Ranked: Every Guided By Voices Album from Worst to Best

The venerable indie band returns, and we assess their massive catalog.

by Joseph Martin

With a reunited "classic" line-up (hello, Tobin Sprout!) and a new record, Guided By Voices has become the latest indie paragon to revive and hit the reunion-tour circuit. Their first record since 2004, Let's Go Eat The Factory, dropped this month on Fire Records and another, Class Clown Spots a UFO, is on deck for May. But what might seem like overkill for a less inspired band is just standard operating procedure for GBV. From their lo-fi beginnings to their later work as Ric Ocasek-produced popsmiths, the band's always nursed an almost per annum album habit. So let's take a look back at their extensive — and influential — discography, from best to work.

17. Devil Between My Toes (1987)

Essentially a passable '80s college-rock record, Devil Between My Toes makes a few neat moves — the sinister "A Portrait Destroyed By Fire," stands out for its ambition — but Pollard's crow of a voice has yet to flesh out, and jammy instrumentals abound. Neither terrible nor good, Devil mainly suffers from a lack of personality.

 

 

Listen: “A Portrait Destroyed By Fire”

 

16. Tonics and Twisted Chasers (1996)

First released as a gift to the band's fan club, Tonics and Twisted Chasers should be a magnificent pile of magnetic tape; the collection came out right in the middle of their classic period and, unlike on Under the Bushes Under the Stars (which appeared later that year), the band hadn't sterilized its production. But Tonics just sounds like the end of something. With its poor fidelity and unfinished songs, it almost plays like a parody of GBV. There are sweet spots — heartfelt acoustic number "Look, It's Baseball" comes to mind — but more duds.

Listen: “My Thoughts are a Gas"

 

15. Sandbox (1987)

What a difference half a year makes — though Sandbox arrived right on the heels of Devil Between My Toes, it's the work of a band far more comfortable in its skin. Gone are Devil's squeaky post-punk guitars and listless interludes, replaced instead with the hard rock of "Lips of Steel" and the R.E.M.-style jangle-pop of "Everyday." While the band still sounds a little anonymous, it's miles tighter, and the album's fidgety mix of styles (likely winked at in its title) suggests a brighter future than its predecessor did.

Listen: “Lips of Steel”

 

14. Same Place the Fly Got Smashed (1991)

This curiosity is the band's first concept record, the wandering tale of a self-destructive dipsomaniac. Same Place's overall mood is necessarily dreary — song titles include "Local Mix-Up/Murder Charge" and "Blatant Doom Trip" — but the record gets points for ambition, however misguided. And some tracks, like "Pendulum" and the aforementioned "Trip," find Pollard trying out a few new British Invasion moves and psychedelic tics. It's an exhausting listen, though, and the Voices (understandably) wouldn't try this sort of conceptual work again until 1997's Mag Earwhig!

Listen: “Local Mix-Up/Murder Charge”

 

13. Do The Collapse (1999)

Originally received as a slick misstep (think Weezer's Green Album or Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing"), Do The Collapse has aged with slightly more dignity; some of its tracks, like Rentals-style new-wave anthem "Teenage FBI" and string-laden pastoral "Hold On Hope," now stand among the band's finest. But there's no doubt producer Ric Ocasek left Guided By Voices' classic-rock heart on the cutting-room floor, making most of the album sound merely average.

Listen: “Teenage FBI”

 

12. Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia (1989)

Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia can be read as the blueprint for GBV's most remarkable run of records — the album where the group learned to stop worrying and love its four-track machine. From the vocal blur of opener "The Future is in Eggs" to the sloppy edits of "Short on Posters," "Paper Girl," and "Slopes of Big Ugly," the band lets the proverbial tape run and finally starts to exploit its amateur production for warmth and space. While the finished product isn't nearly the sum of its parts that Propeller would be just three years later, Nostalgia is the first Guided By Voices record that feels like a Guided By Voices record.

Listen: “The Future is in Eggs”