With nearly four decades of output, and more than 60 albums, 30 EPs, and 30 side projects to his name, Robert Pollard has without a doubt taken prolificness to a whole new level. And not only has the quantity of his output been amazing, the quality has been amazing as well. In fact, he has so many releases in and around his primary band Guided By Voices (GBV) that there is an entire database dedicated to cataloging them [with song lyrics, musicians, contributors, etcetera].
Due to the vastness of their discography, I thought it might be helpful to someone who's curious but has never listened to them before to have a long-time fan's hint about where to begin and why.
First of all, it is the melody and lyrics that make any GBV-related release so special. Fact is, Robert Pollard could write an enthralling melody over the sound of a cat scratching the fence. He is a melody master. And if that were not enough, his lyrics are fantastic: they are surreal, hilarious, serious, poetic, at times stream-of-consciousness, at times chosen solely for their percussiveness, but regardless always evocative of great imagery. And his singing is just as good. He can alter his vocal delivery to portray a wide array of moods and atmospheres. Oftentimes he reminds me of a town crier, with important news for us all (whether we know what he's talking about or not).
So at this point maybe I've convinced you to give GBV a listen. Now the question arises: where to begin?
To answer that, I will start by showing you an image containing my favorite nine GBV-related releases:
The albums in this image span from 1993 to 2003 and contain five official GBV releases, three side project releases, and one solo album.
But which one should you start with?
I would recommend starting with Mag Earwhig! (1997), not because it is the absolute best here, but because it will allow you to hear the songwriting without any lo-fidelity distractions just yet. While the lo-fi DIY aesthetic never bothered me, it might be a little much at first for ears not used to such things. You'll hear a lot about this album being their sell-out hi-fi album after the so-called "classic" line-up left, but don't believe the negative hype. As far as I'm concerned there is only one member in the classic line-up: Pollard himself; and this is the first album he made with lead guitarist / multi-instrumentalist Doug Gillard! The tracks on here range from the wonderfully odd (The Old Grunt, Are You Faster?, Hollow Cheek) to arena rockers (I Am a Tree, Not Behind the Fighter Jet, Little Lines) to the sad and beautiful (Learning to Hunt, Now To War).
If you've never listened to GBV before, one thing that might strike you as odd is how abruptly some songs end and/or that some songs have no discernable structure. In fact this is one of the greatest things about their music.
In 1999 Doug Gillard teamed up with Robert Pollard to create one of the finest albums in the entire GBV discography, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department. On this one Gillard wrote and played all instruments while Pollard wrote and sang all lyrics; and as you will find out, Gillard isn't only a great lead guitarist, he is a great piano player, bassist, and drummer too. His style addictively fuses 1970s classic-rock aesthetics with 1990s indie-rock experimentation; and it turns out that his music forms the perfect sonic landscape within which Pollard can unleash some of his best melodies and lyrics.
Having been primed on Speak Kindly..., which is slightly lower-fi than Mag Earwhig!, you'll be ready to give a listen to one of the most lauded albums in the entire GBV canon: Bee Thousand (1994). Since there's been so much written about this album I'll just say that all of the praise is justified. It'll probably be one of the most interesting albums you ever hear.
However, it was the year prior to Bee Thousand in which arrived my favorite GBV album of all: Vampire On Titus (1993). Admittedly this is probably one of the lowest fidelity recordings you will hear anywhere, but by this point you should barely even notice anything but the great songwriting. This album is awash in raw emotion, charming strangeness, epic rockers, and overall feels like a magical lo-fi dream. I can't help but think that if more "popular" artists would release some of these songs that they would absolutely dominate the airwaves (i.e. Expecting Brainchild, Sot, Unstable Journey, Perhaps Now The Vultures).
If I had to select one year as my favorite GBV year then it would definitely be 1996, for this was the year of Sunfish Holy Breakfast (EP), Not In My Airforce (solo debut), and Under the Bushes Under the Stars. Sunfish Holy Breakfast is an absolute gem. For me it is very close to Vampire On Titus in its awesomeness. In addition to the many epic Pollard tracks, it starts off with the Tobin Sprout classic Jabberstroker and also includes the James Greer pick-me-up Trendspotter Acrobat.
At this point in the history of GBV there is a slight fork in the road: one way leads down the "official" GBV lane, and the other leads to solo albums and side projects. If you were to listen to all of the official GBV releases from Propeller (1992) through Do The Collapse (1999) you might notice that there is a gradual shift toward the less weird. Not bad - mind you - just less experimental, and perhaps a bit more structured. As Pollard explained in Guided By Voices: A Brief History [speaking in the early 2000s about the early 1990s]:
...at that point all of my efforts went into a GBV record; there weren't all these side projects. So now, the serious sh** goes on a GBV record. The crazy sh** might go on a Circus Devils record or a Robert Pollard record. It's splintered into different projects now...The splintering he mentions is the fork in the road I was speaking of, and it began in 1996 with the release of his debut solo album Not In My Airforce; although − and this is part of what makes 1996 such a great GBV year − the craziness (what I normally refer to as weirdness) at this point was still very much present in the GBV releases as well as the side projects.
All three of the 1996 releases are excellent, but I would listen to Sunfish Holy Breakfast first because it will follow perfectly on the heels of Vampire On Titus; then Not In My Airforce because it is very akin to those two; and finally the more serious / less crazy albeit still weird-enough and ergo awesome Under the Bushes Under the Stars.
If you've gotten to this point, the last two recommendations in my top nine will just be icing on the cake. Mist King Urth (2003) is the phenomenal follow-up to 1999's Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department. Officially, Mist King Urth is a release of the side project called Lifeguards, while the 1999 release was by "Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard." Functionally however, it seamlessly continues Gillard's addictive fusion of 1970s classic-rock aesthetics and 1990s indie-rock experimentation with Pollard's beautiful and compelling melodies and lyrics.
The last recommendation in my top nine is similar to Mist King Urth in that it is Pollard teamed up as vocalist/lyricist with another musician who does all of the music; only this time the musician is Mac McCaughan of Superchunk, the album is Calling Zero (2002), and the side project is Go Back Snowball. Remarkably, McCaughan wrote/recorded all the music on his own, then sent it to Pollard who proceeded to compose some of the greatest melodies and lyrics of his career atop it. You'll be surprised at how different this album feels compared to other Pollard releases due to McCaughan's completely unique approach, but then also amazed at how adeptly Pollard composes fantastically perfect melodies to accompany it.
If you needmore songs in the GBV world, with over a hundred releases there always seem to be more.
Here's a quick post-Guide Guide: after Calling Zero I would first go back to Propeller (1992) and then listen to all of the EPs from 1992 to 1996, at which point I would detour into the post-Airforce solo albums (Waved Out, Kid Marine, Motel of Fools) [these are awesome!!!]; and finally retrace your steps back to the late 1990s to hear the hi/mid-fi exploration down the "official" GBV lane, from Do the Collapse onward...
Happy listening!