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

I just realized yesterday that I am actually gonna be offline tomorrow through Monday, so I am gonna miss the top 20 countdown. It will of course still be fun to read the thread, but sad to miss the event itself.

I certainly didn't know what "Trust the Wizard" referred to, so probably only a cliche to big GBV fans. Pretty easy to love the obviously-lovable aspects of GBV though, as in every college station should have a radio show called "Trust the Wizard", it would be fucking cooler of they did.

My college radio show was not called "Trust the Wizard". What a missed opportunity.

By the way, should this be ""Wished I Was a Giant""?

"Wished I Was A Giant" is one of my very favorites

34. "A Good Flying Bird" (Alien Lanes, 1995) [207 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkltkwCsyPk

at last, a song I voted for! whoever you are, who placed it as his #1, I salute you.

As memory serves, I had this one in my top 10. One of the most energetic and catchiest songs in their catalogue.

33. "Glad Girls" (Isolation Drills, 2001) [211 points, 10 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQa1_PAPbks

that's hell of a trippy video

so catchy

"Glad Girls" wore thin on me after listening to it beaucoup times upon release. it opens great! but the "they're all right" repetition is brutal. & the song could stand to be an old-style quickie, 2 minutes & out.

also I dunno why but I found the album's backstory about the dissolution of his marriage sad & found the album (& this song) a bit too personal to enjoy the pumped up kicks. it's less abstract to me & kind of a downer. still love "Chasing Heather Crazy" though

here's glad girls as an old style quickie from 93
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl4c_85kgOQ

It's got a Moment, though - "the light that passes through me". Love the combination of chords and words at that point.

32. "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" (Bee Thousand, 1994) [220 points, 10 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGZT82PrbKs

also I dunno why but I found the album's backstory about the dissolution of his marriage sad & found the album (& this song) a bit too personal to enjoy the pumped up kicks. it's less abstract to me & kind of a downer. still love "Chasing Heather Crazy" though
― Euler, Wednesday, September 28, 2011 11:08 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Euler, or anyone else, is there a good bio or book about GBV? Thanks in advance...made a playlist of the countdown songs so far last night and it is soooooo f-in' amazing. This is one of the best poll ideas yet as it really distills down the greatest of the great

Well, my #1 didn't make the top 50 (or 60), so it's not as great as it could be. ;)

spotify link is also being updated: http://open.spotify.com/user/sp10000/playlist/5QWljGgTEhj3DPiXtmkYU7

xp Jim Greer's "Hunting Accidents" comes first to mind, and people have been saying good things about it upthread.

My son was about 2 around the time of Isolation Drills. We'd be listening to the album in the car and he'd be in the back seat singing along to 'Glad Girls'. But we had to be careful playing that song around other people since he would sing "Hey, Hey, glad girls!/I only want to get you high!"

That's another way of saying "too low."

xp it's a weird book, lot of cool stuff, but a lot of inside baseball stuff that isn't of too much interest. inside baseball almost literally -- there's kind of an interminable amount of space devoted to the pollard bros' high school sports career.

Man love "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows", it's just a continuous hook.

Just listened to it 3 times in a row.

Glad Girls one of my least favorites :(

Love Buzzards

31. "My Son Cool" (Alien Lanes, 1995) [235 points, 10 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdY-sjG8-vk

(Volume is really low on the clip, but I remember watching the show when they appeared!)

The problem with "Glad Girls" is that it goes on too long, which should never happen in a GBV song.

This has been a bad day for me, only one song I voted for and none of the other songs that made it are really anywhere close to my favorites.

there's something really haunting about "My Son Cool" (esp. about the coda) and I can't put my finger on it. those three closing songs AL stand out from the rest of the album in a way I can't really explain

yeah i love my son cool -- decide now!!!!

30. "My Impression Now" (Fast Japanese Spin Cycle, 1994) [241 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4_2rjFkPcI

yay

It's another good one... but not better than "My Son Cool"

The first time I heard Glad Girls was at a show in Athens, GA. They were playing through the entirety of ID and after Glad Girls, they decided to play it again! I'm sure that would annoy some people but it was awesome at the time.

... maybe they ran out of songs

^ GBV fan's joke

in those rare events, when GBV run out of songs onstage, they just take a 5 minute break and come back with premiere material

29. "Redmen and Their Wives" (Under the Bushes Under the Stars, 1996) [247 points, 10 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__q87LmkD8Y

Unlike Glad Girls which goes on way too long, I'd be fine with Redmen and Their Wives going on another 3 or 4 minutes.

yeah that one's got some nice catharsis

28. "Chasing Heather Crazy" (Isolation Drills, 2001) [248 points, 11 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7KiLRCxt58

Hooray!

I like this track a lot more now than I did at the time the album was new. It's a remarkably slow burn for such an uptempo GBV song.

isolation drills really came at a low point of my GBV fandom, but i couldn't deny this song.

27. "Blimps Go 90" (Alien Lanes, 1995) [249 points, 12 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU4NJnK1pvk

Great song.

The rusty violin is a nice touch. Also, Mary Lou Lord had a nice cover of this on one of her albums (can't remember which).

nooooo, "Heather" is criminally TOO LOW :( that was my #2, I seriously thought it's a lock on for a top ten...

Hey, here's 2 songs I voted for, and two of GBV's prettiest tunes. I love the harmonies on "Chasing Heather Crazy" so much.

I almost voted for 'Chasing Heather Crazy' but couldn't really decide whether or not 'Unspirited' does a similar-ish thing better... In the end neither made my final ballot anyway.

yay "my impression now"!! escort you safely away
hey

hey hey

for the record, what i don't like about "Glad Girls" is the same thing I don't like about "Girls of Wild Strawberries" -- plodding undynamic unremarkable generic song about "girls"