Twenty years ago today (June 21), Ohio indie rock band Guided By Voices released its breakthrough album Bee Thousand, a majestic 37-minute collage of psychedelic power pop that set the stage for lo-fi music. Here are the album's 20 songs ranked, from weakest to best.
(Note: Since this article would probably be 2,000 words long if I wrote about all twenty songs, I'll just write about the top 10 instead. Also, I don't want to say anything negative about the low-ranked songs, because I love them all dearly.)
20. Ester's Day
19. Mincer Ray
18. Awful Bliss
17. Kicker of Elves
16. You're Not An Airplane
15. Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
14. Demons Are Real
13. Hot Freaks
12. Her Psychology Today
11. Hardcore UFOs
10. Yours To Keep
Guided By Voices gets so much credit as an awesome rock & roll band that their abilities as balladeers are often overlooked. "Yours To Keep," which is wedged in between two of the album's best rockers, is a fragile, beautiful song on fingerpicked acoustic guitar with a heartbreaking chord progression and melody. It seems like there's more to the song than we actually hear, since it's abruptly cut off mid-chord.
9. Queen of Cans and Jars
I love it when a song introduces a guitar riff that doesn't make complete sense until the rest of the band comes in, like GBV does on "Queen of Cans and Jars." After the chords and the trebly drums fall into place under that out-of-tune riff, you start wondering why this song hadn't already existed before.
8. Peep-Hole
Of all the ballads on Bee Thousand, none are as hooky or heavenly as "Peep-Hole," which sounds like something Paul Westerberg would have written for the Replacements on one of his more downcast days.
7. Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
Guided By Voices' roots as an Ohio bar band shine brilliantly on "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows," the album's most straightforward rock & roll song. It sounds like a demo for a long lost Big Star or Lou Reed song.
6. Big Fan of the Pigpen
The songs on the second half of Bee Thousand get a little strange, with some tracks sounding like they were stitched together by two (or even three) different songs. The first of these weird songs is "Big Fan of the Pigpen," probably the most underrated on the album. The track's first half is an almost comically out-of-tune but still beautifully melancholy acoustic number, which fades out for an instrumental garage rock jam with guitars straight out of Revolver.
5. I Am A Scientist
"I Am A Scientist" is probably the most famous song from Bee Thousand (it had a music video, after all), though it sounds unlike anything else on the album. Its huge, wandering melody is anchored by a stripped down arrangement and subtle guitar riff, and is the album's most "conventional" track, both in terms of structure and production, though it's still probably the most poorly recorded song to ever get a spin on 120 Minutes.
4. Echos Myron
British Invasion bands were a huge influence on Bob Pollard's songwriting, and "Echos Myron" is an obvious example of this. If the song had been recorded in a professional studio and had lyrics about quirky British characters, it could have easily been a Kinks song from 1966.
3. Smothered In Hugs
In any great GBV song, there's always a point where the melody makes a genius leap or twist that instantly sells the entire thing. "Smothered in Hugs" is a classic example of this, where the melody remains subdued and cautious up until the chorus, when Bob Pollard's voice rises above the fuzz to triumphantly sing, "...teach me all you know!"
2. Tractor Rape Chain
While Bob Pollard's lyrics tend to lean towards surreal nonsense, the anthemic "Tractor Rape Chain" is actually a relatively straightforward break-up song, at least until he sings the titular phrase in the first chorus, after which it morphs into something about ghosts and getting wet. Still, it's the album's biggest and most emotional track (not to mention the longest, at a whopping 3:05).
1. Gold Star For Robot Boy
As far as I'm concerned, this is the perfect GBV song, and the best example of what the band is all about. It's only 100 seconds long and has an awesome title, poorly recorded instruments, and most importantly, a melody that is made entirely of hooks. If it was a minute longer and recorded by Green Day, everybody would know and love this song.
