I think Game of Pricks is the answer too but I haven't voted yet because I have too many favorites to pick from. I might vote for "Alright," actually, which is one of my fave album closers ever.
― drew in baltimore, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 04:01 (thirteen years ago) link
"but this is pretty much the doug gillard era of the band,"
For some reason, Pollard went on a big time off streak on his songwriting after "mag earwhig" and when they started trying to record like a regular band. Maybe he had shot his wad, I don't know. That band was really good the first time I saw them, but then it started to kind of slide.
Maybe it's me, I can hear J Mascis solos in some of those earlier GBV songs in my mind and think, that would have sounded pretty dope.
― earlnash, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 04:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I dig sad melancholy GBV!
totally. isolation drills is my #2 GbV record after B1000.
― head gettin' bad boys (electricsound), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 04:19 (thirteen years ago) link
― drew in baltimore, Tuesday, July 20, 2010 12:01 AM (46 minutes ago)
yes incredible song
― terry squad (k3vin k.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 04:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Earthquake Glue is an awesome latter day GBV album.
― If I post one thing on every thread, can I kill this whole website? (Evan), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:31 (thirteen years ago) link
"Little Whirl" over "Game Of Pricks" and "Blimps Go 90"
― da croupier, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:32 (thirteen years ago) link
I think GBV would have been killer if they would have had a great melodic lead guitar player to eat up those chord changes and turn some of those two minute dittys into 3 minute popgasms.
this is basically Isolation Drills, which is a great album
― hot dub grime machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:32 (thirteen years ago) link
Gillard's guitar playing really got on my nerves after a while
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:33 (thirteen years ago) link
I like how "Hit" was on the Best of Guided By Voices.
― If I post one thing on every thread, can I kill this whole website? (Evan), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:34 (thirteen years ago) link
i should listen to those TVT-era records again ... I didn't really love them at the time, but i think i was still just buzzing from the "classic era" -- there is probably plenty of good stuff.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:35 (thirteen years ago) link
"Isolation Drills" is a great album. Don't much like any of the albums that came after it.
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:36 (thirteen years ago) link
isolation drills was basically a second attempt after do the collapse to do a "big rock album production" bit and done much better with much better songs.
(tho do the collapse has Teenage FBI)
― hot dub grime machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:41 (thirteen years ago) link
... and proper lyrics that meant something
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:44 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i guess they are pretty straightforward for pollard, some real "divorce" type stuff on that album
― hot dub grime machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 15:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Tearjerkers *sniff* ... tho, one of the most moving songs, IMO, is "Privately"... and fuck knows what that's about
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:01 (thirteen years ago) link
I think Isolation Drills works best of the studio albums because it provides a coherent context for the glossy production. By the time I get to the end of that record, I always feel exhausted and punchy from the sheer loudness of it, sort of like being drunk, which I think is the correlative of a lot of the album's lyrical themes. Pollard and Sprout were real geniuses during the lo-fi era at creating an aural context in which all these sketches and fragments could hang together simply and elegantly. I don't think he ever quite managed to hit that balance again after Alien Lanes, though I'm still fascinated by his attempts to get it right. For instance, I love the sound of Under the Bushes Under the Stars even though it never quite clicks with the songwriting, IMO.
The album Isolation Drills reminds me of most is Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, in terms of how enervating it is to listen to.
― drew in baltimore, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:42 (thirteen years ago) link
i like how the title of this thread sounds like some drunk guy accosting you at a bar
― we will all be able to tell which is the best (lukas), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:44 (thirteen years ago) link
Which is apt
― tom d: he did what he had to do now he is dead (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:46 (thirteen years ago) link
do the collapse is kind of a glorious mess in retrospect imo, pollard decided to bring his most oddball set of songs to the table right as he made the maligned hi-fi transition, so there was nothing familiar on there for people to latch onto as sounding definitively like GBV
i hated it at first too, but now i like it and i definitely don't think it's the worst post-classic-era GBV album
isolation drills is still the better of the 2 hi-fi ones though
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:50 (thirteen years ago) link
I think it's definitely the worst post-classic-era GBV album.
