Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

1995

Matador Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. A Salty Salute  2. Evil Speakers  3. Watch Me Jumpstart  4. They're Not Witches  5. As We Go Up, We Go Down  6. (I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger  7. Game of Pricks  8. The Ugly Vision  9. A Good Flying Bird  10. Cigarette Tricks  11. Pimple Zoo  12. Big Chief Chinese Restaurant  13. Closer You Are 14. Auditorium  15. Motor Away  16. Hit  17. My Valuable Hunting Knife  18. Gold Hick  19. King and Caroline  20. Striped White Jets  21. Ex-Supermodel  22. Blimps Go 90   23. Strawdogs  24. Chicken Blows  25. Little Whirl  26. My Son Cool  27. Always Crush Me  28.Alright

DIS-Arm the settlers!

This was the album that turned me into a life-long, record store hunting, empty-walleted GBV junkie. This is why I own about a hundred Robert Pollard albums. This is why I spend my hungover weekend mornings writing obsessively about GBV.  I seriously, stone-face consider this to be one of the greatest albums of all-time by anybody. And the odd (and in retrospect unthinkable) thing about it is, I didn't particularly like this album all that much when I first bought it,

Now, this wasn't the first GBV album I had heard. That would be "Mag Earwig." I loved "Bulldog Skin" but was ambivalent towards the rest of the album. Loved some of it, was "eh" on some of it (but we'll get to that another time). So I listened to "Mag Earwig" for years but didn't particularly feel strongly enough about the band to check out the rest of their material. But one day I was at a Media Play (in Saginaw Michigan! Hyup! Hyup!) and saw their well-stocked GBV section and thought, "Y'know, I  kinda like this band...Maybe I'll check out one of these...Hmmm, this one has the most songs on it...I'll go with this one..."

I took it home and threw it on the stereo and read along with the lyric sheet. After my first listen I thought to myself, "A couple of good songs there. Too bad it sounds so shallow and dinky." A day or two later I spun it again and thought to myself, "Actually, about half of this is pretty great. Too bad it sounds so shallow and dinky." Third listen it began to dawn on me that 90% of it was spectacular and I was fairly used to the sound.

But on that  magic fourth listening my brain had completely rewired itself. Those stumbly drum fills had somehow morphed into laser-lit, Keith Moon cannonades. Those overdriven acoustic guitars on "Always Crush Me" had somehow morphed into an "Eleanor Rigby"-esque string quartet. The ever-present tape hiss was suddenly a vast, mysterious  sea filled with endless, drunken wonders...

I have no idea how many times I've listened to this record. I'd say 700 times wouldn't be an exaggeration. Even 20 years later, just looking at that track listing still makes me all giddy.

I guess if you've never heard it, the best explanation I can offer is that "Alien Lanes" is a 40 minute collage of experimental and dangerously hooky, wonderfully brief pop/rock songs. It somehow recaptures the thrill of hearing rock radio as a kid. Everything is bright and big and sing-songy and wonderful and seemingly inexhaustible. A whole new intoxicating world of sensations you don't quite understand but can't resist being a part of...

 "A Salty Salute" is an inspired opening track. It's simple and doesn't seem like much at first, but it somehow summons the camaraderie I always feel at a GBV show...The aural equivalent of the bottle of booze that always gets passed around, with no regard to burning lip sores... 

By my count at least 15 of the best melodies ever written are housed within this record. "Game of Pricks" and "My Valuable Hunting Knife" still give me big, fat goosebumps. It's staggering to me that these melodies didn't exist prior to this album and there was a point in time when "Game of Pricks" wasn't rattling in my head. And oh, yea. A big shout out to that magic moment when "Autotorium" explodes into  "Motor Away." The whole album is a Side-Two-of-"Abbey Road"-level masterpiece of sequencing, but that particular segue never fails to knock my fat-ass in the dirt. Listening to "Motor Away" without "Auditorium" somehow lessens it. Now, that's sequencing. 

And Tobin Sprout is slaying shit this time around. I love "A Good Flying Bird" and "Little Whirl" is one of the greatest twee-pop head-rushes ever laid to Maxell. Really, every song on the album is good. Even the song where some guy snores through the whole thing kinda rules. Even the song where Pollard bb-bb-bb-bb's his lips with his fingers to emulate the leslie effect works like crazy. If I had to pick one weak spot where my attention span wanders I guess I'd have to choose the lumpy acoustic "The Ugly Vision" but even that's only a minute and a half long...

This gets the nod for my personal favorite Guided by Voices album. And I'd be surprised if anything budges that ranking. Listening to it this time around, it struck me that Pollard has never quite done anything like this since...

Here's the updated GBV ranking:

1. Alien Lanes

2. Bee Thousand

3. Propeller

4. Same Place the Fly Got Smashed

5. King Shit and the Golden Boys

6. Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

7. Vampire on Titus

8. Sandbox
9. Forever Since Breakfast
10. Devil Between My Toes'

Let's listen to some music...Here's "Blimps Go 90" by GBV...Enjoy...