Alien Lanes

3.8 - Sounds like flipping through AM radio in a dream. A really enjoyable listen that I’ll probably need to return to fully appreciate.

This one is complicated. I have tried to dip into the GBV back catalog before, and have been hindered by two factors; 1) the massive size of their catalog (35 albums, plus 22 solo Robert Pollard albums, plus all the miscellaneous stuff), and 2) the critical praise. I mean, look at this review of Alien Lanes from Sputnik Music (https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/34199/Guided-by-Voices-Alien-Lanes/) "The genius of this is that the album is a bombardment of staggeringly good songs, with nothing less than the staggeringly good anywhere to be found. That they managed to preserve so much brilliance, without giving it a vacuum-packed feel and managing to do the thinking justice with their delivery in such a small space of time, is astounding. And what’s more – oh, so much more – is that everyone involved has an absolute ball doing it." This is just bullshit on the plain face of it. There are, in fairness, a couple of pretty good songs on this record; Game of Pricks, Motorway, Little Whirl. But there is some awful throw-away shit as well; Hit, Gold Hick, etc. And so badly recorded. This is where this gets complicated for me. I like a grungy, lo-fi aesthetic. I love that this is an album of sensible duration (41 minutes) with short songs (28 songs in 41 minutes!). Pollard can write a good tune when he tries, and the band can crank out some passable rock and roll. But, and this is a big 'but', some editing would help. Does EVERYTHING need to go on tape, and does it all need to be released? And I am looking at the GBV fanboys here: does every note need to be praised to the heavens? Really, this is the demo tape for a potentially good album. A decent producer would listen to this, identify the good songs, send the band into rehearsals to work up some arrangements, which could then be captured for posterity. How good would this album be if you picked the best 12-15 songs and recorded a passable 2 1/2 or 3 minute version of each, once it had been thought through a little? All I can hear is wasted potential. I really feel for Bob Ludwig, who is the unsung hero of this album. I bet Bob was pretty surprised when the record company asked him to try and make a silk purse out of the shitty tapes he was handed. I did a quick A/B comparison with Bee Thousand, the GBV album immediately prior, and you can really hear the difference that great mastering has made. He did a pretty good job with what he was given. I also want to point out that embracing a lo-fi aesthetic doesn't justify cover art as deliberately ugly as this. This is just bad. I think this album infuriates me because it could have been great, but it deliberately chooses to be shit at every turn. And the way that every hiss and sonic fart is hailed by the Cult of GBV as a work of goddamn genius just gives me the irrits. I'm giving this 2.5 stars for being an album that shows some promise, rounded down for the annoying fanboys.

Sounds like a weird demo tape. 17 second songs, many of them sounding unfinished.

God I love this record. Little snippets of pop rock, lo-fi goodness. Robert Pollard and company create little worlds for you to live in sonically and then are immediately transported from one song to the next at a blistering pace. There are some moments on this record that remind me of The Beach Boys, the Beatles and Big Star but only if they had a 4 track recorder set up in their high school bedroom. It’s a phenomenal listen and only rivaled by Bee Thousand in their discography. Favorite song(s): Game of Pricks and Motor Away (I had to include two) Least favorite song: Hit

I don't really know how I feel about this album. In some ways I really like it, but my overall impression is just...meh. Things I like about it: Very British Invasion meets early punk vibes. Honestly there are a lot of songs on this album that caught my attention (with 28 songs I expected at least a few would grab me). They're Not Witches, Game of Pricks, The Ugly Vision, Closer You Are, Striped White Jets, and Alright are ones that really stood out in my mind. The cover art is super cool. Things I don't like: I cannot stand the mix. I get what they were going for with the dirty, fuzzy sound but I fucking HATE it. The guitar tones on this album are fantastic but I feel like that gets so muddy and hidden in the mix. This would easily be a 3 or 4 star album for me if it were a little "cleaner" sounding. The length of the songs is a little off putting at times. It felt liek as soon as I started to really vibe with a song, it ended. I don't think every song needs to be 4+ minutes long, but I found myself wishing that many of the songs were at least slightly longer. 2 out of 5 stars. I found it hard to look past the mix quality which really made it difficult for me to enjoy a lot of the album. I read the entry for this album in the book and frankly I don't really understand why it belongs on the list? It's not bad but doesn't strike me as particularly outstanding either.

