The Takeovers
Bad Football
2007, Off Records
Young listeners and new listeners to Robert Pollard’s work tend to be awed by the big pile of it, as they should be.
I used to think like that, but then I got old and Pollard’s songs have been a daily presence in my life for over thirty years and there’s a new color to my feelings about it all.
Over time, Pollard has become more and more relatable to me. He’s not from planet Krypton. He’s a guy who shows up and does the work. Just like I’ve been doing forever. You, too, I bet.
Five albums a year isn’t so crazy if you think of all of the shit that YOU do each day, all that you tolerate and work against just to finish what needs to get done so you can get paid, take care of the kids, contribute a little something to the big merry-go-round, and be a proper member of the human race.
I’m not saying that every musician should do it this way. I like My Bloody Valentine, Kim Deal, and Fiona Apple. Some brilliant people thrive on a deliberate approach. They have no taste for banging it out. If it takes a decade to feel out where the sounds in their head should go next, they’re willing. Each release is painfully realized, an exhaustion of a vision that leaves nothing left afterward, to the point that you might not hear from them again until the next Halley’s Comet. That path is risky in its own fashion and I have nothing bad to say about it.
But Pollard’s working artist thing, an almost blue collar cycle of turning out work and staying in the zone, no time to waste, speaks to me like nothing else. I’m hooked, I’m damaged, and I relate in my own crazy way.
Phantom Tollbooth