Why is Robert Pollard the most underrated songwritter ever?

neither of the 2 new ones are as good as "normal happiness" from last year or the takeovers' "bad football" from this year

"standard gargoyle decisions" has a fantastic album cover though

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WXe9FjSrL._SS500_.jpg

and "customer's throat" is a great tune

I would just like to say that Pollard's last decade of work is WAY too Genesis-influenced to be called "straight-no-chaser indie rock." There is some serious ass chaser in it.

Has anyone heard the new single?It's fantastic.From his new album-"Robert Pollard is Off To Business".I believe that's the title.Anyway,great stuff as usual.

matthew smith from outrageous cherry writes better melodies and has a much higher hit rate

LOL at outrageous cherry.

And you know,I like outrageous cherry.Still,it's like comparing cherries and oranges.

what's to lol? they're a top band who has made a stack of great records

As has GBV/Pollard solo etc.I just think Outrageous Cherry doesn't have that distinct of a sound.Whatever influences Pollard might be mining at the moment he makes sure to infuse it with his own warped flavor.You can mistake O.C. for someone else.I think that would be more difficult with a good portion of the Pollard stuff.Plus-he wrote a song called "Kicker Of Elves".I mean come on.

look i like pollard but i don't agree with your take on OC. i'm willing to accept that as a heavily immersed fan i don't see the wood for the trees but that's not really here or there.

pollard's quirky titles have never really been a big part of his appeal to me, i don't particularly understand why people get so excited about them. sometimes they just let the lyrics down.

whats going on with Outrageous Cherry/Smith anyway?
it's been a while since their last record

i know that they changed rhythm sections again, i'm hanging for a newie but i think it's only been a bit over a year so there's still time

actually yeah it's more like 18 months now..

somehow it looks longer.
anyway, the last isuued Smith involved project is the last Monster Island record - children of mu

Yep.Still rules.

That new Boston Spaceships record is actually very good.Pollard's voice is rather high here somehow, and the sonwriting is constantly good

i thought his last few solo albums on matador were really, really crap. it would be nice to hear something good and new from him again

they were. but this is good.
dont expect anything new in terms of production/style, but at least the songwriting is better.(and at the worst, it's harmless)

When I first got into Pollard/GBV I bought Alien Lanes and From A Compound Eye((which was my fave album of 2006 next to Scott Walker's Drift))), one of my friends and a whole bunch of reviewers made me realise lots of people hate him for some reason.

I've been buying every new Pollard album since then and the occasional GBV and I dont really understand why people think he has gone downhill. I dont mind at all that he could have saved up his best songs to make fewer, better albums, I'm just amazed that anyone can make so much music that I never get bored of. The usual is 3-6 amazing songs are decent/good, but I've yet to find any of them shit. I'm not gonna be one of those guys that hails every track as genius, but I do think Pollard is a genius. I think it's crazy just how much is going on in each song and that I'm probably not even going to realise much about any of those songs.

I tend to like a lot of the songs that people hate. I thought the Silverfish Trivia EP was as good as Alien Lanes and "Cats Love A Parade" was incredible, lots of people hated it.
I was really impressed with "Waves" too, I hope that Pollard will explore ambient music or already has in a record I have yet to buy.

I've never got the chance to got to one of his concerts yet or meet another fan of his, so I dont really understand the hostility.

I will buy all his records if I can find them.

the way i always saw it was that the guy could have, i suppose, released a record every three years with ten great songs on it, but he just didn't want to. as with ANY songwriter, he's got songs that clearly aren't up to par with the best of his tunes (aside: people who worship the ground the guy walks on and think that >50% of his songs are great are really really nuts, and terribly deluded). the difference is, he decided to release just about every idea that he wrote down, which diluted a lot of his work and made many of his albums not work as a whole as much. but why is this a bad thing? sure, the records themselves aren't all classics (though there are two or three that are, imo), but there isn't really anyone with a legitimate opinion who thinks they all are. and i'm not really offended by it and don't see the practice of releasing two or three uneven records a year as cash-grabbing, because how many records has the guys sold combined? a million? less?
sorry this is so poorly written but i think my point is that he's not an album artist but rather someone whose entire body of work is available and you can pick which songs you like. if you can get over that, there's a LOT of really, really incredible songs (and hundreds of worthless ones).

Dude rules. He's rated accurately, which is to say- he's underrated. Have you guys heard the Cosmos record. With Richard Davies? Should be more discussion. It's really good.

haha, who's sock was this?

It belonged to Anthony Kiedis.

Haven't heard the Cosmos record yet, still catching up some of his other 2009 releases. This week I've been on a really big Circus Devils kick, particularly Sgt. Disco and Ataxia. I love the dark, creepy vibe that pervades many of these songs. There's also a much higher percentage of real hooks on these, as compared to the earlier Circus Devils albums, so maybe just a little "easier" to absorb. I got Gringo off iTunes the other night, but haven't spent any time with it yet.

