POLLSTAL BLOWFISH - ILM Artist Poll #8 - Guided By Voices - ReSuLtS!!!

i dunno, i was all for GBV making a polished, radio-friendly rock album and ID comes closest to that. but there's just too much boring stuff on there -- i mean, if pollard had taken the hits from speak kindly of your volunteer etc. and put them on there, he'd have a classic, maybe?

Don't rate ID among their best at all though.

Not much to say about VoT really. I could spend twice as much time with it as I have and still not know it that well, though when I hear individual songs from it I think "hey, that's a really good one!"

http://i.imgur.com/iAoGP.jpg

5. MAG EARWHIG! / 1997 (13 points)

(perhaps not my favorite GBV album, but definitely my favorite GBV album cover.)

yeah, that's a nice one

If you want to know what lurks in the mind of the Tobin Sprout hater: GBV's best moments, for me, are their most desperate--the poster child being for that strain being Vampire--and Sprout tends to mar that mood with his whimsical doings (see: "Gleemer"). Of course now I'm taking a closer look at the credits and he's all over the rest of the damn thing, so...

Aside from Bulldog Skin, never understood the love for this album. But then I like Isolation Drills.

Not much to say about VoT really. I could spend twice as much time with it as I have and still not know it that well, though when I hear individual songs from it I think "hey, that's a really good one!"
otm

I had the VoT/Propeller combo cd and I'll admit that I skipped to Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox at least 2/3 of the time. It's not that I don't like it, but I never really gave it a full chance. How could it have a chance next to Propeller?!

i think mag earwig is a bit too much of a hodge podge (not that bob can't make a masterpiece out of a hodge podge). again, great stuff on here, but not terribly consistent.

I like the hodge podginess - I just don't feel particularly moved by most of the songs. The "get wild!" part of Bulldog Skin is enough to buoy me through a bunch of boring songs.

did not in my airforce come out the same year as ME? i think i ended up liking that one better.
the cobra verde-era live shows were pretty great though, even if it was initially disappointing that the classic lineup was gone.

I think Airforce came out in 96 (the same day, or maybe month, as Tobin's Carnival Boy). We didn't find out until 97 that they weren't going to be working together in GBV anymore.

Aside from Bulldog Skin, never understood the love for this album.

― righteousmaelstrom, Monday, September 26, 2011 5:29 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is the opposite for me! I don't like Bulldog Skin (anymore ~ it's like Nada Surf's 'Popular', for a lot of people "that one song by that one band that had a cool video"), but man are there some gems on ME. 'Learning to Hunt', 'Not Behind the Fighter Jet', 'Choking Tara', 'I Am A Tree'...

Well, I think I voted for songs from ME the most, didn't keep count.

Yeah, I definitely like a lot of songs on ME!, but Bulldog Skin isn't one of them.

so many lovely ballady things on ME.

^^ yeah I'm a sucker for those introspective GBV moments. At least more than all GBV aficionados I know. Lol melancholy soul.

I'm a right sucker for GBV's moments of spleen

http://i.imgur.com/GM1pm.jpg

4. UNDER THE BUSHES UNDER THE STARS / 1996 (39 points)

ahaaa, here's one i voted for. classic through and through (including the amazing bonus ep)

my #1; not the first i heard (that was alien lanes), but the first i bought and imo a perfect sweet spot between the early period chaos and late period fm radio friendliness.

Sometimes I'm pretty sure this is my favorite.

the record that linked between gbv lo to hi fi

Had I got my ballot in, UTBUTS would have been my #1

It's a really warm record, both in recording techniques and in the songwriting. I wear it like a blanket.

would love an expanded version of this record --seems like there are a bunch of tracks from the albini sessions floating around? at least those few that greer has posted.

Just fwiw, #3 only beat #4 by a single point and #1 only beat #2 by a single point...so some real tight races. #3 coming up...

http://i.imgur.com/qG1B1.jpg

3. PROPELLER / 1992 (40 points)

Sorry if I've not been paying attention, but are the "most hated tracks" calculated in the countdown song list?

I didn't vote for "hated" tracks tbh

There wasn't enough consensus of any kind to even bother with a hated tracks countdown. The (optional) exercise was all for naught.

Thanks.

i wonder what the top 2 will be ;)

hmmm

Universal Truths and Sandbox, of course. oops! Spoiler!

still holding out for Do The Collapse here

but yeah, propellor! i remember getting that one after bee thousand, alien lanes, various EPs, and just thinking before listening, this one can't be that good, how could one band be so good! of course, propellor is just like one peak after the next. it's ridiculous.

We all know the top two. Should I post them together and then let them both be discussed at once, or do them one at a time?

just roll em both out

xp Propeller is probably their most idea-heavy record and the first time which the big ideas were successfully translated into listenable recordings. I love the crap out of that record.

Like the Vampire On Titus/Propeller CD, put them together. My introduction to GBV was a friend putting one on one side of cassette and the other on side B.

http://i.imgur.com/5TgQT.jpg

2. BEE THOUSAND / 1994 (88 points)

http://i.imgur.com/CE5Be.jpg

1. ALIEN LANES / 1995 (89 points)

haha, almost a tie!

haha I flipped Bee Thousand from #1 to #2 and put Alien Lanes #1 right before I sent my ballot in o_0

I forgot about voting in the albums, just got too focused on the tracks and it slipped my mind. Would have voted Alien Lanes at #1 though so all is well.

wow! genuinely shocked that B1000 came in second!

At one point behind, it's not that shocking.

i like bee thousand a bit more but yeah it really doesn't matter either way

I think the right album won. I've always like AL slightly more than B1000.

I didn't submit my own albums ballot, but it probs would've been UTBUTS/Propeller/Alien Lanes/B1000 and then something else in 5th place (Half Smiles? Earthquake Glue?).

alien lanes is better because its longer

I'm in Chicago. You guys should totally kick out some gbv jams.

Lol tape chain

i am not in NYC but would totally highkick out some gbv jams with ilxors in a neutral safe space

I dug their show last summer at Wicker Park Fest in Chicago. Better than when I saw them at Metro in late 90s (too drunk), not as great as a small club in '93 when they were like how I imagined The Who in '68. "Space Gun" from the upcoming album is quite good, and last year's August By Cake has some choons. Belatedly working my way through How Do You Spell Heaven now. Time for a GBV 2010s list/playlist?

I’m an exclusively pre-Mag Earwig man myself