28 songs in 41 minutes. Most of them very catchy and with high energy. Was surprised at how much i liked this one.

A songwriting expo if there ever was one. I love this lofi 90s rock sound and this album gives me a lot of it. Works better as a whole album listen versus just hearing individual tracks, given the short length of the songs. "Motor Away" fills me with an odd bliss every time I hear it.

This is not an album. It is a catalogue of song samples. Less is not always more....

no

This is what they mean by lo-fi. Produced on a tenner. By a couple of blokes having a laugh. Why is this here?

10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die Chapter 6 Throw the Switch, It’s Rock and Roll Time: Guided By Voices’ “Alien Lanes” I didn’t get it at first. Guided By Voices had all the trappings of a band that I should have loved. These were guys recording albums on four track in dingy Dayton, Ohio basements. They were lo-fi, prolific and inspired a dedicated fanbase. Their backstory was amazing: Robert Pollard, a grade-school teacher in his 30’s, and his drinking buddies recorded songs and made records in their spare time. For Pollard, it was in hopes of getting out of the teaching job that he was disenfranchised with. His family were on him to give up on the band and focus on his career as a teacher, so he recorded one final record, Propeller, pressed up 500 copies and called it a day. Guided by Voices’ manager, recognizing the greatness of Propeller (and Pollards song writing talent), started sending out copies to indie rock labels, magazines and records stores as a last ditch effort at recognition. The plan worked and Guided By Voices became the toast of early 90’s indie rock. They followed up Propeller with “Vampire on Titus”, one of the most inescapably lo-fi records of the era, and “Bee Thousand”, the album that, to many, would define not only lo-fi, but 90’s indie rock as a whole. “Bee Thousand” was my introduction to Guided By Voices at the turn of the 21st century. When I bought it at Vintage Vinyl in New Jersey, it had already gained its mythical status and as a Matador records enthusiast, I needed to understand what made this band so beloved, so important…I needed understand why their fans were so fervent in their assertions that GBV was the greatest rock band on earth. I popped in Bee Thousand and, by the end of it, had gained no clarity on the situation. Even after two or three more listens, it still didn’t click for me. So, GBV went on the back burner. I had tried and it didn’t work. You can’t like everything, right? A year or two would go by and while reading Mojo or some other British music magazine, I saw a glowing review of Guided By Voices’ latest record “Universal Truths and Cycles”. “Maybe I need to hear something more recent, more polished”, I thought. “Maybe then it will click.” I bought that record and it didn’t, so I gave up on my quest to understand Guided By Voices. A few more years passed and Guided By Voices broke up to much fanfare, with cities across the country declaring “Guided By Voices Day” when the band showed up in their cities for the farewell concerts. “Well, I missed the boat on that, I guess.” In 2010, Matador Records turned 21. To celebrate, they threw a three day concert in Las Vegas, with a reunited Guided by Voices on the bill, and released a multi-disc retrospective of the label’s 21 years. As a Matador enthusiast, I picked up the boxset without a second thought. While making my way through the box set on my trip home from the record store, a song came on that grabbed me. It sounded like a lost Beatles song, except it was incredibly lo-fi and surprisingly short. “Holy shit, who is that? That might be the greatest song I’ve ever heard,” I thought and grabbed the CD case to see who this band was. I read the back of the case and it said, “Game of Pricks - Guided By Voices”. “You gotta be kidding me.” So I decided to revisit Guided By Voices, give it one last push to see if I could make sense of them. I purchased Alien Lanes from the iTunes Store and loaded it up on my iPod. I listened intently, and though not all of it stuck, I felt like I was at least closer. When “Motor Away” played, I could tell I was on the verge of getting it, understanding why GBV fans are so obsessed with the band. After a few listens to Alien Lanes, and its greatness became more apparent, I started digging through my closet of CD’s and pulled out that neglected copy of Bee Thousand…”I need to give this another listen.” I won’t say it clicked right then, it didn’t, but I had moved from the “I don’t get it” camp and into the “I think I like Guided By Voices” camp. So I started listening to other albums, “Under the Bushes, Under the Stars”, “Propeller”, “Mag Earwhig”…even if I didn’t love them all right away, each had a least one song where I thought to myself, “this is the greatest song I’ve ever heard”. Then one morning, around 5 am, when I was barely awake, showering and getting ready for work, I found myself with a song stuck in my head. Half-asleep and dazed, it took me a long while to place the song. After all, how often do you have a song stuck in your head moments after waking up? For me, it might be the only time that’s ever happened. The song was “Echos Myron” from Bee Thousand. Like an Indie Rock Manchurian Candidate, I had been activated. Guided By Voices didn’t just make sense to me, it had hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to consume as much of Robert Pollard’s music as possible and soon my vinyl record collection was (and still is) overflowing with Guided By Voices records, EP’s and 7-inch singles. Similar to watching one of David Lynch’s films, you aren’t just listening to an “album” when you throw on a GBV record. From the record cover to the songs and lyrics, you are stepping into Robert Pollard’s world. It’s a world full of Valuable Hunting Knives, Hardcore UFO’s, Bright Paper Werewolves, Main Street Wizards, Wild Strawberry Girls and Christian Animation Torch Carriers, all kept in check by the Teenage FBI. Guided By Voices are the greatest American rock band of our time and it’s ok if you don’t realize it right away…now that you’ve heard this record, the switch has been thrown and it’s almost rock and roll time for you.

