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

xxxxxpost about the lyrics to 'Dayton': yes, you're probably right about HAS vs. IS.
Too bad, I liked the universality of IS - like in this internet age everybody leaves traces of their existence online, so no-one is really forgotten anymore, but despite all the technology we eat bad food ('rotten produce').
Never been in Ohio, so I don't recognize the specifics of the descriptions.

thoughts on cut-out witch: wonderfully weird images conjured up by the lyrics, like something out of struwwelpeter or a jan svankmajer film. although the witch herself doesn't seem at all malign so there's a nice form/content tension there.

LET'S DO THIS

20. "The Brides Have Hit Glass" (Isolation Drills, 2001) [327 points, 13 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4b-syoEgrU

tbh this song has never stood out to me in any way at all, so I was very surprised when all the votes for it started rolling in.

Nice song, like a lot of "Isolation Drills" it's a post-divorce heart-tugger

xp to archcarrier -- That's interesting about the universality of that song -- I've honestly never thought about it as anything but extremely specific to (for lack of better words) a place and a point in time :)

Nice drums in "Brides Have Hit Glass"

19. "Hardcore UFO's" (Bee Thousand, 1994) [331 points, 14 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ICvSl2b38

First GBV song I ever heard. As I imagine it was for many.

really like the guitars during the chorus on "Brides" but see where JF is coming from. There's also a weird dissonance running through that keeps it interesting.

I wish I had gotten bee thousand at the time. too wrapped up in middle school KROQ stuff to know it even existed.

my first GBV song too
evokes driving aimlessly through the countryside by myself in my white escort, smoking ciggies and wondering what's going to happen to me

"build a playground in your head" -- words i have always really taken to heart

maybe i'm just sleep deprived but i feel like a weepy sap this morning!

don't stop now!

Already 2 songs that out of all the guesses so far were not guessed. Great fun!

does robert pollard have AA experience

18. "Gold Star for Robot Boy" (Bee Thousand, 1994) [344 points, 14 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmO48lOXVe4

i ask bcz i'd never seen the lyrics to 'a salty salute' before -- actually at first i thought that song started 'dibs on the setlist' which i thought was a great opening line, tho' perhaps in retrospect a bit british -- and then i heard it as something about "dicks and the sexless" which i thought was awful, and which i couldn't make make sense with the rest of the song, so i gave up on the song, and the band, guided by voices, by extension

sorry, i should stop cluttering up this poll

Here's one that I voted for. One of the catchiest melodies on Bee Thousand and great lyrics too!

Really digging "The Brides Have Hit Glass". Staccato guitar strongly reminds me of something - prob some faceless late 90s band or death cab for cutie or something :/

Metropolitan Brewery did a beer called Gold Star for Robot Boy. Sad I was never able to obtain some

Hardcore UFO's was my first GBV song too, I think

"Hardcore UFOs" is not one of my favorites on its own, but it is a great opening track on Bee Thousand. I easily could have voted for it.

17. "Teenage FBI" (Wish in One Hand 7", 1997 / Do the Collapse, 1999) [345 points, 15 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2ujKKN66k

Catchy, like ebola, but not in my Top 20

GBV at their best pure pop moment, I think.

Feel like the crux of the whole song really is the title line, which is just thrown away in the middle.

I like the Do The Collapse version more: the synths work very well.

I still like Liquid Indian better if we're choosing DTC songs -- right after "are we there yet?" at like 0:56 the skips and flips kick in and it's so good. You can kind of try to forget about "born again bootstomping witchhumper by the 2:00 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IUYZjr2pMM

Fun to wooeeewooweeeoooo.

is it too late for Surgical Focus? that's the best hi-fi GBV jam by far imo

My DTC song still hasn't placed. I'd be surprised if it does.

i also voted for Wormhole but that's not gonna make it i'm afraid

16. "Weed King" (Propeller, 1992) [358 points, 15 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH9-MgouFs

hopefully not too late for Surgical Focus!

never really sat down and listened to the album version of Teenage FBI until now. Very cheesy but I like it.

Voted for "Surgical Focus" too

But, never mind that, yay "Weed King"!

weed king is indeed great

I like the Do The Collapse version more: the synths work very well.

― Euler, Thursday, September 29, 2011 4:47 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah me too. The version on the Greatest Hits is awful

Y'all are nuts. The DTC version is a nice experiments, but the essence of the song is captured on the Wish in One Hand lo-fi version.

15. "Quality of Armor" (Propeller, 1992) [365 points, 15 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ET1I2Dkhhw

yay! woo!

My #1

My #2. Too low.

Ok, so there's the last song I have from ID to show ('Brides'). Love that song. All of the others I didn't vote for, except Quality of Armor, but I knew they didn't need my vote. But this is the point in the poll where it starts to become the alternative GBV best of.

My #5 (much higher than "14 Cheerleader Coldfront", I was wrong on that above). Such a great pop/rock song

the worst offense is intelligence
the best defense is belligerence

QofA in my Top 10, but can't remember where

14. "The Best of Jill Hives" (Earthquake Glue, 2003) [370 points, 17 votes, 1 #1 vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl1965lkmTA

It's a good song but the way it just sort of dribbles away annoys me. I don't like that album at all.