimes chaos. Guided by Voices albums are all about that and so is this collection.
It takes thirty-two of the best songs and makes new frictions and new chaos with them.
For the total novice listener, I recommend Propeller and Bee Thousand as the best gateway drugs. They turned people on in the 90s and they can turn you on now. The beautiful songs matched to damaged sounds are a test to see if Pollard’s music is for you. If you love those and everything seems overwhelming after that, that’s where this Best of comes in handy. Yes, it only goes up to 2003, but that’s fine. Spend time getting into these years. If that works out, you won’t be able to help moving on.
For the seasoned listener, I recommend pulling out this CD every tenth full moon or so. Dig Pollard’s zig-zag sequence and get reminded of the greatness of sleepers such as “Learning to Hunt” and “Captain’s Dead”. You might even have a few moments of discovery yourself.
For me, this collection always reveals that I don’t appreciate the non-album, studio-recorded takes of “Game of Pricks” and “Motor Away” enough. On their original 7″ releases, I get too hung up on comparing them to the Alien Lanes versions that were my first loves.
On the Best of though, they sound great. They rock. They keep things snappy. They belong in this set that kicks off with an invitation to a party (“A Salty Salute”) and closes with an explanation (“I Am a Scientist”) and conjures up all sorts of weird magic in between.