Now this is what this 1,001 Albums project is all about! I would never have listened to this album, but it’s excellent. I take a lot of inspiration from this album. It’s a bunch of short little minimalist songs, some of them less than a minute, and the album as a whole is still excellent, thriving on the power of melody, songwriting, and the performances, rather than production quality or complexity.

The best part about this album is that it was over quickly. Wtf is so great about this lump of noise? Can't imagine it was particularly innovative or influential. 2 stars. Cause it's almost christmas.

🤮 0 stars

This is in my wheelhouse - so many great lo-fi songs that channel the Beatles, Who and Kinks with a DIY sensibility.

I'm from Southwest Ohio so this is a big one for me. In my opinion GBV is Ohio''s greatest musical export of all time. They are basically Robert Pollard, and anyone he feels like playing with at the time, but this album is the "classic lineup" at their peak. Many people claim "Bee Thousand" to be their masterpiece, and I love that one too, but I feel like this one is a far more consistent album (no "Kicker of Elves" here). Robert Pollard is a melodic genius, pure and simple. He is so naturally talented that he is constantly overflowing with musical ideas. He is so unbelievably prolific, his discography is staggering. Not only with GBV, but all his solo stuff and side projects as well. He seems to live in a state of constant creative inspiration, and it's largely very consistent in quality. But it's definitely an acquired taste. I was first introduced to them on a mixtape from an older friend who was in college while I was still in high school. I found their truly DIY aesthetic inspiring. It's like there were so many ideas spilling out of him, they had to record them in the quickest, most immediate way possible, without the technical delays of studios. They were able to capture pure, raw creativity as it happened. It showed you what was possible with a four track and seemingly boundless creativity. This album could never have been made in a studio. It would have snuffed out all the energy. Sort of like what happened on their later TVT records. There are many songs I love on this album, that mean a great deal to me personally, but perhaps my favorite GBV track of all time is "Motor Away." It's one of the very few songs that has ever made me cry. And not just a little tear rolling down my cheek either. That song encapsulates a very particular feeling of making a big change in your life, to have it turn out wrong, and then trying to carry on, and convince yourself that you're fine, but you're not. It's a feeling many of us have experienced, but no one has ever articulated it in a more concentrated and potent way than on that song. I have had that feeling more than once in my life, and this song was there for me in a way that at once devastated and comforted me. It would definitely be used in the soundtrack to my life.

Hell yeah! What, last song already?!

This is very swag album the length of some songs bothers me but most of the time it doesn’t matter that they’re short because it means there’s a lot of changes in the album and it keeps it very interesting. There is definitely some filler on here but I mean I did expect that from a 28 song album. I enjoyed this and will probably return to this. 7,3/10

I wish some of the songs were longer. I'd just start getting into them, and then they were over.

