Guided by Voices: Deep Dive Wrap Up

      It's the moment you've all been waiting for. I'm going to wrap up this Guided by Voices current lineup deep dive. It's been an amazing journey through 16 albums and 254 songs. If you've been following along you probably have a good idea where this is going. I'm going to rank the albums and then give you a playlist of the Top 20 songs from this dive, in no particular order. If you'd like a larger playlist add the other tracks I've singled out in my posts. They're great too. Just a reminder, I'm not including the compilation album, Warp and Woof, or any side projects like Cub Scout Bowling Pins or Cash Rivers. I will also share my favorite lyric from each song. This is going to be a long one. Peace.

1, Space Gun - 5 Stars

2. Welshpool Frillies - 4.5 Stars

3. Nowhere To Go But Up - 4.5 Stars

4. Styles We Paid For - 4.5 Stars

5. Crystal Nun Cathedral - 4.0 Stars

6. It's Not Them... - 4.0 Stars

7. August By Cake - 4.0 Stars

8. Mirrored Aztec - 4.0 Stars

9. Sweating the Plague - 4.0 Stars

10. Strut of Kings - 3.5 Stars

11. Zeppelin Over China - 3.5 Stars

12. How Do You Spell Heaven? - 3.5 Stars

13. Tremblers and Goggles By Rank - 3.5 Stars

14. Surrender Your Poppy Field - 3.0 Stars

15. Earth Man Blues - 3.0 Stars

16. La La Land - 3.0 Stars

1. GREY SPLAT MATTERS from Space Gun

     "Sleepy heavy eyelids you believe your sockets. Take them out slowly and just let them dry."

2. TO KEEP AN AREA from Mirrored Aztec

     "But you stumble on broken ladders and it's easier to turn back and go home."

3. MR. CHILD from Styles We Paid For

     "Roll with the punches and remain as a child."

4. ALEX BELL from Tremblers and Goggles By Rank

     "Babies can see, but they can't conceive how it feels when you lose it all."

     "I see you around every time there's a ghost in town."

5. BETTER ODDS from Welshpool Frillies

     "You caused an earthquake, yeah, I felt it."

6. LOCAL MASTER AIRPLANE from Nowhere To Go But Up

     "Ten billion clocks in on the beat."

7. SONG AND DANCE from Nowhere To Go But Up

     "Should have seen rock and roll had nowhere left to go."

8. SERENE KING from Strut of Kings

     "When I get around town, people in surround sound."

9. 5 DEGREES ON THE INSIDE from August by Cake

     "5 degrees on the inside, baby that's cold."

10. MAN CALLED BLUNDER from Surrender Your Poppy Field

     "Everywhere that he goes he finds a loser's game and he plays."

11. NEVER MIND THE LIST from Crystal Nun Cathedral

     "Make a fist when you pray."

12. SEE MY FIELD from Space Gun

     "Go on - be a spectator. See my field. I discovered lightning in a jar."

13. MY FUTURE IN BARCELONA from Zeppelin Over China

     "Moving units, testing time, saving nothing, make it rhyme."

     "Excruciatingly slow. Excruciating me so."

14. MEET THE STAR from Welshpool Frillies

     "Gone the fear. Soon to release his thundering brain children out from their crease."

15. THE BATMAN SEES THE BALL from Earth Man Blues

     "Reality is based only on what their screens display, that's all."

16. HIGH IN THE RAIN from It's Not Them

     "I'm taking this time for staying behind and writing my notepaper play."

17. COUSIN JACKIE from La La Land

     "Climb the mountain to the valley. Drive the highway to the alley."

18. ROMEO SURGEON from Welshpool Frillies

     "Alleys and aisles of mystery. Anesthetic permafrost, aisle three."

19. RADIOACTIVE PIGEONS from Welshpool Frillies

     "May you always know yourself."

20. FICTIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL DREAM from Strut of Kings

     "Programming fever dreams with the fools."

      

     

Guided by Voices: Strut of Kings ( 2024 )

      Well, we have finally reached the end of this odyssey through the catalog of the current lineup of Guided by Voices. Strut of Kings is the only scheduled release for 2024, and came out last Friday. I have to admit, I haven't been able to pick up a copy yet. I'm waiting to hear from Record Den to see if they received a copy yet. If they did I will pick it up later today. I have listened to it several times on YouTube, so I will press ahead and wrap up this deep dive. After the first listen, I was a little disappointed and felt it was a low 3.5 stars. Having listened to it several more times, I'm coming around a bit and it's probably up to a high 3.5 stars. There are a couple catchy tracks, but it's mostly prog influenced. 

     The highlights are the ear worm tracks, "Serene King" and "Fictional Environment Dream". "Serene King", in particular, has been stuck in my head since it was released as an advanced single. It's infectious as Hell and finds Robert Pollard at the peak of his pop skills. The lyrics are fantastic. I love the pre-chorus that leads into the simple chorus: "Everywhere I go people want to know who I am so I tell them I am the Serene King. In a half-asleep dream. Waltz across a battlefield. Oh, my name is Serene (4x)". "Fictional Environment Dream" is a classic, jangly Guided by Voices pop song, even though it clocks in at about four minutes. Doug Gillard really carries this one. In contrast, they may have written the world's shortest Prog epic with the 2:51 "Olympus Cock in Radiana". This track is a distant cousin to an older song, "Don't Stop Now", which was about a real-life, vicious rooster called Big Daddy. It's the de facto title track since it includes the line "strut of kings". It's definitely the most brilliantly concise prog song in their catalog. It's great that Pollard now has a band that can pull off something like this. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is a collection of 3-star songs. There's nothing horrible, but also nothing else that's memorable. I'm leaning towards it being the highest ranked 3.5 album, though. 

     My next post will be a final album ranking of this discography and a playlist of essential tracks. This was a fun exercise and it has me fired up for the Grog Shop show on the 20th. I looked at their recent setlists, and they are playing many of the standout songs from these albums, such as, the two tracks I mentioned from Strut of Kings", "Song and Dance", "Mr. Child", "Alex Bell", "Romeo Surgeon", and "To Keep an Area". It's gonna be a blast. Peace.