Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
Whilst I'm giving the new Drive-by Truckers album a decent amount of listening time before I try to write it up, I'm going to take the opportunity to ramble on about a record that's easily in my all time favorites. I'm sure many of you have at least heard of Guided By Voices and probably heard them described with such seemingly over the top phrases as "the best band of the 90s" and "the closest thing we've had to The Beatles in the last few decades". I could understand why such bold statements might make any person not familiar with the band somewhat weary of checking them out. After all, everyone with a sod of sense is very cautious around absurd amounts of hype. As this record was released when my age was still in single figures, I'm in no position to tell you how ground breaking this record was or how it was received upon it's release, all I'd be able to give you would be the obvious churnings of a kid who's studied musical moments way before his time and is therefore basically reciting what people have told him. It doesn't really live up to being there at that time and blah blah blah. So how can I declare a record that was way before my time as one of my favorites? Well like I said, I wasn't there, I can't tell you if this record is as important now as it was upon it's inception. What I can say though is that in this day and age, Bee Thousand is one of the best demonstrations of lo-fi song writing around. Every song is a master class in perfect, simple musicianship and a great demonstration of lyricism. As little as I have the right to make the statement, from what I know, Guided By Voices have been the best example of a band getting by on the sheer brilliance of their pop understanding, even to the point that I would put "Bee Thousand" up there with some of The Beatles better moments.
Guided By Voices - Tractor Rape Chain
Guided By Voices - The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
Guided By Voices - Mincer Ray
Guided By Voices - I Am A Scientist
Buy Bee Thousand from Amazon
posted by Eugene at 6:03 PM
4 Comments:
The album is certainly a testament. It will always hold a top spot in my book, but alas, our attention spans are waining, so I have less faith that it will last. Here's a pop of the tab and high kick for hoping.
Question -- I'm relatively new to GBV but I am a scientist leaves me speechless every time. BUT the version I've been listening to, from the iTunes music store I think, sounds quite different from the one you've posted. The main guitar is less distorted, and has some kind of chorus on it, and the vocal is more prominent and echoey -- there's also a loud second guitar that comes in the left ear at the begining of the third verse. What's the deal -- which version is the correct Bee Thousand version? Thanks for the great posts!
I'm not really sure. This is one of the few albums I only own on vinyl and I have nothing in the way of a vinyl to mp3 converter so I had to download these songs. Now that you mention it, they do seem fairly different so either this is a demo recording or the record went through a remastering at some point.
As the proud owner of the "Best Of" disc, the version posted here of "scientist" is different from the one on the "best of" cd. According to the liner notes of the "best of" cd, it's version is from Bee Thousand, so I'm guessing the version posted here is a demo or alternate take. I much prefer the version on the "best of" cd. To anonymous: would it be possible for you to send me a copy of the iTunes version? I would much appreciate it. My email is: mattman007us@yahoo.com. Thanks
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