I’m getting pretty irritated with how many objectively horrible albums are on this list. art is subjective and listeners have different palates but come on, this is just objectively terrible. The playing is trash, the songwriting is trash and the mixing makes it almost impossible to listen to. There’s nothing redeeming about this to me. 0/5

The artwork’s bad, the production’s frequently worse, all the best songs are barely longer than one minute. But this album still fucking rules. It sounds exactly like how it was probably made, with no rehearsals and a crate of beer, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Alright!

Alien Lanes is at once defiant and self-sabotaging, full of glorious hooks and deliberate sonic blemishes. a lo-fi indie rock masterpiece—28 scrappy, hook-filled songs crammed into 41 minutes. It was darker and more chaotic than breakout Bee Thousand, so it was polarizing even among fans, besides being less commercially successful. While the album attempts to capture the band's live energy, it also reveals Pollard's anxieties about fame and the music industry. To me, this is a defiant, beer-soaked triumph of DIY spirit over polish.

Hidden gem

I am a little torn between 4 and 5 stars, because I really wish the production was better, for one. Second, the greatest strength of the album is also its weakness, that every song is one to two minutes long, and there are a lot of them! That concept makes the album keep moving, and there are so many great songs that, because of the format, never wear out their welcome. However, it also means we don't get to sit on songs and have them stick in our heads as much as I'd like to make it more memorable. But I already want to go back to it and also listen to more of their albums, because I did like it so much, and it is incredibly impressive how many amazing songs and ideas are displayed here - enough for multiple albums if they had wanted or if another band had written them instead. So, I'm going to give it 5 stars on this scale but would probably do 4.5.

The top rated review of this says that it sounds like flipping through AM radio in a dream. To me it sounds more like flipping through student radio in Dunedin. I get it, mainly because I was at a NZ university in the late 80s and early 90s, and saw Tall Dwarfs, who clearly were an influence on GBV. Giving this a 5 because GBV acknowledge the TD influence. If you like this and hadn’t heard it before now, give Tall Dwarfs a try.

28 songs in 41 minutes. The medley of Abbey Road taken to extremes and recorded solely using two low-quality mics in a damp basement. When 'Alright' rang out, I instantly re-started the whole thing from the top. On a second listen, every single one of the songs were recognizable. What a catchy achievement.

Blink and you miss a song. So you should probably apply some duct tape; it'd be a shame to miss any of Pollard's creative overload. (I know it's a shit metaphor for sound, so please insert a better one mentally, if you have one at hand. Thank you in advance)

The warm fuzz that radiates throughout Alien Lanes does more than lift up the breakneck, devil-may-care speed-run of the songs housed here. A one-two punch that began with the predecessor Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes sees the aptly if not curiously titled Guided by Voices nestled up nicely with indie stalwarts and the alternative giants. If that moment of time in regards to the band's stature was temporary, well would it matter anyway? The work, if there was one, was already done. Time to surrender to surrealism.

We’re heating up this week. The club is open. This is lo-fi perfection. Pollard has written more albums than many artists have songs, but a lot of them have a good track or two and the rest is filler. Not true here. Salty Salute gets me hype whenever I hear it. Game of Pricks is their most popular song for good reason (in my top 20). There are too many other good ones to list. Yes, there are some throwaways, but I’ve never minded them as they’re short and spaced in between bangers. As a whole, alien lanes is GBV at or near their best. You’ve got catchy hooks and deliciously strange lyrics and nonstop fun. One of my faves and an easy 5.

Tim said it best, the short tracks is the MOVE. my attention span is fried. Plus these guys have a reallly sick sound. damn the more i listen the more i love it....so glad to have something i really like on this list again. the snoring guy in ex supermodel LOLOL

I've heard so much about GBV but haven't listened much at all. I can really see the appeal after hearing this though. The songs are stripped to the absolute bare minimum - no studio embellishments, not one second of padding or note that isn't strictly necessary. Just catchy, lofi hooks. I dig it.

I'VE ENTERED THE GAME OF PRICKS

Best lo-fi album?

Really dwelled on this one for a few minutes. It feels like it could be a 5, but that might be because I’ve incidentally had a run of stinkers on this list. Very cool, very strange, love a lot of the snippets that sound like part of a fuller song but then just kinda end. Suspect a lot of them actually wouldn’t hold up as well as full songs, even though they rock and sound like they would.

songs weren't super distinctive but i enjoyed it as an album

I am inspired by the looseness of the band generally and this album specifically. It doesn't feel over thought or over worked, the short songs feel like brief little journal entries. Feels like a feat to achieve 28 actual songs in 41 minutes. I also like the sound of Robert Pollard's voice, it sounds silky or something.

Guided by Voices are a band that favour the quantity over quality approach which usually makes their albums a bit hard to listen to in full but this is a great album and somehow manages to stay cohesive despite having many short songs. The songs are catchy and fun while never overstaying their welcome.

Such lovely, lively lo-fi. GBV keeps excellent company, too; that the streamers go from last cut of the record to an excellent cut from Yo La Tengo (a most egregious exclusion from this esteemed index) tells you what you need to know. Their brand new record (fall 2022) suggests how close RP has stayed to the vision, though perhaps not always to the optimal effect.

Huh, I was a bit nonplussed by this at first but had a vague sense it'd grow on me if I gave it a chance. Sure enough, third listen, properly starting to appreciate it. Feels a bit like the album equivalent of a Rick & Morty inter-dimensional cable episode... Even the snoring track makes sense in that context! Fave track - "As We Go Up, We Go Down". Poppy niceness.

I think the best thing about this album is how generous it is. Tons of material, little running more than a minute thirty. If you don't like one, it's gone and the next one is there. And there is much more to like than dislike.

Alien Lanes Another one of those bands I’d heard of but whose music and style I don’t really know. I can hear some Replacements, some Pavement, some Dinosaur Junior, some punkishness, with some great melodies, hooks and riffs, but it’s ultimately a bit of a frustrating listen. Not for the muddy sound, which I actually really like, it’s just when you are getting into a song it ends and they do another one, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, and then they abruptly finish that one and do the same thing again. I don’t know whether it's a wilful lo-fi-ness, a slacker can’t be arsed to finish thing, or an artistic statement. If it is from an underground sense of obtuseness. I kind of admire it, but at the same time it feels like a shame, as 10 or 12 of these songs fleshed out could make a great album, or if they just did ten 2 minute songs for a sharp 20 minute album. It also feels like they must have been an influence on Blur and specifically Coxon, Chicken Blows feels a lot like a Blur/13 era song. There’s lots of great stuff on here, little snippets and gems of punky lo-fi pop, but the songs are so brief and come and go so quickly that it’s hard to get a real handle on it. I’d listen again though and am intrigued to try some of their other albums, I’ll go 3. 👽👽👽 Playlist submission: Blimps Go 90.

It's surprising what a difference it makes when a musician knows someone will actually be hearing his work. After 1994's charmingly sloppy Bee Thousand gained Guided By Voices a nationwide cult following (instead of the local cult following they were accustomed to), 1995's Alien Lanes found Robert Pollard and his partners in hard pop cleaning up their act a bit. For the most part, Alien Lanes isn't radically different from Bee Thousand -- it was primarily recorded on a four-track cassette machine (and sounds like it), and Guided By Voices was still a garage band with more in the way of inspiration than chops. But the musicians have put a bit more care and focus into their performance on this set; the playing is tighter and sharper, and the band plays toward their strengths, pushing their occasional sloppiness into a harder, more rock-oriented direction.

terrible. Disjointed, jagged, loose, lacking melody or focus.

Guided to the exit.

I don't get lo-fi. These are demos. There are some good songs in here but they needed a producer and a pro mixer. I made recordings in my bedroom at 20 years old that had a similar quality. There are some good songs here, and there are some good song ideas here, but basically this feels like what you bring your bandmates when you're ready to make a new album, so you can all start working on it together.

