The Best of Guided by Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates

Customer Review: I'm with everyone - This is a perfect GBV mixer

There's a book about Guided by Voices - 'Twenty-One Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forests of Rock and Roll'. The Filmaker Richard Linklater says 'my list of favorite GBV songs runs to about 150 songs'. This collection 'The Best of Guided by Voices' comes in with about 30. Its a very good start.

If you are GBV collector maniacs, you will already have everything on this cd (in box sets, and twice on vinyl). If you are new to GBV you can either start here, and see if you can stop, or just jump to the box set Hardcore UFO's (where this disc is included).

What am I talking about? I'm talking about G.B.V.: the song delivery mechanism for songwriting junkie Robert Pollard that functioned in absolute obscurity for at least a decade, before exciting non-Ohio native music fans with a fully formed catalog of hundreds of songs during the 1990's. These guys were making rock and roll so long ago that the vogue was to sing with a fake british accent - I'm not sure but I think Pollard even pre-dates REO speedwagon in this. If you are getting the impression that GBV had their heyday back when Chicago had their third album out, you might be missing the point. GBV's last four or five albums are as good as any of their formers, and all five are represented in Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. If rock reviews were more succinct, it wouldn't influence anyone's buying decisions anyway, but sometimes a group is so good, you just have to do the wrong thing, and talk about them a lot, instead of listening to their music. GBV is just such a group, and if you are new to their rather massive catalog, I envy you. Try 'Human Amusements', if you like it, there's plenty more where that came from (A small town somewhere near Dayton Ohio).

Customer Review: Probably the Greatest Best Of, of all time

Yes folks, you have your Beatles Double Disc greatest, but GBV is a band that has produced many albams which the majority believes has brilliant songs and then some not so brilliant songs muddled in.



This takes their Best, and has to be considered The Greatest Greastest Hits album in Rock n Roll history, in my mind of course.



So many other groups have those albums that you need to listen to the entire album to get it's full impact, and the hits album doesn't measure up.



This is that once in a lifetime wierd exception.



My recomendations would be to get this album, Earthquake Glue, and Half Smiles of the Decomposed, and you've got a hefty amount of incredible GBV material.




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