Guided by Voices

There are basically two schools of thought regarding Guided By Voices. One claims that the band are in their element with a four-track, turning out impressionist albums of fragmented, mini-pop songs reminiscent of Jon Anderson fronting REM. The other claims that they're a great pop band that has never made a great pop album because they're held back by their adherence to the four-track. Maybe GBV's frontman Robert Pollard is among the latter camp, since Do the Collapse is their first effort recorded in a full-fledged studio with a real producer, namely Ric Ocasek. Of course, the jump to professionalism could have happened simply because there was nowhere left for the band to go. Their amateurish, homemade guitar-pop was fascinating in 1994, when it broke out of the underground, but by 1999, it had become entirely too predictable thanks to an endless series of albums, singles, EPs and solo projects. Even hiring Cobra Verde as a backing band on Mag Earwhig! didn't really change things -- it was time for a shot at the big-time. As a matter of fact, Do the Collapse was even designed as their major-label debut, but the label passed on their option after hearing the finished result, so GBV headed over for TVT. It's hard not to blame the major label, actually, because Do the Collapse simply doesn't work. It's not that Ocasek's produciton is inappropriate or that the expanded length of the songs feel wrong, it's that Pollard is stuck in a rut. His songs follow familiar patterns and now that there have been so many of them, it's hard not to feel like they're all tossed off to a certain extent. No hooks gain hold, the imagery feels silly, there's no excitement or energy to the band's performances, which means the album feels exactly what any fan would fear from a GBV major-label release -- a puffed-up, inflated, overblown version of Alien Lanes. Ironically, it's clear that's not what Pollard or Ocasek wanted to do with Do the Collapse -- they wanted to cut GBV's Cheap Trick album -- but the band's strengths have deterioated so much, that's the only thing they were capable of cutting. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide