Guided by Voices – Bee Thousand (1994)

Guided by Voices has a very long career. They're still making music having started in early 1980's and they have released more than 25 albums and a number of EPs and unofficial albums. The frontman Robert Pollard also has tens of solo albums. It may be difficult to know where to start if you want to familiarise yourself on what Guided by Voices is really about. I'd say, start from Bee Thousand and after that you can make a decision whether it's worth to explore any further. On Bee Thousand, Guided by Voices has made art of crappy studio techniques and of leaving outright mistakes in the finished album. I can't think of another album that would so perfectly fit the musical genre lo-fi. The sounds on different GBV albums are very different, but Bee Thousand is probably one of the most lo-fi ones and if you're a purist with sounds, it's probably difficult to look past this.



One of my best friends started making a big fuss about Guided by Voices more than ten years ago. I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about, so I borrowed the album Do the Collapse from the library. This is one of the more carefully produced albums. It had some good songs on it, but it sounded like a pretty basic indie rock band and I couldn't see what was so interesting in them. I had to borrow another album to really see what it was all about. This album was Bee Thousand.

Before the release of Bee Thousand, GBV had been making albums for ten years and nothing had really come out of it in terms of success. Robert Pollard then, thought that since nobody's listening to their music, they might, instead of paying for expensive studios, just record the albums themselves in their houses. Bee Thousand was recorded with four tracks and other quite amateur recording equipment in people's living rooms. Guided by Voices, up until then, wasn't even really a proper band. It was just a bunch of people who happened to hang out with Robert Pollard who all were asked to play something for the albums.

Bee Thousand was meant to be their last album and it includes many previously unreleased songs from their back catalogue. Then Bee Thousand became such a cult success that GBV got a record deal from Matador records and they started making increasingly ambitious music after that.

So, what really makes Bee Thousand such a good album then? I think it's because the songwriting on this album is actually amazingly good, but the production and sounds are literally really crappy. Later on, other bands have made very different sounding versions of GBV's songs and they usually sound quite amazing. It may be difficult to see the greatness of the songs on the first listen, but if you spend a bit more time with this record, you'll see that the melodies are really fantastic. These are proper pop songs. Pollard himself wanted these to sound like hidden Beatles demos. Most notably, Tractor Rape Chain, The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory, Echos Myron, Awful Bliss and I am a Scientist are all amazing pop songs. There are also really funny songs that are so crazy and so full of mistakes that it makes them unique and great. These songs include Hot Freaks, A Big Fan of the Bigpen and Her Psychology Today. There are guitar tracks dropping in and out, crazy tempo changes and random noises and yells in those songs and it makes them really interesting to listen to. They are real pieces of art in bad recording.

To get an idea of what this album is all about, watch the music video for the biggest hit song on the album, I am a Scientist. It has a simple black and white music video of GBV guys just fooling around and playing their instruments. GBV is known for performing really drunk and many of these songs were inspired by extensive drug use.

Right down to the simplistic album cover with a cut out from the National Geographic magazine and the font written upside down, this album on an old fashion 90's CD with black side column is a cult classic. It has made its way on many greatest rock albums lists and if you're looking for a unique album that sounds like nothing else, this really is it.

Listen to the album on Spotify.