― no turkey unless it's a club sandwich (polyphonic), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 17:00 (thirteen years ago) link
i remember thinking universal truths and cycles was really really boring and hookless
― hot dub grime machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 17:39 (thirteen years ago) link
i remember really liking universal truths and earthquake glue when they came out, and i haven't listened to them since. "best of jill hives" is really the only one I can conjure up.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 17:40 (thirteen years ago) link
universal truths & cycles was another grower, there's some hookless songs on there but also some great ones and songs have more variety in tempo/structure/rhythm than some of the other late-period albums (half-smiles of the decomposed is my least favorite for this reason, it's pretty much entirely mid-tempo songs, though some of them do have pretty hooks)
i'd rank the 'studio' ones something likeisolation drills > earthquake glue > universal truths > do the collapse > half-smiles
mag earwhig would go somewhere in the middle there if it counts i guess, all of them of course rank after the 'classic' propeller thru UTBUTS stretch
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 17:58 (thirteen years ago) link
^^
― You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. (hugo), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 19:31 (thirteen years ago) link
the "volunteer fire department" or whatever pollard lp w/doug gillard is my favorite of the post-bushes era, i think.
― hobbes, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 19:42 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, that one is very, very good.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 19:53 (thirteen years ago) link
isolation drills > earthquake glue > universal truths > do the collapse > half-smiles
i would swap EG & UT&C but otherwise agree. half-smiles is a bit crap, probably the worst GbV album in terms of being straight-up boring
― head gettin' bad boys (electricsound), Wednesday, 21 July 2010 00:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Do the Collapse is by far the worst. The first time they were ever really boring, IMO.
― drew in baltimore, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 00:21 (thirteen years ago) link
AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDITORIUM
― T Bone Streep (Cave17Matt), Wednesday, 21 July 2010 00:47 (thirteen years ago) link
The scenario is bright for the King and Carol
― calstars, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Echoing upthread about 'Under the Bushes'...man we all had such high hopes for that album
― calstars, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:32 (thirteen years ago) link
1;15 in King and Caroline - Bob: And the wisdom they will sell us, and the wisdom they will sellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllTobin: sell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
― calstars, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:34 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^^^^yessss
― hobbes, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:40 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah "love king and caroline" - great performance on the daily show, too
― terry squad (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 21 July 2010 01:56 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^ too much time on i love terius
― some dude, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 02:20 (thirteen years ago) link
i <3 under the bushes fwiw. second i heard after alien lanes but first i bought. not a duff track on it, honestly, except the sprout ones and i never really dig sprout's stuff tbh.
― ledge, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 08:28 (thirteen years ago) link
aww i lovvvvv "atom eyes"!! one of his best.
― hobbes, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 08:35 (thirteen years ago) link
under the bushes was a big grower for me. i still think the sequence of 'bonus tracks' after "office of hearts" give it a little too much bloat.
― hobbes, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 08:38 (thirteen years ago) link
but otherwise, great album.
"Redmen and Their Wives" tho!!!
― ledge, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 08:43 (thirteen years ago) link
and atom eyes ain't too bad, true.
under the bushes is prob my fav, i guess cuz it's the first one i heard. also my copy came w/ the tigerbomb ep tacked on the end so there were sooo many songs
― just sayin, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 08:44 (thirteen years ago) link
i dig "take to the sky" and "it's like soul man", but the 3 songs in between sound like my stomach feels after too many beers. i think they would have been more effective if they had been worked into the other 18 songs.
― hobbes, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 09:03 (thirteen years ago) link
tbh i had no idea before this poll that game of pricks was the obvious choice. gonna vote little whirl just to even it out. xp !
― sonderangerbot, Monday, July 19, 2010 7:51 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark
same here. guess i'm just not up on my GBV fan stats cuz i had no idea that it was the consensus pick. voted for it cuz it made me cry the first few times i heard it, and once upon i played it over again until it wasn't quite so achingly poignant and then walked around singing it for months on end. so many great songs on this record, though - probably their best, though propeller's my sentimental favorite. first love best love.
second choices at the time would have been motor away, my valuable hunting knife, as we go up, blimps go 90. little whirl took a while to click, but man i love that song to death. striped white jets cuz it always reminds me of my brother.
― good news if you wear cargo shorts (contenderizer), Wednesday, 21 July 2010 09:12 (thirteen years ago) link
― terry squad (k3vin k.), Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― some dude, Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:20 PM (Yesterday)
hahahaha u_u
― terry squad (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 21 July 2010 10:24 (thirteen years ago) link
haha i always forget about the snoring on 'ex-supermodel' until i listen to it
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 21 July 2010 15:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Friday, 23 July 2010 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Is there a reason why BIG BORING WEDDING is not a choice?
― calstars, Saturday, 24 July 2010 00:04 (thirteen years ago) link
pass the word: the chicks are back etc.
― calstars, Saturday, 24 July 2010 00:05 (thirteen years ago) link
pass the word: it's on 'under the bushes under the stars'
― no, you're dead right, it's a macaroon (ledge), Saturday, 24 July 2010 00:22 (thirteen years ago) link