Anti-Climacus

Neither one of these songs is likely to make a favorites list of a Guided By Voices fan, who are the sort of people who obsessively make lists about their favorite things. Nor are they prototypical GBV: the first is electric, the second acoustic, but both lack a hook, being only music sung through a chord progression. Nor, given that this is GBV, do the lyrics make any sense. At least they make no sense to me.

Bee Thousand is one of those albums floating just outside my own personal desert island top 5, alongside albums profiled here like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Daydream Nation and Blonde on Blonde, and these are my consistent favorites from that album, even if I am not quite certain they are the best. I find them--all of Bee Thousand, really--interesting because they manage to convey clear emotion without articulating that emotion in any way. I long ago had a theory that the difference between Generation Xers and those of us who come after is how emotion works its way into art. For Xers, it is sufficient that the form express or reflect the proper emotion: the words are irrelevant (see also: Pearl Jam, Nirvana). For Yers, we have to make at least the attempt to explain it: the attempt might fail (and probably will) but is worthwhile all the same; and for our trouble we now have a thousand small and insignificant confessions. I happened to be driving around with a friend yesterday afternoon and we listened to a song where the singer addressed his listener directly and told them his life story (in clichés, naturally). On balance I think the attempt to articulate is better, but GBV does serve as a reminder of the merits of the older way.