This is a bunch of musical ideas, none of which are explored. Anything good is quickly abandoned so that the next song can start on this far too many 28 track album. Had they dug into the truly good melodies and songs, and tossed the actively annoying tracks, this could’ve been something special. 2.5/5

28 songs - 41 minutes. I went to hang with friends on a weekend in Maine years ago and why this is barely relevant is because on the long drive home that Sunday on very little sleep the friend who was driving threw in the new Guided By Voices (GBV) album (Isolation Drills). I was only slightly familiar with the band and was under the impression that they were this low-fi indie type band I wouldn't have been interested in - but i immediately *loved* that album; bought it the next day. Highly melodic, an excellently written and big sounding rock album. Isolation Drills was pretty much the extent of my GBV knowledge aside from a few other tracks here and there; I'd put that album on heavy rotation but rarely if ever ventured beyond it to the rest of their catalog; this morning I was kind of excited to see this... But the very first line up there: *28 songs - 41 minutes* sums a lot up. It's goddamn frustrating - each of these demos (they're songs in name only) has that slightly off-kilter melody that I know and *like* from their later *well-produced/mixed* album but this one .... ? Aside from this literally sounding like demos I recorded on TDK-90 cassette tapes in my bedroom decades ago... each track gets going a bit and then...ends?? Frustrating. I can't call it awful because I love this band's melodies but jesus - these are post-it notes written in broken crayon that could have eventually ended up as a good album. How can you get any emotional connection whatsoever to songs that last 90 seconds at most? And just as much - it all sounds *terrible* to the point of being almost unlistenable over the entirety of the record; this honestly could be a neat bonus release for superGBV fans wanting to hear demos/home 4-tracks/behind the scenes writing sessions, but as a major release? No. Slightly angering me as to why this is considered a top 1001 - it's like picking up Hemingway's drunken back of the notebook ideas he left on the dock and calling it a finished product. It's insulting - there are other and better GBV worlds than this. 3/10 2 stars.

God, this is awful

1

Before listening to this my thoughts were that I liked the cover and I may or may not have heard of this band. After listening, my life may have been changed. This band has how many albums?!?!? I’m going to be busy for a while. These are more fragments than full songs, but they are all so interesting.

already know and love this one, but it definitely needs time to grow on you

Good

Incredible album everyone should love.

Incredibly good collection of sweet little song ideas, all thrown together into a melting pot of lo-fi guitar fuzz.

In most contexts, 41 minutes isn't a very long time at all, albums included. But within that little, precious amount of time, Guided By Voices sketch up an entire little universe. Like in a kaleidoscope, each vignette offers a glimpse into a different place and time, each with its own ideas, emotions and moods. Still, the album never sounds disjointed or unfocused, the whole thing being held together by its meticulously executed DIY ethos.

Interesting. I will be listening to more of their stuff after this.

they’re like that weather joke that people tell no matter where they live: if you don’t like the song, just wait 100 seconds

Beautiful rough

Excuse me. This was brilliant. No further notes.

"Alien Lanes" is the eighth full-length album by American lo-fi rock band Guided by Voices. Indie rock, lo-fi and power pop are the Wiki-listed genres and they all fit. It was the band's first release with the Metador label where they were fronted $100,000 and they claimed to have made the album for $10 (not including the beer). The album received very positive reviews with one critic commenting "hooky rock that infuses songwriting smarts and a love of melody with a sometimes spiky, sometimes whimsical sense of experimentation." Guided by Voices is led by Robert Pollard (vocals, guitar, drums, percussion and the albums' producer). Pollard is joined by Tobin Sprout (guitars, vocals, bass, drums, piano, percussion), Jim Pollard (bass), Mitch Mitchell (guitar, bass), Kevin Fennell (drums, percussion), Jim Greer (bass, backing vocals) and Greg Demos (bass, guitar, violin). "A Salty Salute" kickstarts things. Thumping bass, tinny drums and a low-key guitar. Throaty Robert Pollard. Very lo-fi but very melodic and rockin' too. It's a drinking song...imagine that! A grungy, dirty guitar highlights "Watch Me Jumpstart." Dual vocals. Boy, these guys don't have issues with melodies. Pollard describes the difficult combination of the rock and roll and normal life styles in "As We Go Up, We Go Down." A song that builds with great backing vocals. The band's power pop melody comes to a crescendo in "Game of Pricks." 60's sound...an almost perfect song. Pollard warns of deceptive people. The band throws in distorted guitars in "My Valuable Hunting Knife." Also, a repeating guitar riff and percussion and that's about it. He's sick of everyone and wants to get away. Well, he'll need a hunting knife. "Striped White Jets" has driving guitars, cymbals and repetitive feedback; that is all. You know about 21 songs in, I said these guys need strings. So in comes a violin on "Blimps Go 90." A bass-led melody. Carrying the power pop flag and a little folkish. The album ends with the longest song "Alright" clocking in at 2:58 and mostly instrumental. Grungier guitars and bass. An over-laid power pop guitar. Normal band would have jammed on this for 10+ minutes....not Guided by Voices. This is a fantastic album. 28 songs in 41 minutes. The songs can be a thought, purposely cut short not completing a thought or just the right length. You rarely run into that category but I don't care...the melodies and hooks abound. For every OK song, there's two more right behind it that are great. I can't say I've heard all 40 Guided by Voices' albums but enough to call this one my favorite and their best. This is an album that everyone will find at least one or maybe 28 songs that they like. And play it loud!

