i wanna ask you a question: what is the best song in GBV's Alien Lanes?

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, July 20, 2010 12:01 AM (46 minutes ago)

yes incredible song

Earthquake Glue is an awesome latter day GBV album.

"Little Whirl" over "Game Of Pricks" and "Blimps Go 90"

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

Gillard's guitar playing really got on my nerves after a while

I like how "Hit" was on the Best of Guided By Voices.

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.

"Isolation Drills" is a great album. Don't much like any of the albums that came after it.

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)

... and proper lyrics that meant something

yeah i guess they are pretty straightforward for pollard, some real "divorce" type stuff on that album

Tearjerkers *sniff* ... tho, one of the most moving songs, IMO, is "Privately"... and fuck knows what that's about

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.

i like how the title of this thread sounds like some drunk guy accosting you at a bar

Which is apt

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

I think it's definitely the worst post-classic-era GBV album.

i remember thinking universal truths and cycles was really really boring and hookless

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.

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 like
isolation 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

^^

the "volunteer fire department" or whatever pollard lp w/doug gillard is my favorite of the post-bushes era, i think.

yeah, that one is very, very good.

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

Do the Collapse is by far the worst. The first time they were ever really boring, IMO.

AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDITORIUM

The scenario is bright for the King and Carol

Echoing upthread about 'Under the Bushes'...man we all had such high hopes for that album

1;15 in King and Caroline -
Bob: And the wisdom they will sell us, and the wisdom they will sellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Tobin: sell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^^^^^^yessss

yeah "love king and caroline" - great performance on the daily show, too

^^^ too much time on i love terius

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.

aww i lovvvvv "atom eyes"!! one of his best.

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.

but otherwise, great album.

"Redmen and Their Wives" tho!!!

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

"Redmen and Their Wives" tho!!!

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.

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.

yeah "love king and caroline" - great performance on the daily show, too

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ too much time on i love terius

― some dude, Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:20 PM (Yesterday)

hahahaha u_u

haha i always forget about the snoring on 'ex-supermodel' until i listen to it

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Is there a reason why BIG BORING WEDDING is not a choice?

pass the word: the chicks are back etc.

pass the word: it's on 'under the bushes under the stars'

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

sooo nice that "Motor Away" came 1st (tied, but still), I totally didn't see that coming

I hope that this lone vote fot "Cigarette Tricks" wasn't a joke or sth, I honestly love this "song" (probably more like a "hook")

"Motor Away"/"Game of Pricks" tie = poll justice.