After a promising start that sounds like a template for bands like Space Needle, “Starboy” just kind of lays there for the rest of its runtime. “She was the happiest girl I’d ever seen,” sings a multi-tracked Robert Pollard, harmonizing spectrally with himself. After those few seconds, however, the songs shifts to a lo-fi take [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Same Place the Fly Got Smashed category.
Drinker’s Peace
Divorced from the album on which it first appeared, “Drinker’s Peace” seems simply like one in Robert Pollard’s continuing catalog of songs about drinking. Not just drinking, but the benefits of drinking. In the context of that album, however, it becomes part of a dark tapestry about the effects of alcohol. Not every song on [...]
When She Turns 50
“When She Turns 50″ is another of Robert Pollard’s drinking songs, offering an oddball vignette of a night at the bar. “The tavern’s open again,” he sings. “The line-up who light up will surely decide the fate of these incorrigibles who plaster their messages up on the interstate.” Sounds like an inside joke to me; [...]
The Hard Way
It seems as if there should be a point in Guided by Voices’ discography where the quirky, R.E.M.-influenced songs of Robert Pollard’s early years would give way to the more muscular, arena-ready rock of GBV v. X.0, but songs like “The Hard Way” show no such clear delineation exists. Plug this song into the latter-day [...]