super cool album. very much my aesthetic. love the lofi production and love the format - basically an album of little graces of power pop perfection. nothing stays longer than it has to, a lot of it goes before you want it to. super catchy. i'd heard of them before but never explored their music. i'm definitely returning to this one!

A perfect set of mini songs that each pack a punch of their own. Such a unique and entertaining album!

Alien indeed. Perfect as a backdrop to Cult of the Lamb.

I am so glad GBV is on here. Great example of lo-fi. Songs can be very catchy and simple. Love this.

Thank you 1001 list for including this low-fi classic! I've been wanting to listen to GBV for a while now. This album delivers. Listening to Alien Lanes is like listening to a songwriting course.  Some pieces are complete, and some aren't, but that's OK. Liked Songs Added: - Watch Me Jumpstart - As We Go Up, We Go Down - Game Of Pricks - A Good Flying Bird - Pimple Zoo - Closer You Are - Motor Away

One of my faves. Every listen a new song clicks. This time strawdogs. Power pop masterpiece.

I was ready to dismiss this out of hand but stopped. It's like coming across an early demo tape by the Beatles or Pink Floyd it's so hit and miss it's.........quite confusing. So many ideas and none of them fully realised this could be 5 albums by other bands. I've discovered a new band.

Fascinating record, love the format of these very short, but still catchy and impactful songs. Random but flows really well

Huh…turns out I really like Guided by Voices.

I'm a sucker for lo-fi

The crown jewel of their best stretch of making music.

One of my all-time favorites

Sure, I'll drink 3 beers at 10am to "Alien Lanes"

I laughed when this showed up as this is such me album, and as much as I love it, boy do I get why people might not. This thing is a beautiful mess, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It reminds me a lot of The White Album in that not every song is great or even meant to be great, but the whole thing works so well thanks to the sequencing. I love how goofy it all is and its lo-fi production, but I'm also amazed at how many instantly catchy melodies Pollard is able to conjure up. Even in the songs that start out as complete nonsense, he somehow finds a way to make them sing. And best of all, nothing overstays its welcome. One complaint: i don't love the use of "the other f-word" on here, but other than that, this is my jam. I was grinning like an idiot all morning. Bee Thousand is also amazing, but their other albums never did much for me.

Nice album. Shorter songs lend itself to a shorter album but in this case, even with the limited time, there was variety and cohesiveness. Also it was very 90s - that's a good thing to me haha

This was an excellent lo-fi album. The melodies were memorable and the instrumentation fit them perfectly. The ability to bounce between dynamics and textures gave the album a suite-like feel that never felt forced. The most striking thing is just how much I heard the Beatles in this album from the melodies themselves to the way the vocal harmonies sounded.

nigger

My favorite kind of album that’s an adventure from start to finish. I love GBV because they more than any other group prove that songwriting is king. They pumped this shit into a hand held tape recorder and it still shines through perfectly. Bee Thousand is still my favorite though.

Definitely lo-fi and even somewhat abrasive sound. I feel like Guided by Voices sounds like 50 other bands that I like, and I'm a sucker for lo-fi rock records. There is something charming about it. It's all at once familiar but unique, I feel like like this was a blueprint for the entire Elephant 6 collective.

