Why is Robert Pollard the most underrated songwritter ever?

Yikes.

I had Mist King Urth and sold it on ebay (I think). "Heavy prog" iirc.

Well I've always wanted to hear it bcuz the other Pollard/Gillard duo album, Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department, is better than any GbV album this decade.

"fether herd" on the mist king urth album is unlike anything else bob's done

Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department, is better than any GbV album this decade.

yep that's why I bought it too. they're not at all similar really.

not saying it's bad per se but when I decided to unload some records I went through my big pile of GBV and related I made a rule that if I couldn't remember how ANY song went on that record it probably deserved the sell pile.

"they're" meaning Fire Dept. and Mist King

weird. "fether herd" sounds like guided by voices covering birdsongs of the mesozoic. hard to forget, for me at least

jon, why not tower in the fountain of sparks?

Sadly thats one of the few I don't have. I believe I have a couple tracks from it though. That one and Go Back Snowball are both up there on my list of Pollard releases to buy when I have the cash.

lol, jesus, that list 00s records. and I've got a lot of them!

Think the Boston Spaceships records have been my fave of the last few years ...

The two songs I have off Tower...Sparks are kind of lame tbh. Both good tunes that go on repeating their material wayyy too long.

Slowed down a bit to work on year-end stuff and the holidays, but this project is still definitely moving forward! 2009 actually turned out to be one of my favorite post-GbV years for Pollard!

When I made a Pollard mix for a friend, my biggest hangup was putting on a song or two from each album. That's really not the worst approacch - if an album doesn't have a song demanding to be included, then leave it off!

Still working on the project, albeit very very slowly. Mainly bumped this thread to talk about how great the first Pollard of the new decade sounds! Seriously, dude is on a fantastic roll these past two years.

Yes! I'm behind on the Circus Devils stuff, but the solo stuff and particularly the Boston Spaceships have all been grade A. I like Suitcase 3, too.

I did this a few weeks ago, frustrated by having to sort through umpteen records to get my fix. Agree above w/ difficulty in getting every record represented & gave up after awhile:

http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo346/HadrianVIII/GrayGardens.jpg

1:14:07

01 Brown Submarine 1:22
02 Dancing Girls And Dancing Men 2:40
03 Heavy Crown 2:40
04 Stiff Me 2:17
05 Gratification To Concrete 3:34
06 Penumbra 1:50
07 Rhoda Rhoda 1:52
08 I'm A Widow 3:37
09 Andy Playboy 1:30
10 Shadow Port 2:59
11 Keep Me Down 2:40
12 Symbols And Heads 2:08
13 You Satisfy Me 3:04
14 Conquerer Of The Moon 5:04
15 When A Man Walks Away 1:49
16 I Surround You Naked 2:42
17 Tattoo Mission 2:44
18 Zero Fix 2:44
19 I In The World 2:01
20 The Right Thing 4:30
21 Canned Food Demons 2:08
22 Gasoline Ragtime 1:38
23 Denied 2:36
24 Towers And Landslides 2:01
25 The Original Heart 2:15
26 (All You Need) To Know 3:45
27 Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft 4:13
28 Nicely Now 1:51

Love the list Hadrian! I'm still missing a lot of his '00s output, probably close to half.

One song you forgot is "Slow Hamilton," definitely the most melodic song I've heard of the more recent years...

Slow Hamilton is gorgeous. Also, Weatherman and Skin Goddess.

his new dvd is almost enough to cure me of gbv fandom

ahem!

Meddle off Zero to 99 is so great. The whole albums really good.

I have enjoyed the occasional robbert paulard

kinda want to make my own Pollard Oughties best-of... which, since I own exactly none of these records, would probably just mean pirating/ripping as many of them as I can, getting super-stoned, throwing everything on shuffle, and deleting every song that doesn't rock my world on the first listen. I'll let you guys know what I end up with.

came across this recently: http://leatherbagmusic.blogspot.com/2010/05/best-of-robert-pollard.html
haven't listened though! seems like a cool selection.

wow this is wonderful!

love guided by voices, but i've never really progressed past the big GBV albums cuz honestly digging thru all of pollards stuff seems like such a grind...

his first few on matador, not in my airforce and waved out are almost as good as the gbv records he was putting out at the time. his latest one (?) we all got out of the army isn't shabby either

yeah, not in my airforce and waved out are pretty indistinguishable from GBV of that era -- pretty sure those songs were "GBV" songs for all intents and purposes, just that he couldn't put out more than one GBV record a year, or something. They have a lot of the same players. both are pretty essential.

which one had "subspace biographies"? that song rules

that's on Waved Out -- prob one of Pollard's best rockers! starts out awesome, gets better.

Sounds like Wire that song, this is a good thing

really, tho, at the end of every year, Pollard should just: "didn't buy the six albums I put out this year? Here's a playlist of the best 20 songs" ... I'd buy it. maybe that's totally missing the point, but I do find it hard to keep up.

I've tried listening to his post-GBV stuff, but it really isn't very good

Of the stuff I've heard, which is prob'ly like 5% or sumthin'!

i dunno, i always like hearing new stuff by him when I put it on, but after a few listens, I rarely go back to it.

i'd say that first Boston Spaceships record is probably my fave from the last couple years?

I've heard tell that's good. Of the other stuff I've heard, songs seem fussy + overcooked, his voice is not what it was, don't like this Todd Tobias guy playing all the instruments.

yeah, it's true -- his voice does seem a little weak these days.

out of context - but the Owen Pallet cover of Game Of Pricks is really good

Listening to that selection linked above. Holy crap - "First of an Early Go-Getter" sounds like "Hold Your Head High" by Argent!

yeah the owen pallet cover is great -- arthur russell meets GBV. man, "game of pricks" is quite a song isn't it?

"It Is Divine" off this mix really gives me goosebumps....kinda gets me in that classic GBV ballad way like "14 Cheerleader Coldfront"

i'm 4 songs in... songs 2-3 are kinda turkeys. song #4 is awesome though "Frequent Weaver..."

okay this mix picks up after an uninspiring start. but then #6 ("Gold") is kinda sucking the wind out of the momentum that had built with #4-5

this is great tylerw, thanking u

Robert's lyrics may be a bit surreal for mass consumption. That may be one reason. He's really clever. That can be a problem too.

Really loving the new Boston Spaceships record. I feel like this project has a much better hit-to-miss ratio going for it than the stuff under his own name as of late.

circle of trim off of tower in the fountain of sparks

pop zeus as well

those two. those are the answer to the thread title question

always loved the first track off that tower in the ftn of spark record

Hows the new one? Haven't gotten my copy yet. But I am super, super excited by what I read on the (excellent) Wires and Waves blog:

Next month, he releases a new record with former GBV guitarist Doug Gillard under the name Lifeguards, and March will see the release of a collaboration called Mars Classroom, made with the guys from underrated '90s indie-rockers Big Dipper.