In a sense, making a Guided by Voices essential tracks list is redundant: the band's mastermind, Robert Pollard, already made one for you.

It came in the form of 2003's The Best of Guided By Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates — a mixtape-style program where Pollard seamlessly toggles between the band's eras.

Lo-fi, hi-fi, mid-fi: it's all Pollard, and it all flows together. "14 Cheerleader Coldfront," his crackly, acoustic 1992 duet with his old foil, Tobin Sprout, segues seamlessly into the gripping, aerodynamic "Twilight Campfighter" — from the slickly produced Isolation Drills.

There's just one unavoidable problem: it stops at 2003, because that's when it came out. The idiosyncratic, touching, wacko, and feverishly productive Ohio rock band would release one more album, 2004's Half Smiles of the Decomposed, before temporarily pulling the plug.

Since then, there have been two additional, distinct eras. At the top of the 2010s, Pollard brought back some classic-era members; across six albums, they produced a number of solid songs, like "Class Clown Spots a UFO" and "Flunky Minnows."

Arguably more consequential has been their current lineup — a mix of old and new faces, in guitarists Bobby Bare Jr. and Doug Gillard, bassist Mark Shue and drummer Kevin March. From this run of albums has come cuts that stand up to the classics, like "My Future in Barcelona" and "Mr. Child."

Guided by Voices continue to forge ahead with their 38th album, Whirlpool Frillies, released July 21. A return to live-to-tape recording after at least half a dozen executed remotely, the new album features numerous sluggers worth diehards' and neophytes' time, like "Meet the Star," "Awake Man," "Seedling," and "Radioactive Pigeons."

Safe to say, there are a lot more coming. Before (or after) you digest Whirlpool Frillies, take a quick run through 10 of Guided by Voices' most powerful songs — solo and side projects notwithstanding.

"Over The Neptune / Mesh Gear Fox" (Propeller, 1992)

If you're new to Guided by Voices, perhaps this is a helpful digest: Imagine the rock pantheon from the Beatles to post-punk, boiled into one amalgam. Then, strip away the canonization and glitz and mystique; place the music at eye level.

That's sort of what Propeller, the album that began their '90s ascent, sounds like. The triumphal "Over the Neptune / Mesh Gear Fox" sounds like the Who recorded a couple of Tommy tunes in your garden shed.

The scrappy two-parter crescendos with an underdog call to arms, outlining emotional territory the band would soon plumb to astonishing effect: "I'm much greater than you think!"

"Tractor Rape Chain" (Bee Thousand, 1994)

Most with even a cursory interest in Guided by Voices will point you toward three mid-'90s albums as go-tos: Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and Under the Bushes Under the Stars.

Over the years, Bee Thousand has become increasingly agreed upon as the one, and there's a certain amount of truth to that. While it's less consistent than the other two, a handful of songs slice as deep as a Guided by Voices song possibly can.

One is "Peep Hole," a brief, heartrending bash on an acoustic guitar about loving someone with a screw loose: another is "Tractor Rape Chain." Don't let the bizarre, quasi-offensive title throw you: think of the trails the titular machinery leaves in a field.

But "Tractor Rape Chain" isn't simply about one path through life, but two in parallel — and how they eventually deviate and depart from each other. That makes "Tractor Rape Chain" universal: everyone with a pulse can raise a glass to this stone classic, and believe every word.

"Game of Pricks" (Alien Lanes, 1995)

While Bee Thousand seems to be the desert island disc for many fans, "Game of Pricks" is arguably GBV's signature song. (Pollard seems to think so, too: over the course of at least one concert, they've played it twice.)

The most popular version of "Game of Pricks" tends to be the one from their Tigerbomb EP, which features two oldies recorded anew in a professional studio. With due respect to that one, seek out the rawer, more concise Alien Lanes version.

Either way, though, Pollard’s lyrics are fantastic — full of mistrust and self-flagellation and catharsis. ("I'll climb up on your house/ Weep to water the trees" is one of Pollard's most moving images.) But it's their connection to the melody that will truly make your head spin.

Through the tape-recorder hiss, "Game of Pricks" is like every song on Meet the Beatles rolled into one, and shot out of a cannon into your solar plexus. Pollard has written many more developed songs, but never one this degree of distilled impact

"Motor Away" (Alien Lanes, 1995)

Like "Game of Pricks," a more refined version of "Motor Away" is floating around: again, go for the Alien Lanes version.

Ever barreling forward, this GBV staple is best communed with when you're young and on the precipice of a fresh start — but its philosophical ambiguity remains potent at any age.

In "Motor Away," you're not hurtling toward the "chance of a lifetime"; "you can free yourself from the chance of a lifetime." Furthermore, "You can lie to yourself that it's the chance of a lifetime." 

By considering the life left behind and the life pursued on the same moral plane, Pollard renders "Motor Away" totally bracing and moving. Anytime you find yourself in a situation that seems intractable, let the kicker pop to mind: "Why don't you just drive away?"

"The Official Ironmen Rally Song" (Under the Bushes Under the Stars, 1996)

We are all the ironmen. Much like "A Salty Salute," the opener on Alien Lanes, "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" feels like a chest-beating anthem for the GBV devout. (In this regard, "Don't Stop Now," a summation of their message of tenacity and courage, deserves a mention too; it's left off this list solely for space.)

Like so many other songs on this list, "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" must be experienced live for the full effect — Pollard's octave jump on the chorus maintains the ability to project Miller Lite out of cans and all over your clothing.

But even on record, "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" is indestructible — it's like a reliable old car whose engine always turns over. Whenever you feel out of sorts, let it offer a perennial, life-affirming reminder: "You are free: champions officially."

"Twilight Campfighter" (Isolation Drills, 2001)

After 1999's Do the Collapse — lumpy yet slick, produced by Ric Ocasek, reputationally still up in the air — GBV eased into high fidelity more naturally with 2001's Isolation Drills.

Fleet and aerodynamic, Isolation Drills was GBV's second album with crucial guitarist Doug Gillard, who's back with the band today — numerous lineup reshufflings later.

Who is the Twilight Campfighter? Who knows, but it seems to be an imposing, godlike, healing figure: "You build your fires into an open wound/ You want us to feel better/ On these darker trails/ With light revealing holy grails."

But the primeval mystery's the point — as with so many Pollard compositions. As "Twilight Campfighter" swells and swells, and light increasingly pierces its blanket of melancholy, the effect is spellbinding — especially during the final chorus, when Gillard and fellow guitarist Nate Farley absolutely lay into those chords.

"The Best of Jill Hives" (Earthquake Glue, 2003)

Here's to Pollard, the vocal melodist: could he have come up with a more clever, creative part over such a simple chord change?

And here's to Pollard, the lyricist: "Paid up, weathered and type/ Clad in gladstone watch him go/ Swimming 'neath the microscope/ Hello lonely bless the nation" is an mind-bending and evocative opening line.

By his telling, Pollard got the idea for "The Best of Jill Hives" while getting his muffler fixed. 

"Jill Hives is not a real person," he told an interviewer in 2004. "I was sitting in the waiting room with some people watching television so I played this game I play sometimes when I can't quite hear what people are saying, I'll start writing what I think they're saying."

The soap opera "Days of Our Lives" came onscreen. And with that, a song was born.

