On First Listen
Guided By Voices

By: Justin Cober-Lake
2005-03-08



Posted 03/08/2005 - 03:42:12 PM by idunnowhy:
 I always thought of them as The Who for people with short attention spans. Kind of like how the White stripes are the modern Zeppelin.
 
Posted 03/08/2005 - 05:51:57 PM by nicemanwashing:
 I like the fact you've expressed the exact reason why GBV are so brilliant - and yet so maddening. The quality of individual songs is so variable, and very much down to personal taste, so it's difficult to state with absolute conviction what the definitive GVB album is. Personally Alien Lanes and Mag Earwhig! are my favourites, but Bee Thousand and Under the Bushes have some amazing tracks too. I tried to make a GBV compilation with a workable running order and just ended up putting it on random!
 
Posted 03/09/2005 - 01:56:10 AM by MEKsLP:
 The idea behind this column is nice, but I really don't agree with the writer going with a compilation as his first introduction to GBV. The article itself was well done and Justin seems to have a balanced view of GBV, but I feel as if he would have a better sense of the band had he asked his fellow writers which album to plug in first, at which point Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes would be suggested, and I feel that would have made a much more interesting study of how a newbie feels toward the band as opposed to listening to the "best of" first. As a side note I have found that Human Amusements, while good, is lacking quite a few songs that are substantially better. I kind of envy Justin in that he will be able to experience all the greatness that GBV is for the first time, which is always the best part. Bee Thousand is my favorite btw.
 
Posted 03/20/2005 - 03:54:11 AM by JustinC-L:
 Interesting to hear your thoughts on choosing an album v. using a "best of." I debated this one for a while, and finally I decided that given the vast output of GBV, I'd be better served trying to get some sort of overview, and from what I'd heard, it seemed like Human Amusements could do that well. I thought that with a band with so much released material, picking an album might not reflect the group so well (although in this case it seems that I might have been in good shape even with that tack).