Guided by Voices - Earth Man Blues

 

Needed to write about this. A chance hearing of a track from  Earth Man Blues, the latest from Guided by Voices on the radio last night, made me wonder why I hadn't listened to it. The answer to this of course is plain and clear. Guided by Voices release and have released so many albums over the years that it's frankly almost impossible to listen to them all unless you're particularly determined in this respect.

Anyhow, I'm pleased to report that Earth Man Blues is excellent. Probably in the way that most Guided by Voices are excellent I imagine. It sounds just like them. It has everything you might expect of a GBV record. All those Who powerchords, The Who always strike me as their formative influence. The reminders of Wire, if Wire had chosed to play it a little bit straighter and just churned out songs that could have been hit singles as I imagine they might have done if they hadn't been so Art School. The vague hints of Seventies Gabriel in Pollard's voice. Probably just about the time he decided to leave Genesis. Oh and R.E.M. Round about Document, when Scott Litt seemed to be treating Michael's vocals and Michael himself seemed in danger of losing it.

Oh, and of course it sounds like Guided by Voices. They've been around long enough and have more than a rich enough legacy to be regarded on their own terms. Especially when they're putting out records as good as this. Really they're remarkable. They're leftfield of course. Eccentric as you could possibly be in many ways; the song titles, the lyrics, the twists and turns within virtually every song. But GBV, more than any band I can think of, make the leftfireld accessible, through their evident love of melody and memories of fiddling with the radio dial way back in the youth.You can hear the Cheap Trick, The Cars, Grand Funk Railroad, Aerosmith. Still.

So I've no idea where this fits in in terms of the Guided by Voices catalogue. Hey, I have to post a song every day on here, I haven't got time to listen to everything they ever did regardless of how good it is. It's another wonderful GBV album. Why is that not a surpise? They really have no right at all to still be this good, this far down the line.