"Kid on a Ladder" (Please Be Honest, 2016)

After six solid albums with the "so-called classic lineup" that played on Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and the like, Pollard again dissolved the band, then brought the project back two years later with a necessary reset: Please Be Honest.

On that album, Pollard didn't just write every song, as usual; he also played every instrument. After the arena-rocking opener "My Zodiac Companion" comes "Kid on a Ladder," perhaps his most dazzling one-or-two-minute wonder since "Game of Pricks."

Over a scratchy guitar and 4/4 pump-and-slam, Pollard casually tosses ribbons of gorgeous melody in the air: in 1 minute and 47 seconds, it's all over. He's on to 13 more strange, beguiling songs from there, but you'll want to hear "Kid on a Ladder" over and over again.

"My Future in Barcelona" (Zeppelin Over China, 2019)

Like Paul McCartney conceiving the epochal "Yesterday" and "Let it Be" in his dreams, some of Pollard's greatest songs have arisen from intentional mishearings and decontextualizations.

And "The Best of Jill Hives" wasn't the only one: "My Future in Barcelona" came from "the future of Barcelona," vis-à-vis one televised soccer team or another.

Part of the essence of Guided by Voices is that magic is everywhere, in the most quotidian of places. And from that random snippet of commentary, Pollard wrote a masterpiece — one that marries the wonder of "Jill Hives" to the heft and majesty of "Twilight Campfighter."

From Pollard's pen — and lungs — a city known for sunbathing and sight-seeing seems like a fantastical, awesome realm. "Tested, invested waters/ Move local as you know," he sings in the pre-chorus. "When the idea of fast can be/ Excruciatingly slow/ Excruciatingly so." 

That's what he sang about in "Motor Away," and returns to here: when your surroundings aren't cutting it, forge fearlessly ahead.

"Alex Bell" (Tremblers and Goggles By Rank, 2022)

In five minutes, Pollard and company breeze through more ideas on "Alex Bell" than some bands come up with in their entire careers. The seesaw between drumless breaks and charging verses compounds the drama, and the the track builds to a gonzo, unpredictable climax.

This tune from Tremblers and Goggles by Rank — which at press time, was three albums ago, despite being released last year — was named after the last names of Big Star members: Alex Chilton and Chris Bell.

But despite news outlets' characterization of "Alex Bell" as a "tribute to Big Star," it's not really that. It's a poignant meditation on time, memory and loss that spiritually dovetails with those power pop heroes' rocky run, and both men's tragic passing.

"I see you around every time there's a ghost in town," Pollard sings during the galumphing outro. Then it slams to a halt. Which turns out to be a fake-out. There's another. Finally, a skyward power chord concludes this spectacular song.

With Guided by Voices, something unexpectedly moving and galvanizing is always around the corner — and even after any number of masterpieces, it always feels like Pollard's finest hour remains ahead of him.

Songbook: A Guide To Every Album By Guided By Voices' Current Lineup — So Far

Presented by GRAMMY.com, Songbook is an editorial series and hub for music discovery that dives into a legendary artist's discography and art in whole — from songs to albums to music films and videos and beyond.

When an artist has been doing their thing for four decades, how is their "classic era" to be determined? For Robert Pollard, the calculus is simple.

His long-running rock band, Guided by Voices, experienced their indie breakthrough in the early- to-mid-'90s with a smattering of indelible, rough-hewn, heart-on-sleeve albums: Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and Under the Bushes Under the Stars. So, take those classics, throw in a few before and after, and, boom — you've got a neat entryway for GBV beginners.

But there are a couple of complicating factors at play. First, Pollard seems totally disinterested in the notion of a "classic era." When he reignited the project in 2010 with the members from those three albums, he made derisive references to the "so-called classic lineup" and feared a relegation to the indie-throwback festival circuit.

"People at festivals don't want to hear a new album — they want to hear the greatest hits," Pollard told Magnet in 2014. "And I'm not that interested in that. I'm more interested in what comes next."

Despite making six reunion albums together, the "so-called classic lineup" didn't last; at press time, the contemporary iteration of the band performs zero songs from this period. When Pollard rips into new songs like "Excited Ones," his boyish enthusiasm is palpable; when it's time for a 30-year-old song like "Tractor Rape Chain," he can look like he's in line at the DMV.

A Guided by Voices song from 2022 does not sound like one from 1992. Thanks in part to Pollard's deepening writing — but also the musicians in his band — there are very few of the band's earlier one-minute, tape-recorded quasi-throwaways, which toggle between inchoate and inspired.

Today, Pollard always completes his songs. And more often than not, they're majestic. Case in point: their potent new album, Tremblers and Goggles by Rank, out July 1.

A meditation on memory and loss in several movements, "Alex Bell" practically contains an album's worth of ideas on its own. "Cartoon Fashion (Bongo Lake)" is listed as an A-B-C-D suite on the album sleeve, like on the '70s prog albums that got Pollard going. And in all of three minutes, "Focus on the Flock" switches tempos, grooves, and even genres, all in the service of engaging dynamics and ascendant hooks.

Perhaps a YouTube commenter on the "Lizard on the Red Brick Wall" video said it best: "Peak GBV is now." And that arguably applies to their entire current era, featuring the lineup of guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare, Jr., bassist Mark Shue and drummer Kevin March.

While the world wouldn't know GBV at all without Bee Thousand and its ilk — and songs like "Blimps Go 90," "The Official Ironman Rally Song" and "The Best of Jill Hives" remain something of a zenith — perhaps it's time to put this current creative roll on equal footing. Because songs like "Amusement Park is Over," "My Future in Barcelona," and "Black and White Eyes in a Prism" are, at the very least, just as good.

In a unique edition of Songbook focusing on just one era of Pollard's voluminous discography, here's a guide to a reconstituted Guided by Voices' astonishing creative roll in the 2010s and 2020s.

Please Be Honest (2016)

While technically not the product of Guided by Voices' current lineup — Pollard sang every vocal and played every instrument — Please Be Honest remains a crucial introduction to this modern phase of the band.

Announced concurrently with Guided by Voices' relaunch, Please Be Honest felt at the time like a recentering, a palate-cleansing, a recommitment to authenticity and sincerity. (Hell, it's there in the title.)

While reams of thrilling music would follow it, Please Be Honest remains addictive and compelling — not only for that aforementioned quality, but because of the strength of the songwriting. Plus, an eerie and loamy atmosphere, coupled with insectoid themes (see "The Grasshopper Eaters" and "The Caterpillar Workforce") helps it stick in your craw.

Opener "My Zodiac Companion" detonates into one of Pollard's most affecting choruses; "Kid on a Ladder" sets Buddy Holly-esque pop jubilation to a hammering drum machine; the murky-sounding yet clear-eyed title track embodies ragged determination.

It all ends with "Eye Shop Heaven," where Pollard reaches into commanding, Eddie Vedder-esque depths of his register, before an unexpected flip into a sugary, Monkees-like coda. 

"You are simply lying!" Pollard sings. But on Please Be Honest, he never is.

August by Cake (2017)

Every GBV fan remembers where they were when they heard Pollard's ringmasterly intro — "Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you: August by Cake!" — followed by an exultant horn fanfare.

Because at that moment, Guided by Voices were not only back after years away: they gave us a double-album feast, like GBV lodestar the Who's Tommy or Quadrophenia.