I expected Bee Thousand instead of Alien Lanes, but always slightly preferred Alien Lanes, for me their best (and most consistent) album: great sound, great songs from both Robbert Pollard and Tobin Sprout (but I only know 10 albums or so from the period up to Do The Collapse and not the hundreds of albums they made afterwards). I like the length of the songs, probably the album would be less interesting / listenable if the production was not so lo-fi or if the songs were proper songs instead of short sketches. Out of the 28 songs, I would only skip the annoying 1-minute song Ex-SuperModel scote: 9/10

This is pure magic, what a melodic richness. The crappy production and the shortness of the songs only seem to add to the miracle.

Low-fi, indie brilliance

A diamond in the rough is the best way to describe this album. Hidden beneath the low quality recording style are very meticulously written catchy pop and indie rock songs. Each song is unique and has its own identity on top of that. Fave songs: As we go up we go down, Game of Pricks

As anal probes go, aliens do it the best. They get right in there and penetrate to the point of bleeding. If I wasn't so turned on, I'd be furious. More, please.

Pop… Wunderbar!

Very good album! For some reason I really enjoy that it does sound like it’s coming through on a shitty speaker! Love As We Go Up, We Go Down, Game of Pricks, Motor Away and heard some really good ones for the first time, greatly enjoyed this album and glad I finally gave it a full listen!

I love eclectic albums like these; a ton of short songs in a normal amount of time. These songs are great and offer a variety of material thrown at you quickly.

What a great album. Sometimes I wish the songs were a bit longer, but it definitely is a great listen front to back. 4.5/5

4.5 - end of the album kinda dragged a bit for me

Als ik dit hoor en mijn ogen sluit ben ik met Arie weer bij GBV in de Melkweg ergens halverwege de jaren 90. Dit album is echt de soundtrack van mijn jeugd, terwijl ik 'm hoogstwaarschijnlijk niet te pruimen zou vinden als ik 'm nu voor het eerst op zou zetten ;)

Ik kan gaan proberen uit te leggen waarom dit zo briljant is, maar voor de mensen die dit voor het eerst horen zou dat een totaal onbegrijpelijk verhaal zijn. Dus laat die eenen en tweeen maar komen, ik knal er alvast 5 tegenaan! En Jurrien: kom d'r maar in!

Bangers

The best lo-fi album ever made. Great songs that are often too short and merely sketches of something even greater.

VG

Pretty great stuff. Reminds me of a lot of demo tracks from other bands. I hear some early Weezer in here. I hear some early Mountain Goats. Short, sweet tracks and a short, sweet album. I like it!

** Lo-fi se pojavio tijekom pojave američke underground scene 1980-ih kao sirovi, bučni stil Indie Rocka. Njegovo ime potječe od upotrebe opreme za proizvodnju i snimanje low-fidelitya, što mu daje nečist i izrazito trošan zvuk. ** "The Club is Open." ovaj album, općenito lo-fi/slacker rock kako su počeli nazivat ovaj žanr mi je prirasto srcu, zavolio sam ga pravo te mi je "lofilia" plejlista za ovakve stvari poput ovog albuma i "Bee Thousand". Mnogo klasika još mogu izvući iz rukava ovoga kalibra low-fidelity-a, ali nadam se da će biti na 1001...Album koji možeš slušati na vrućini, onako, sirovo, nedovršeno, prljavo?, bučno, odvojeno od svega. Nije za svakoga, to znam, ali eto drago mi je da je meni nešto ni blizu savršenog - jako blizu savršenoga. Jednostavno, ali djeluje. Ovako, album ima stvarno dosta pjesama, slažem se, kratke su, u tom je čar, baš zato i treba imat puno dobrih pjesama, a u ovom slučaju nabrajam klasike (IMO) lo-fi glazbe -> Game of Pricks, My Valuable Hunting Knife, A Salty Salute, As We Go Up, We Go Down, Watch Me Jumpstart, Blimps Go 90 (ovo je <3) i Always Crush Me. Album nije čista desetka, više je 9/10, nekad jednostavno još nešto malo fali ili ima nečeg viška, ali ako se pusti u jednom cugu sve, ima tu svoju toplinu koju volim. Još nešta da kažem, uskoro dolazi vrijeme za moju "lofiliju" i radujem se tome. :)

Disarm the settlers The new drunk drivers Have hoisted the flag We are with you in your anger - A salty salute

Very weird

me gustó mucho, breve, punk

Enjoyed this and completely new to me