What the hell?
Okay, someone needs to explain this to me.
I just read the book mentioned in the blog entry below. It was excellent, and I really enjoyed it. Because of the last few chapters of the book, I felt compelled to give Guided By Voices a listen.
On a lark, I browsed through my iTunes library, and noticed that I had the Earthquake Glue album. How did I never listen to this? I checked the play counts for all the tracks, and it became apparent that I listened to the whole album, straight through, once. That’s it. And that was over a year ago. I guess I was enraptured by another band or another genre at the time, because it totally escapes me why I didn’t stop dead in my tracks and have my jaw drop to the floor upon listening. It is that good.
It’s got the energy of punk… short, catchy high tempo songs. Ramones without Joey’s droning. Lots of harmony. Guitar hooks out the wazoo. Each song is excellent, and there’s fifteen. FIFTEEN songs, and not one sucks. FIFTEEN songs, and each one is really good. Apparently, Robert Pollard really is a genius.
Someone really needs to explain to me why this always happens to me. This happened with Portishead, too. Maybe I just wasn’t ready. Maybe it rubbed me the wrong way during my first listen. Maybe I was binging on something so different that I couldn’t fully grasp this album the first time through.
All those indie-rock know-it-alls were 100% correct. GBV rocks. And not in a subtle way, either. So, chalk up another belated crush on a band. They say it’s never too late.
So, now I’m off to Emusic to kill my monthly download allowance on everything GBV I can get my grubby hands on.