And on its own, the honest-to-god anthemic opener "5º On the Inside" offers enough momentum to keep the listener engaged for 31 more tunes. But what tunes they are.

The brief "When We All Hold Hands at the End of the World" bends a simple melody into earworm after earworm. The Gillard-written and -sung "Goodbye Note" pumps and slams with brute impact.

"Packing the Dead Zone" is an excoriation of social media-age sloth with an unforgettable spoken-word intro by GBV associate (and NYPD veteran) Steven Stefanakos: "We're creating a society of cell-phone-crazed, marijuana-smoking zombies!"

And by then, you’re only eight songs in. Take some time to kick around inside August by Cake, and you'll likely come up with your own highlights. 

Deep within the album, the downstroked acoustic ballad "Amusement Park is Over" is a stirring bit of miniature theater, suggesting childhood bygones, internal turbulence and lashings of violence.

Clearly, "Amusement Park is Over" means something to Pollard: it's the only August by Cake song remaining on their current setlists.

How Do You Spell Heaven (2017)

After the initiatory sprawl of August by Cake — a swirl of hi- and mid- and lo-fi — a renewed Guided by Voices honed their aesthetic with How Do You Spell Heaven.

True to its cover art — featuring Pollard beholding an unearthly orb of light — this follow-up feels pure, focused and executed with aplomb. Mysterious sound effects, intentional recording mistakes and head-scratching interludes need not apply here.

"King 007" climbs staircases only to lapse into languid acoustic strums; the power-popping "Diver Dan" burns mellowly and consistently like a candlewick; "Nothing Gets You Real" is mellow, strummy and downcast.

And even as closer "Just To Show You" ups the ante section-by-section, Pollard never gets swept into the drama — he sounds stony and undeterred.

GBV would go on to make albums with more distinct peaks and valleys, but there's something to be said about this kind of entry — one that makes the band's detractors, who might view the ultra-productive band as unedited or unserious, eat crow.

Space Gun (2018)

Where August by Cake waded through volatile psychological waters and How Do You Spell Heaven felt philosophical and stoic, Space Gun is almost unerringly flashy, colorful and loud.

"Here it comes!" Pollard announces again and again in the opening title track, kicking up the interstellar drama to almost a comical degree, crashing riff into crashing riff into crashing riff.

This leads to the goofy, almost AC/DC-like swagger of "Colonel Paper," inspired by a real-life account of a drunken night eating chicken — and Pollard's hometown buddy rooting through cigarette-filled garbage for a hangover snack.

Space Gun keeps the energy percolating for 13 more songs, but it's hardly one-note. "Blink Blank" is hypnotic, psychedelic and mantra-like; "I Love Kangaroos" is peppy and irresistible; "Grey Spat Matters" burns for a minute and a half with a vocal melody to die for.

Near the end, we get "That's Good" —  a dead-earnest ballad culled from the archives and newly recorded with a string arrangement by Gillard (a talent that would reach full flower in ensuing years). 

All in all, Space Gun is a good one to reach for if you want utter immediacy from GBV — a quick hit, a sugar rush, a 38-minute whirl around the cosmos.

Zeppelin Over China (2019)

Craving the slicker side of GBV, stretched across four sides? Enter Zeppelin Over China, a weirdly under-discussed yet major work from this epoch of the band.

As always, the pacing is ironclad: "Good Morning Sir" instantly wakes you up in a rush of anticipation, then "Step of the Wave" withholds, withholds, withholds until an exhilarating crescendo.

As with  any classic double album, the tunes keep flying by, with more gems lurking around every corner. Some are deliciously lumpy and impenetrable, like "Blurring the Contacts" and "Holy Rhythm"; others are immediately radiant, like "Your Lights are Out" and "You Own the Night."

While the whole hangs together gloriously, it's up to a fan's discretion as to whether any individual Zeppelin Over China tracks belong in the time capsule. That said, the album features two crown jewels that represent the apogee of Pollard's powers.

One is "The Rally Boys," an update on the chest-beating camaraderie of yesteryear's classics, like "The Official Ironman Rally Song" and "Don't Stop Now." The ascendant chorus, a statement of purpose on Planet GBV, is meant to be beerily belted into your concert neighbor's ear. It just feels good.

The other is "My Future in Barcelona," practically a doctoral thesis on the limitless power of human imagination.

From a half-heard soccer-game announcement — something about "the future of Barcelona" — Pollard crafted an absolutely magical rock song, bursting with possibilities and expectation and longing and anything else you might want to map onto it. If you only check out one song from this article, make it this one.

Who else can be so receptive to the din of daily life, enough to pull a song like this from the air? John Lennon could do it. Pollard can do it. And the message of "My Future in Barcelona" is seemingly that we can all do it. From all but thin air, we can make music.

Warp and Woof (2019)

On the most informal end of the later-GBV spectrum is Warp and Woof, initially released in the form of two EPs: Wine Cork Stonehenge and 100 Dougs.

Recorded on the fly during soundchecks, in hotel rooms and even while teetering on the bench of the van, Warp and Woof has an unadulterated quality that might appeal to fans of Guided by Voices' most unpolished work from the early '90s (think Vampire on Titus).

Emerging from the GarageBand-y hiss and noise are a handful of tunes that stick in the imagination, like the happy-go-lucky baroque-pop pastiche "Photo Range Within" and hammering pop song "Blue Jay House."

But from the hip-swinging "My Angel" to the melodically serpentine "Cool Jewels and Aprons" to the lovably lunkheaded "My Dog Surprise," the highlights are yours to discern amid this curiosity-shop of an album.

And as usual, the band would take a very different tack with the follow-up.

Sweating the Plague (2019)

Think of the consistent aesthetic of How Do You Spell Heaven and Zeppelin Over China. Then, apply it to a stripped-down, 12-song sequence and beef it up with a stadium-rock heft. You'll land within spitting distance of Sweating the Plague.

Warp and Woof's far more traditional follow-up dispenses of almost everything one might find extraneous about Guided by Voices — left-field genre experiments, Pollard singing in funny voices, too many songs. No track could be reasonably cut; every decision lands.

As on those two aforementioned spiritual cousins of GBV albums, that consistency can sometimes translate to a lack of clear highlights. But in this case, one song stands tall.

"Heavy Like the World" is part of a proud GBV lineage of songs about nerve, pluck and courage — the band's true wellspring of emotional resonance, which transcends tired references to Miller Lite and high-kicks and album after album per year.

The next time you feel like you've waded out so far that your feet aren't touching the bottom, heed Pollard's counsel in the outro: "Get some danger in your life/ And more ink in your tattoo."

Surrender Your Poppy Field (2020)

Another swing in the opposite direction, Surrender Your Poppy Field is an album of rough terrain, jagged edges and odd marriages of tones.

Opener "Year of the Hard Hitter" sets the tone immediately — even after multiple listens, it's hard to predict which direction the song will zip into. "Volcano" has a meaty, alt-rock chorus that's more Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins than GBV.

Moving forward, the seemingly tossed-off "Queen Parking Lot" belies a melody of Beatles-level sweetness; "Woah Nelly" is a drunken boat of ghostly Pollards; the woozy "Andre the Hawk" has an almost plasticine sparkle.

The quiet triumph of Surrender Your Poppy Field, however, is "Cul-de-Sac Kids," where a stately Jethro Tull-style introduction bursts unexpectedly into wondrous, double-time ebullience.

