Guided by Voices

If indie rock represents the triumph of the improbable over the obvious, Guided by Voices remain its undisputed champions. While the "alternative" boom of the early-to-mid 1990s commoditized youth and irreverence, Robert Pollard and his bandmates emerged from a basement in Dayton, Ohio, with graying hair, beer bellies, impeccable record collections and a seemingly limitless supply of irresistible rock songs. For 15 full-length albums and innumerable EPs and singles, Pollard helmed Guided by Voices through tumultuous personnel and label changes, kneejerk critical backlashes and impossible expectations. And now, two and a half decades since Pollard brought Guided by Voices into being, not a single one of his purported 5,000 songs sounds pandering or dated. Whether or not we deserved it, we got the real deal.

The sad predictability of the universe did come awfully close to squelching Guided by Voices; after releasing several uneven records to little fanfare, Pollard bet the farm on 1992's Propeller, an all-or-nothing gambit designed to be either the band's launching pad (hence the title) or their swan song. Thankfully, the powers that were took notice, and Propeller was passed around extensively among in-the-know folks who recognized the power-pop chops of "Exit Flagger" and the arena-sized harmonies of "Quality of Armor." Since these in-the-know folks were still running the underground music scene at the time, Guided by Voices soon found themselves playing the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, opening for bigger bands, and signing a deal with powerhouse indie label Matador.

The success of Propeller would set Guided by Voices on a course toward becoming poster boys for the lo-fi movement. But the brilliance of "classic" GBV records is not their sound, but rather their ability to transcend that sound. Both 1994's epic Bee Thousand and 1995's tauntingly consistent Alien Lanes are vivid and kaleidoscopic records, bursting at the seams with melody, energy and vision. Pollard's lyrics are oblique and fantastical, but the sweetness of his songwriting renders them surprisingly resonant. What are the odds of hearing a concise, catchy two-minute pop song with enough robots and aliens to fill a 20-disc prog retrospective? How about 20 of them on the same record?

On December 31, 2004, the latter-day lineup of Guided by Voices played their final show at Chicago's Metro. Longtime fans shed tears, swigged booze and said goodbye to one of the greatest bands the world has ever known. Losing Guided by Voices was a bummer, but for many who came to know the band after the breakup of their "classic" lineup, "Guided by Voices" was always a more or less ephemeral thing. Thus, when Pollard unexpectedly announced that the "classic" Guided by Voices lineup would be reuniting for Matador Records' 21st Anniversary weekend in Las Vegas and a subsequent tour, it was not simply a matter of getting the band back together. This is the original lineup of a truly great band enjoying a well-earned, long-overdue victory lap.

True, a billion canonical indie rock bands are reuniting, and indie is the new mainstream. Whatever: These "classic" Guided by Voices shows have been nothing short of revelatory, one "holy-shit-this-song" moment after the next. Pollard's prolificacy is well-documented, but actually watching a band power through an unrelenting marathon of near-perfect-to-perfect songs is beyond exhilarating. Halfway through "Smothered in Hugs," you will not believe that a finer song could possibly exist. And then, somehow, "this next song is called 'Game of Pricks.'" —Matt LeMay