Gringo kinda sucked, though I've got no real incentive to meet the guy halfway anymore - i'm fine w/ living with his 90s stuff forever

I long ago gave up on buying (or even listening) to the recs he made. The sheer volume just drove me away. But I do agree the guy writes some pretty good tunes. Sadly he isn't a very good editor.

Oh yeah, I won't argue about the editing thing... but I've discovered that even pulling out a record I'd dismissed years ago, some new gem shines through and I realize how truly great he can be.

No doubt. It's just becoming less and less worth it as his hit to miss ratio decreases with time

xpost I'm just too lazy to make it work, y'know, fuck that, I don't wanna weed through the mediocre songs. Thing is, that all his recs have gems, but I'm just not that big of a fangirl to put energy into it, y'know. Not even with my favourite band dEUS.

Oh, I understand completely. For the last, oh, three years now I've sworn I'm giving up on Pollard and at some point, when searching for something new to listen to, I shrug my shoulders and dive in.

I gave up following Pollard around 2000 but no doubt he's written gobs of great tunes since then. Is there any dedicated fan here willing to recommend a 2 or 3 disc compilation of his best bits from the 00s?

That would be a project I'd love to tackle, but two things holding me back:

1) Right smack in the middle of taking and studying for my ARE, not that much time to spare.
2) I'm sure I've only heard like 75% of what he's released this decade.

Maybe in the Spring, when I'm done testing, I'll follow through with it.

yeah, i've thought about putting together a Best-of the 2000s Pollard comp, but #2 is holding me back as well. And I've heard a lot of his albums!

Alright, we'll circle back in March. Maybe between the two of you you've listened to them all!

I am serious about tackling the project at some point, very much so. I just don't want to promise it right now when there's very little chance of it happening anytime soon.

"Haven't heard the Cosmos record yet"

disapointing record. i had some expectations cause it's the richard davies comeback after some time, but it's skipable stuff.

bob hasn't put out a record i really enjoy since the 2nd last GbV album. circus devils seem like some sort of bad joke. no intention of going near the cosmos record after hearing the reviews..

The Richard Davies songs from the short-lived Cardinal reunion are so staggeringly better than the Cosmos stuff that...it's just sad.

the cosmos album is one of my favorite albums of the year, and my favorite pollard album this year (though most of them have been good). it strikes me as a great piece of pretty, melodic surrealism. for some reason whenever pollard does one of these spacey-moody, low-key dreamy pop collaborations, it gets generally dismissed - like the airport 5 albums or the go back snowball album too, for example. The critical drubbing of the circus devils bugs me too - it's experimental horror-rock, don't expect it to sound like GBV.

I think the drubbing from Davies fans is justified...can't speak for the other side of the aisle.

So guys now that I'm laid off I'm going to start tackling that best of 00s Pollard comp.

do it! would love to hear the hits without the expense and effort involved in buying and plowing through a hundred records i don't really like. of course, a big part of the fun is deciding which ones are "hits"...

I look forward to your findings!

me too! I just got the new one in the mail (not out til March 2010 ...) 11th record since Summer of 2008! Ridiculous.

Can you include some Mist King Urth on there? I never did find that one.

Shit, see this is where I fail because Mist King Urth is one of the few I don't have! Also, I didn't realize that even cutting off at 2000, there are still FOUR GbV albums proper included!

I'd say keep it non-GbV.

That's the way I was leaning because it was going to be way too easy to fill up a big chunk of a disc from those four alone.

After poking around, it seems I do have some Mist King Urth tracks after all. Here's the starting list from which I'm going to pull. I know there are some gaps here, but I feel like between the Crickets comp and random other tracks I've acquired I can piece things in well enough. Seeing these gaps makes me feel like a Pollard slacker though!

Motel of Fools Robert Pollard
Fiction Man Robert Pollard
From A Compound Eye Robert Pollard
Normal Happiness Robert Pollard
Standard Gargoyle Decisions Robert Pollard
Coast to Coast Carpet of Love Robert Pollard
Superman Was a Rocker Robert Pollard
Robert Pollard is Off to Business Robert Pollard
The Crawling Distance Robert Pollard
Elephant Jokes Robert Pollard
Zoom Robert Pollard
Silverfish Trivia Robert Pollard
Ringworm Interiors Circus Devils
Pinball Mars Circus Devils
Sgt. Disco Circus Devils
Ataxia Circus Devils
Gringo Circus Devils
Brown Submarine Boston Spaceships
Headache Revolution Boston Spaceships
The Planets Are Blasted Boston Spaceships
Zero to 99 Boston Spaceships
Life Starts Here Airport 5
Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks Cosmos
Blues and Boogie Shoes Keene Brothers
Lightninghead to Coffee Pot Moping Swans
All That is Holy Psycho and the Birds
We've Moved Psycho and the Birds
Choreographed Man of War Robert Pollard and His Soft Rock Renegades
Turn To Red The Takeovers
Little Green Onion Man The Takeovers
Bad Football The Takeovers