By the time the Book of Revelation-like closer "Next Sea Level" subsumes the album, one walks away having experienced a one-of-a-kind — and wondrously scatterbrained — GBV experience.

Mirrored Aztec (2020)

If the psychedelic artwork by Courtney Latta makes you think you're getting GBV in their Incredible String Band phase, think again. Mirrored Aztec — a "summer album" by design — is a tight and dry listen that nonetheless allows ample whimsy through.

First, the wonderfully offbeat moments: "Math Rock" ridicules the titular subgenre with help from a children's chorus; "Haircut Sphinx" is a brief, punch-drunk bar rocker; and "Lip Curlers" is a head-scratcher, even for these guys.

Aside from the outliers, several of its tunes, like "Citizen's Blitz," wriggle about for a minute or two before peacing out. 

But a handful of them shine brightly, from the shone-up oldie "Bunco Men" to the radiant, 12-string-strummed "To Keep an Area" to the rowdy closing sequence, closing the curtain with "Party Rages On."

Styles We Paid For (2020)

A high watermark of GBV's current run of albums, Styles We Paid For drives straight down the middle of the road, keeping the focus squarely on the songcraft.

More than almost any album around it, this one lives right in the Goldilocks zone: just weird enough, just traditional enough, just enough tape hiss, just enough fidelity. The vibe is moody, philosophical, a tad paranoid. In other words, it hits a sweet spot for Guided By Voices.

Styles We Paid For is also the GBV album that, intentionally or not, most reflects its times — specifically, the early pandemic. The band had recorded remotely for many albums at this point, but the jagged edges of that process show — gloriously.

But the real reason Styles was such a pandemic savior wasn't its cabin-feverish, vaguely menacing vibe — but its sense of unbroken group solidarity.

Like "14 Cheerleader Coldfront" 30 years earlier, the acoustic "In Calculus Strategem" feels momentous, like a national anthem. "Never Abandon Ship" is permeated with steely-eyed resolve. And the beatific ballad "Stops" feels lost in reverie, awestruck at the power of song.

But all that aside, the simple fact remains that the hitters really hit.

The dirgelike anti-hit "Slaughterhouse" is deliciously sulky and morbid; the kinetic "Mr. Child" is seemingly about some Peter Pan-syndromed dervish; and "Electronic Windows to Nowhere" is one of the most gloriously melodic anti-tech bitch-fests in recent memory.

Earth Man Blues (2021)

Pollard arguably sold Earth Man Blues short when he called it a "collage of rejected songs." Because what could have simply been their first album of 2021 turns out to be something like their Sgt. Pepper’s.

This isn't just in the diversity of material, or the occasional psychedelic twist, or that it's even presented as some tongue-in-cheek performance. Rather, its Pepper-ness comes from its profound longing for and curiosity about the past — and how that can chart a path into the future.

During the demoing process, Pollard opted not to write new songs, but dig through old cassettes for material. "They were all rejects from other projects," he told Louder Than War. I was somewhat astonished by a few of those finds. Like, 'Why did I not think this song was good enough?'"

Read More: The Connected Citizens: How Guided By Voices Recorded Earth Man Blues Remotely During A Pandemic

Indeed, they weren't just "good enough." Realized by his muscular current band, the Earth Man Blues tunes all but sum up what makes GBV great.

The majestic "The Disconnected Citizen" evocatively references "radiated halls" and "psychogenic fugues" as the melody aims heavenward; "The Batman Sees the Ball" marries Television-like guitar interplay with a patient and bouncy groove; and the band throws the kitchen sink at "Dirty Kid School," exploding a simple composition to cinematic effect.

And so many other surprises lurk, including the warped, variety-show-style '60s-isms of "Sunshine Girl Hello" and the crepuscular "How Can a Plumb Be Perfected?" If this is what Pollard simply had lying around, how many other masterpieces could he make?

It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them! (2021)

Released about a week before Halloween, It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them! could represent the shadow of Earth Man Blues, featuring some of Pollard's most immersive, arcane writing to date.

"Climb another wall over the mountain," he sings in opener "Spanish Coin" with a Fantean energy. "Breathe in the force of experience." Then, something we've never heard at all on a Guided by Voices record: Spanish-influenced horns.

Side one consists of kick-the-tires rockers ("High in the Rain") and beatless, phantasmagorical experiments ("Maintenance Man of the Haunted House").

On top of that, the indisputable highlight "Dance of Gurus" is wound tight around a looping vocal line ("What'll I do with you? You do with me?") that'll lodge itself into your head for days.

But from then on, it's rock and roll time, with every string- and/or horn-laced track hitting harder than the last: From "I Wanna Monkey" into "Cherub and the Great Child Actor" into "Black and White Eyes in a Prism." 

And the curtain-call, "My (Limited) Engagement," is one of the all time great GBV closers — capped off by a spectacular guitar solo from Gillard.

Crystal Nuns Cathedral (2022)

Vaguely in the same galaxy as the streamlined How Do You Spell Heaven and Sweating the Plague, Crystal Nuns Cathedral shows how the band could reel back their experimentation yet, somehow, land in a deeper place.

"We approached this one with more of an eye to get slightly bigger sounds — slightly more homogenous throughout the album," Gillard told The Ash Grey Proclamation in 2022. "And deliberately less idiosyncratic mixes than usual, perhaps."

If this sounds like standard GBV, give it a chance — you'll be surprised on multiple levels. For instance, the band had never recorded a song like "Climbing a Ramp," building and building on a sawing cello line. Nor had they done anything like "Forced to Sea," which materializes in a twilit, ambient soundfield.

Plus, Pollard's lyrics on Crystal Nuns Cathedral hit harder than usual. "Nothing moves me like this," he admits in the gorgeous, mid-tempo rocker "Never Mind the List."

And in "Excited Ones," a galloping rocker about those who wrap their arms around life: "They crush it every day!" he proclaims. Pollard can certainly relate.

Tremblers and Goggles By Rank (2022)

This is no exaggeration: all the various GBVs represented in the above albums — the goofy, the intrepid, the moody, the plucky, the experimental, the pensive — are reflected in Tremblers and Goggles By Rank.

Want to be pummeled with galactic kabooms, like on Space Gun? Dig the flangered vortex of "Lizard on the Red Brick Wall." Want bittersweetness that hits from multiple angles, like on Earth Man Blues? "Alex Bell" and "Unproductive Funk" will send you. Interior explorations a la Styles We Paid For? "Boomerang" and "Who Wants to Go Hunting?"

Guided by Voices are often defined by their "prolificity," but let's face it: fans are getting both quality and quantity. And live performances get a dozen times the reaction for oldies like "Game of Pricks" than something like "Stops," but it's time to knock that down too.

The fact that even some professed fans sleep on the new stuff doesn't dim the reality one iota: Guided by Voices are a band for right now. And their still-ravenous cult fanbase won't fault you for getting on the train late. 

Indeed, for fans of any forward-thinking rock music with a beating heart, eye for invention and sense of wonder, nothing will move you like this.

Every Moment Flame On: A Guide To The Expanded Universe Of Robert Pollard & Guided By Voices

The punk singer and drummer Ian Shelton was early in his Guided by Voices fandom when an unfamiliar song hit him like a ton of bricks. "I was watching the HBO 'Reverb' set," the leader of Regional Justice Center and Militarie Gun recalls to GRAMMY.com. "I was like, 'What is this amazing song, "Alone, Stinking and Unafraid"? I'm going through all the records, like, 'Which record is this on?'"

It turned out to be by one of GBV leader Robert Pollard's side projects, Lexo and the Leapers, who made one EP in 1999. "So, wait: This guy, who has a successful band, also does other bands that are intentionally less successful and harder to find?" Shelton thought. "That was kind of a revolutionary moment — the idea that the way you release music is that different things have different intentions as far as your audience reach."

<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2433765679/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://cubscoutbowlingpinsofficial.bandcamp.com/album/clang-clang-ho">Clang Clang Ho by Cub Scout Bowling Pins</a></iframe>

Read More: "A Joyful Burden": How Ian Shelton Of Militarie Gun & Regional Justice Center Makes Art Out Of Negativity

To Shelton and the rest of Pollard's disciples, his lifetime outpouring is like an entire record store. As the prolific, prodigious and overlooked songwriter once sang, "This place has everything." Want to hear '60s-style pop? Make a beeline for Cub Scout Bowling Pins. Stadium rock? Check out Ricked Wicky. Unclassifiable noise experiments? Go with Circus Devils. Country and western? Cash Rivers and the Sinners.

And if you just want to hear one of the most idiosyncratic, emotionally impactful bands of the past several decades, go with his main vehicle, Guided by Voices, who have been running on and off since 1983 with members in and out. (If you're unfamiliar, start with their three indisputable classics — 1994's Bee Thousand, 1995's Alien Lanes and 1996's Under the Bushes Under the Stars — and report back.)

However, even their 33 full-length albums and counting don't tell the entire story. At the peak of their popularity, when their record label asked Pollard to stop releasing so much music under the name Guided by Voices, such was the Big Bang of his expanded universe. And the latest stop on this runaway locomotive is Clang Clang Ho!, the first LP by his latest project, Cub Scout Bowling Pins, which was released July 2. (Surprise! It's GBV under a different name.)

While Pollard's canon is catnip for collectors and completists, it's the music's quality — not quantity — that makes it resonate. The melancholic sway of Ricked Wicky's "Jargon of Clones, Robert Pollard's and Doug Gillard's creative call-to-arms "Do Something Real" and Boston Spaceships' jaw-droppingly melodic "Come On Baby Grace" have nothing to do with poring over Discogs minutia. This is purely ascendant rock music.

"Each album could be its own universe, and each song its own planet to explore, but instead he's created multiple universes and alternate universes within universes," Andrew W.K. once opined. "You could definitely only listen to Robert Pollard music and be super well-stocked with tunes for a long time."

Why does Pollard engender this distinction? With the help of the official Guided by Voices database, let's dig deeper into his songbook.

Acid Ranch

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If you wish the hallucinogenic ballad "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" from Bee Thousand was an entire project, go with this pre-GBV project from the early 1980s.

In Matthew Cutter's 2018 biography Closer You Are, Pollard described it as "The most interesting, spontaneously creative, and psychotic, moronic thing we did... Acid Ranch was fearless and ridiculous, because we knew no one would ever hear any of it."

As Cutter explains in the book, the ensemble consisted of acoustic guitar, bass, squeeze toys and plastic buckets. It's a trying listen, to be sure, but if Daniel Johnston or Beat Happening is your thing, check out The Great Houdini Wasn't So Great.

Airport 5

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Airport 5 was a project between Pollard and ex-GBV co-songwriter Tobin Sprout, who's arguably the second most important figure in the band's story. Sprout took music he had lying around and mailed it to Pollard, who added lyrics and melodies.

The results were 2001's Tower in the Fountain of Sparks and 2002's Life Starts Here. While maintaining a raw, homespun edge, both are far more pop-oriented and accessible than Acid Ranch.

"A lot of times, Bob would show up with just a cassette, throw it on my four-track and flesh it out," Sprout recalls to GRAMMY.com. "He would just have an acoustic or something, and a vocal, and they we just kind of put that together."

It must be said that some of GBV's most famous works, like "A Salty Salute" and "Motor Away," were recorded by only Pollard and Sprout — as well as later oddities like "Noble Insect" from 2013's English Little League.

Boston Spaceships. Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

Boston Spaceships

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A fruitful collaboration between Pollard, bassist Chris Slusarenko and the Decemberists' drummer, John Moen, Boston Spaceships were a satellite band to GBV and nothing less.

"Bob always firmly stated that [we were] a band and not a side project," Slusarenko tells GRAMMY.com. "There's no waste in those Boston Spaceships records. That was the goal. All top-shelf material and a run of classic records in our minds."

Boston Spaceships' entire discography, from 2008's Brown Submarine to 2011's Let it Beard, is worth seeking out for its high-velocity melodicism. Still, Slusarenko points to 2009's Zero to 99 as the crown jewel.

"I felt like it had the most mania to it that matched an early GBV record," he says. "Short songs and scrappy inspirations."

Carbon Whales

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In what would become a ramp-up to Boston Spaceships, Pollard enlisted Slusarenko — who played in the final lineup of GBV before their first breakup in 2004 — for Carbon Whales. 

"I have a soft spot for the Carbon Whales 7" [South]," Slusarenko says. "I think we totally captured the spirit of post-punk England '78 in a real way."

Cash Rivers and the Sinners

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Back to the metaphor of Pollard as a human record store: Cash Rivers and the Sinners belongs in the novelty section. What began as jokey country songs on 2018's Blue Balls Lincoln eventually spun out into Do Not Adjust Your Set, I Am The Horizontal and Vertical, that year's 69-track smorgasbord of genre explorations and inebriated ramblings.

Circus Devils. Photo: Rich Turiel

Circus Devils

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When asked what satellite band a GBV listener should start with, Pollard responds confidently. "Circus Devils probably first," he tells GRAMMY.com. "That's a complete study unto itself. 14 albums."

Listen to the Circus Devils' discography from 2001's Ringworm Interiors to 2017's Laughs Last, and you'll hear a progression from avant-garde meanderings to more song-based material. "I felt I had the freedom to shape sounds in an adventurous way," their co-pilot, the producer and multi-instrumentalist Todd Tobias, tells GRAMMY.com. 

Circus Devils are such a point of study, in fact, that Tobias once wrote a book about the darkly psychedelic band called See You Inside. (Tobias's brother Tim, who played bass in Guided by Voices in the early 2000s, rounded out the trio.)

"Part of the magic of a Circus Devils record is that it cannot be pinned down and dissected without falling back on your own set of subjective reactions," he wrote in the preface. "Doorways will appear, leading to small adventures, each belonging only to you."

Cosmos

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This collaboration with the Moles' leader, Richard Davies, produced one album, 2009's Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks. Despite falling behind the stove somewhat in ensuing years, the strength of Pollard's vocal performances and Davies' touch as an instrumentalist makes Jar of Jam a hidden gem.

Cub Scout Bowling Pins

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After putting Cash Rivers and the Sinners to bed, Pollard sought another lighthearted outlet for the current GBV lineup. "I wanted something to kind of creatively take its place," he says. "Something not 'joke country,' but still goofy with everyone equally involved." The canvas, Pollard decided, would be '60s pop, with the potential to spiderweb into different eras and styles. 

Like a GBV song, a Cub Scout Bowling Pins tune begins life as a boombox demo — albeit a capella rather than with acoustic guitar. From there, "We only have Bob's voice to guide us and we have to come up with all the music under his melody," guitarist Bobby Bare, Jr. tells GRAMMY.com. "He is singing along to music in his head and we had to figure out what those chords were in his imagination."

Featuring tender sunshine-pop songs like " © 123" and outlandish detours like "Everybody Love a Baboon," Clang Clang Ho! sounds like GBV in a blender — in the best possible way. "We basically have fun being creative," guitarist Doug Gillard tells GRAMMY.com, "bringing some nice or heavy or crazy sounds and ideas to the project."

ESP Ohio. Photo: Derek Asher

ESP Ohio

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ESP Ohio was bassist Mark Shue's first recording project with Pollard, a musician he'd revered for what seemed like forever. When Shue first heard the songs, he was in tears.

"I remember getting the raw boombox demos and just poring over them," Shue tells GRAMMY.com. "The creative journey going from Bob's original demos to the final album is a beautiful process to be a part of — one I'm grateful to still be experiencing years later."

Pollard is more matter-of-fact about ESP Ohio's genesis: "I just wanted to get Travis [Harrison] involved in a recording project that he wasn't just engineering or producing," he says. "I wanted him to be an actual functioning member — the drummer."

While mostly setting the stage for the current incarnation of GBV, ESP Ohio's lone album, Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean, is a heady and satisfying slab of tunes.

Freedom Cruise

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From Stingy Queens to Magic Toe to Huge On Pluto, Pollard has dreamt up a thousand band names and applied them to songs. Freedom Cruise makes this list because it actually led to a few released tracks, including a 1994 split 7" with Nightwalker.

Go Back Snowball

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A match made in power-pop heaven: Pollard meets Superchunk's Mac McCaughan. The results are as sumptuous as similar team-ups with Beatlesque contemporaries, from the Moles' Richard Davies to the extremely missed jangle-pop maestro Tommy Keene.

Hazzard Hotrods

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Pollard, Sprout, Mitchell and their friend Larry Keller recorded these soused-sounding tunes at an after-hours video store. Note the song titles plucked from cinema, like "A Farewell to Arms," "Clue" and "A Star is Born."

Howling Wolf Orchestra

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This brief collaboration between Pollard, his brother Jim and then-GBV guitarist Nate Farley led to a single EP, Speedtraps for the Bee Kingdom. Quick yet surprisingly diverse, it's full of jangly, trippy gems, like "You Learn Something Old Every Day," "I'm Dirty" and "Where is Out There?"

Keene Brothers

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To GBV and their associates, the Keene Brothers were lightning in a bottle. "Tommy's great power pop musicality and Bob's genius melodies and lyrical sense work so beautifully together," Shue says. To their manager, David Newgarden, their only studio album, Blues and Boogie Shoes, is a "gem."

While generally overlooked, the album's influence has spilled out beyond their circle. "How can you go wrong with two indie-rock legends going head-to-head?" Shelton asks GRAMMY.com. "It's the ultimate soft-rock record."

Kim Deal & Bob Pollard

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The Pixies' and Breeders' Kim Deal looms large in the GBV story: In James Greer's 2005 book Guided by Voices: A Brief History, he calls her "one of the few Daytonians Bob regarded as an equal." Their only collaboration was a cover of the Everly Brothers' wounded ballad "Love Hurts."

"My wife hates that," Pollard told Magnet in 2014. "She thinks we were in love. We kind of were."

Kuda Labranche

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Another one-and-done between the Pollard brothers for an obscure compilation, Tractor Tunes, Vol. 2. On the flip was Mitchell's own band, the Terrifying Experience.

Lexo and the Leapers

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The band that blew Shelton's mind with "Alone, Stinking and Unafraid" was a short-lived collaboration between Pollard and the Dayton band Tasties. Despite its obscurity, each of its six tunes are essentials.

"There are so many great side projects, but I really love Lexo and the Leapers," GBV's drummer, Kevin March, tells GRAMMY.com, "[Especially with] songs like 'Alone, Stinking and Unafraid,' 'Fair Touching' and one of my favorites, 'Circling Motorhead Mountain.'"

Lifeguards

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Whether heard in or out of GBV, Doug Gillard's aerodynamic guitar style has long proved the single most effective instrumental foil to Pollard. After first teaming up for 1999's Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, they made two excellent albums under this moniker.

When asked what his favorite side project is, Bare replies without reservation. "LIFEGUARDS," he replies over email in all caps. "The more Gillard, the better!"

Mars Classroom

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This team-up with Gary Waleik, the leader of the Boston experimental pop band Big Dipper, is brighter, shinier and more Cars-like than most of the other entries.

The Moping Swans

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Pollard is a decades-long Wire afficianado, and the Moping Swans are one of his most inspired testaments to this obsession. File 2005's Lightninghead to Coffeepot in the post-punk section of his figurative record shop.

Phantom Tollbooth

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As the story goes, Pollard was a vocal fan of the obscure experimental rock band Phantom Tollbooth. Noticing this, the band erased the vocals from their 1988 Power Toy album and allowed Pollard to do his thing over the music. The result was Beard of Lightning, whose outlandish premise alone makes this entry stand out.

Psycho and the Birds

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One thrilling, vaguely disturbing detail about Pollard: He has the ability to write entire albums in one sitting. He did so with his 2010 solo album Moses on a Snail and he did it for Psycho and the Birds, a project with Todd Tobias. Both their LPs are worth hearing, especially 2008's We've Moved.

Ricked Wicky

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In 2014, Pollard suddenly broke up Guided by Voices, ending the latest run of — his words — the "so-called classic lineup." Before they fired up again with (mostly) new members, he took Ricked Wicky — himself, March, Tobias, and guitarist Nick Mitchell — for a three-album ride.

Pollard found Mitchell performing at the Dayton sports bar Wings, and his contributions are of the beery, Rod Stewart variety. On their debut, 2015's I Sell the Circus, Mitchell made a case as a new sidekick, slugging out the witty rocker "Intellectual Types" alongside Pollard's originals.

The band got deeper and headier with that year's King Heavy Metal and Swimmer to a Liquid Armchair before GBV fired back up with Mitchell on guitar.

That configuration didn't go well, and Gillard flew in to replace Mitchell at a moment's notice. But even with the band back at full bore, Ricked Wicky's triage of LPs stands tall on its own.

Robert Pollard

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All through Guided by Voices' development, Pollard has released solo albums that (usually) showcase his most sophisticated side.

"I do consider Guided by Voices to be sort of 'ageless' and feel free to include any type of song whether it's 'mature,' or not," he told Rolling Stone in 2013. "In other words, Guided by Voices has no age. We're not really in our 50s emotionally. But Robert Pollard is 56 years old and I attempt to write and record songs accordingly."

While this list can't contain the arc of Pollard's solo albums, it can offer advice: Start with 2006's scrappy masterpiece From a Compound Eye then skip forward to 2010's stormy Moses on a Snail, 2013's pastoral Honey Locust Honky Tonk and 2015's muscular Faulty Superheroes. 

Then, after that, check out his output under his own name with the Soft Rock Renegades and Ascended Masters.

Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard

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Recently shone up with a 2019 remaster, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department is a GBV fan favorite with a handful of Pollard's most powerful songs on it.

"I think Do The Collapse had just come out, and we were starting to tour on it," Gillard recalls. "Bob gave me a cassette of demos for 9 songs he wrote with acoustic guitar and vocals, and said he'd like me to record the music, playing everything."

There's nary a bad song in the bunch, but two of them are transcendent: "Pop Zeus" climbs and climbs until its zigzag melody becomes hair-raising, and "Do Something Real" is a fist-pumping clarion call to cut the nonsense and live an authentic, creative life.

Teenage Guitar

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Call it the artist alone in his chambers: Teenage Guitar is an outlet for some of Pollard's most bizarre, amoebic completely-solo works, like 2014's More Lies from the Gooseberry Bush.

"A lot of it is spontaneous. Building on top of an idea," Pollard explains. "The first one was recorded in my house. The second one in a big studio. I called it Teenage Guitar because it sounds like it."

The Sunflower Logic

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Or, Pollard making blown-out fuzz epics with some of the usual suspects: his brother Jim, GBV ex-bassist Greg Demos and his art director, Jim Patterson. They made one album, 2013's Clouds on the Polar Landscape.

Within the morass, at the top of "I Wanna Marry Your Sister," is an answering-machine message with a catsmeowing in the background: "Call me back, please. Here, like, like sittin' by myself. Nobody...like, like eleven o' clock, ten o' clock, whatever. Sad ass. Sittin' on my own ass. Sad ass."

The Takeovers

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"That was my music with Bob doing all the lyrics and vocals," Slusarenko says. Which sounds interchangeable with the Carbon Whales, right? Or secondary to Boston Spaceships? 

It's not: Turn up 2007's fuzz-rocking Bad Football and think about how this could be a peak for a thousand other bands. It speaks to the reason why this extended songbook endures: It's fun to listen to. 

Every Pollard release is a joy — or at least a curiosity — in its own way. It's universes within universes, as Andrew W.K. described. Or, as the wizard himself once decreed in song, imbuing minutia with magical significance: "Every moment, flame on."

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Back in the mid-'90s, Robert Pollard and a loose affiliation of drinking buddies made their most celebrated albums in basements and garages. A quarter-century later, separated by hundreds of miles, there were no walls at all.

Last year, drummer Kevin March and engineer Travis Harrison snaked cables and lugged drum gear into a Montclair, New Jersey, parking lot. They were recording Earth Man Blues, the new album by the long-running rock band Guided by Voices. March has been in the band on and off for years; Harrison has been their unofficial sixth member for almost a decade.

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Video courtesy of Renée LoBue​.

Imagining a uniquely splashy sound from the surrounding concrete, March and Harrison had been pondering recording outside since before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. That idle notion became the only safe option. As viral spread goes, heavy breathing in an enclosed space would be tantamount to working out in a gym. Under a blue sky, with the rest of the band in different U.S. states, March laid into a 4/4 beat for the song "Child's Play" outside the Magic Door Recording studio.

How will "pandemic albums" hold up after our masks come off for good? It's too soon to say. But if you're prejudging Earth Man Blues as a tatty and Zoomed-in affair, this music might drop your jaw. Rather than being a thin approximation of what GBV could do in normal times, Earth Man Blues, which arrives Friday, April 30, could be their most adventurous, cohesive album yet. Below, it exclusively premieres via GRAMMY.com.

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Pollard, March, guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr. and bassist Mark Shue never physically met up while making the album; in fact, they haven't recorded in the studio as a complete unit for years. So, how do tracks like "The Disconnected Citizen," "The Batman Sees the Ball" and "Free Agents" feel so complete, hanging together like a Who-style rock opera? The answer lies in their senses of communication, organization, malleability and perseverance. To that end, the veterans can teach young musicians discouraged by lockdown a thing or two.

"Use the technology at your disposal and try to make it as much of a collective effort as possible," Pollard tells GRAMMY.com, speaking to youngsters. "Concentrate on making records and don't be so discouraged that you can't get together or play live. Write songs and create art. Nothing beats artistic satisfaction. Be patient and stay creative." Without being physically together, here's how Guided by Voices pulled off Earth Man Blues.

Robert Pollard. Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

Demoing Informatively 

Guided by Voices operate by a self-contained business strategy uniquely suited to a pandemic. That said, Pollard's remote-recording strategy isn't exclusive to the pandemic; by now, it's old enough to drink on its own.

Between 2001 and 2011, Pollard has recorded remotely numerous times for collaborative projects with Tommy Keene (as The Keene Brothers), his old songwriting foil Tobin Sprout (as Airport 5) and others. But whether recorded remotely in person, a Guided by Voices album always begins life via a humble, quotidian tool. 

"It all starts from the boombox," Harrison tells GRAMMY.com. "Bob's use of this tool is legendary. It has a great, crunchy, compressed, mid-rangy sound. Bob works quickly. When he chooses a time to write, he uses the boombox to capture the songs. Sometimes he sings songs straight through, and sometimes he records the songs in parts, assembling and arranging them later."

"The demos are already sequenced into how I think the final album should be," Pollard adds. "Sometimes, that changes after I hear the instrumentals or add the vocals. Other times, it remains in exactly the same sequence as the original demos." 

After Pollard completes an album's worth of demos, he sends them to Gillard, Bare, Shue and March. "I love getting the demos. It's like Christmas," Shue marvels to GRAMMY.com. "I really enjoy diving in and unpacking a particular batch of songs. Through that listening process, you begin to hear what a particular song might call for, and where things could go."

Despite consisting of staticky acoustic guitar and a mumbled vocal, "There is a lot of information embedded in these demos," Harrison says, "Melodies, lyrics, chords with specific voicings, rhythmic patterns and grooves, instrumental lines and structural choices are all there. The whole album is mapped out. The album's shape is very clear even at this early stage."

This is due in part to Pollard's written annotations. "Bob gives us song-by-song written production notes for each album," Gillard says. "For some songs they're sparse, indicating just a general feel, and some are specific, such as 'synth here,' 'no drums in this section,' etc."

"I'm the acoustic-guitar-and-boombox guy," Pollard says. "I leave recording, for the most part, to the guys with the prowess."

Mark Shue. Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

Staying Connected

If COVID-19 hit 20 years ago, Guided by Voices might only have a landline and dial-up internet. But one silver lining of the pandemic happening now is that there are nearly endless digital tools for organization and quick communication.

Guided by Voices use Dropbox and a dedicated Slack channel. "We've found Slack to be a really helpful tool for us to stay organized with ideas and progress on various projects," Shue says. "In addition to keeping notebooks at home with charts and notes, I have a big whiteboard in my room where I can make charts and keep track of everything on the deck that we're currently working on."

Separately, the members of the band use Logic Pro X, Ableton, Pro Tools and any number of other DAWs, or digital audio workstations. The Focusrite Scarlett, an affordable M-box, is a favorite. "External hard drives are necessary to keep all recent sessions and tracks organized and free up space to do more," Gillard adds.

Doug Gillard. Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

By dutifully following Pollard's notes and staying in constant communication, the four musicians successfully execute his vision far more often than not.

"The demos are a constant guide," Harrison says. "I put the demos through an editing process that I call 'laundering.' It allows the band to play along naturally with Bob's vocals and the rhythmic feel of his guitar, even when he isn't in the room physically. Bob will usually send notes on the laundered demos."

"After I hear the finished instrumentals, I communicate with Travis as to what alterations or additions I think the songs need," Pollard says.

Because Guided by Voices stay on top of their progress via their digital tools, they’re able to complete a litany of overlapping projects. But creating distinct and vibrant art relies on exploding the rulebook as much as following it.

Remaining Receptive

"While we all love the electricity of being in the same room together, technology has also allowed us the ability to work fluidly and consistently together in any number of scenarios," Shue says. And the portability of the M-box means the band has recorded during soundchecks, in bathrooms and even in their tour van.

Plus, the band aren't strictly beholden to Pollard's instructions if they have an idea that could enhance a song. "I give them a lot of room for input," Pollard says. "There's a lot of trust and experience. Similar likes and dislikes as far as music is concerned."

For Earth Man Blues, the band used Pollard's notes as a launchpad and pulled out all the stops. Gillard used digital tools to create enveloping orchestral lines, as heard on tunes like "The Disconnected Citizen." 

"He sent in some tracks that made my jaw drop to the floor," Harrison says. "I think to myself, 'Did you hire the New York Philharmonic? How did you even do that?'" For the ambitious psychedelic throwback, "Sunshine Girl Hello," Shue laid down a percolating bass part worthy of Carol Kaye on Pet Sounds.

Bobby Bare, Jr. Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

"He puts a lot of trust in us, knowing we'll come out with something close to his vision, if not spot on," Gillard adds. "We welcome specific directions. He enjoys getting the finished music and tends to like the results upon first listen." "There is not usually any re-recording that happens, in my experience," Shue says.

When the music is complete, Harrison travels to Pollard's residence in Dayton to record the big guy himself. "Bob's vocal sessions are not long, tedious endeavors, but rather quick-moving, joyful unveilings of the vocals for the album," Harrison says. Pollard always sings the album in order; Harrison makes sure he's comfortable in the process.

"Bob is always very well prepared," Harrison adds. "His lyrics and melodies always blow my mind. The sessions are quasi-sacred events. We hear the new Guided by Voices album for the first time."

Kevin March. Photo by Ray Ketchem.

Never Giving Up

There are arguably better Guided by Voices songs than "Don't Stop Now," from their 1996 album Under the Bushes Under the Stars. But given that its title reflects both their message of resilience and uncontrollable creative output, it may be their ultimate song. (They didn't nickname it "The Ballad of Guided by Voices" for nothing.)

And with the prevalence of affordable, high-quality recording equipment in 2021, any musician with sufficient imagination doesn't have to stop either.

"Almost every person who owns a laptop or a tablet has pretty decent recording software built into their device for free," Harrison points out. "You don't even need to buy blank tapes. The technology is ubiquitous. You just need ears and skills. That's the tricky part."

"With the technology available today for audio recording, there is nothing to hold a band back from creating and releasing music," March tells GRAMMY.com. "Even when you are not able to get together as a whole band. In a way, if looked at with an open mind, it can be even better because each band member has the time to really work on and hone their parts."

"Our priority has always been to keep moving forward, to keep creating and elevating," Shue says. "We are always pushing ourselves with each project, and looking for new ways to make the creative process as seamless and streamlined as possible."

"Don't stop now," he adds, citing a GBV calling-card.

Photo courtesy of Guided by Voices.

Back to Pollard in his Dayton basement, making off-kilter classics like 1994's Bee Thousand and 1995's Alien Lanesyears before anyone carried around a recording studio in their pocket. There's a direct link between what he did then and now.

"The tools we use are not exotic," Harrison says. "The spirit of Guided By Voices has always pointed toward using whichever tools were available to animate the larger-than-life ideas that come from Bob's imagination. Technology has come a really long way since the band's early days.

"Bob embraced lo-fi because they were able to find a satisfying vocal sound from the 4-track in the basement," he continues. "Not because wearing the 'lo-fi' label brought any bona-fides. His brilliant songs always make him the most credible artist in the room. Nowadays, he still has the brilliant songs. He is a fountain of brilliant songs. I can guarantee you."

"Even knowing their entire career output intimately," their manager, David Newgarden, tells GRAMMY.com, "I would not have been able to guess that these albums were recorded separately in five locations and not as a band in one studio. Maybe the article will inspire others."

At the end of “Child’s Play,” the music gives way to traffic sounds, briefly revealing its unconventional, outdoor recording session. Together or apart; in a basement, bathroom, or parking lot; Guided by Voices will continue to push forward. 

And with the means available to virtually everyone on the planet, there are few excuses left not to create. No boundaries to be beholden to. No walls.

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Welcome to The Set List. Here you'll find the latest concert recaps for many of your favorite, or maybe not so favorite, artists. Our bloggers will do their best to provide you with every detail of the show, from which songs were on the set list to what the artist was wearing to which out-of-control fan made a scene. Hey, it'll be like you were there. And if you like what you read, we'll even let you know where you can catch the artist on tour. Feel free to drop us a comment and let us know your concert experience. Oh, and rock on.

By Sarah Mudler
Chicago

Chicago's Union Park was once again filled with a who's who of the music industry from July 15–17 for the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival. Drawing more than 18,000 industry insiders and music fans alike each day, the festival is known for bringing together an eclectic lineup of more than 40 artists, many of whom are on the brink of breaking into the mainstream.

Headliners this year included the psychedelic sounds of Animal Collective on Friday, Seattle-based mellow rockers Fleet Foxes on Saturday and festival-favorites TV On The Radio on Sunday. With many of the more talked about bands playing earlier in the day throughout the weekend, it was no surprise that three-day passes sold out in a single day.

In addition to the headliners, the festival's Green stage played host to recently reunited rockers Guided By Voices and the Dismemberment Plan, and ambient punk rockers Deerhunter, while its sister stage (the Red stage) boasted such heavy hitters as hometown darling Neko Case, Australian synth-pop collective Cut Copy and, one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend, the untamable frontman Tyler, The Creator and his hip-hop outfit Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. But when festivalgoers trekked over to the slightly hidden Blue stage, they were lucky enough to catch some truly buzzworthy acts. Electronic newcomer James Blake played the nicely shaded stage to a tightly packed and dancing crowd on Friday, while concertgoers the following day were wooed by the larger-than-life personality and stage attire of Zola Jesus.

Rounding out the festival grounds, attendees had the opportunity to seek shelter from the sun while perusing the handmade crafts and hard-to-find vinyl at the annual CHIRP Record Fair, as well as browse the one-of-a-kind concert posters from local and national artists at the Flatstock poster show.

In spite of the almost unbearable heat that plagued the Windy City all weekend, this year's installment of the Pitchfork Music Festival was a resounding success for artists and concertgoers alike. And this blogger would recommend that you get your tickets early next year as it's sure to sell out even faster!

Pitchfork Music Festival Sample Playlist
"Summertime Clothes" — Animal Collective (iTunes>)
"The Wilhelm Scream" — James Blake (iTunes>)
"Need You Now" — Cut Copy (iTunes>)
"Def Surrounds Us" — DJ Shadow (iTunes>)
"Hopelessness Blues" — Fleet Foxes (iTunes>)
"Bizness" — Tune-Yards (iTunes>)
"Wolf Like Me" — TV On The Radio (iTunes>)
"Sea Talk" — Zola Jesus (iTunes>)