Pitchfork

Some time around my sophomore year of high school, I just gave up. Frustrated by the music I was hearing on the radio, and lacking the guidance of a knowledgeable older sibling or a hip college radio station, my interest in music gradually devolved into belligerent apathy. Turning what little hope I had left towards the Internet, I happened upon a group whose bandname interested me: Guided by Voices. In what, for me, seemed an incredibly defiant gesture at the time, I ordered Mag Earwhig! without having heard a note of it, and five-to-seven business days later, I had a new favorite band.

A year later, my new favorite band put out a new album. Do the Collapse was host to a few great tracks, but the cheesier moments sprinkled liberally over Robert Pollard's songs proved tremendously disheartening. For the first time, I took to reading reviews of Guided by Voices' records, each one fortifying my belief that the quality of their output had been spiraling downward since the glory days of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Over the course of Guided by Voices' next few albums, my excitement began to wane, and by the time Earthquake Glue was released this year, I had all but lost interest in Guided by Voices.

Up until recently, I'd never have thought that a one of these collections could rekindle my interest in a long-neglected band-- it's just hard to shake the feeling that enjoying a best-of album is like beating a video game with all the cheat codes on. But listening to Human Amusements at Hourly Rates, it becomes immediately clear that Guided by Voices' vast and uneven catalog is perfectly suited for this treatment. Over the course of fifteen records, two (going on three) box sets, and countless singles and EPs, Robert Pollard has written more than enough brilliant songs to carry five of these things. But those great songs have always been broken up by weaker tracks on GBV full-lengths, putting a damper on the momentum that could be generated by an uninterrupted sequence of near-perfect rock tracks.

On Human Amusements, this unadulterated flow of excellence is fully realized, and the results are absolutely glorious. Best-of records are frequently criticized for robbing songs of the context created by their respective albums, but Human Amusements succeeds largely for this very reason, collecting material from the most seemingly disparate eras of Guided by Voices' output, and reconstructing them into a surprisingly cohesive whole. The shallow and misleading "lo-fi" tag has led many to construct an impregnable descriptive barrier between "early" and "late" Guided by Voices, but Human Amusements is an alarmingly seamless listen. Indeed, the way the album is sequenced often serves to draw attention away from discrepancies in production, and towards the uniformly excellent quality of Pollard's songwriting.

Many of the songs on Human Amusements actually come across much better here than they did on their respective albums. The synth-whispers of "Things I Will Keep", which seemed so insincere and cheesy on Do the Collapse, now appear utterly insignificant when compared to the song's gorgeous melody and subtle rhythmic variations. The languid melancholy of "To Remake the Young Flyer", which got slightly lost in the submerged early sections of Under the Bushes Under the Stars, is twice as affecting immediately following the crisp, upbeat pop of "Game of Pricks". The few selections chosen from Pollard's pre-Propeller era are top notch, and much easier to stomach outside of the generally mediocre albums from which they were drawn.

As with any best-of album from a band with such a vast output, the final tracklist is bound to be the subject of debate. Personally, I don't see how "Smothered in Hugs", what I would consider to be the best song on Bee Thousand and a perennial fan favorite, could have been omitted from an otherwise well-considered tracklist. I was also disappointed to see that "Weed King" from Propeller and "Don't Stop Now" and "Drag Days" from Under the Bushes were left out. Ultimately, though, it's hard to register much of any disappointment with the tracks that Pollard did choose. Rather than simply picking his favorite tracks, Pollard seems to have put a lot of thought into selecting a sequence of songs that holds together incredibly well as an album.

Aside from an album cover that looks like a 12-year-old's first Photoshop project, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. Best-of albums are generally disjointed and disappointing, especially if you're already familiar with the band's output, and Robert Pollard hasn't exactly shown himself to be the most adept person at judging his own work. But the momentum and contrast worked into Human Amusements is so staggering that it far exceeds any Guided by Voices mix CD I've ever put together or heard. Listening to this album now, I can feel echoes of the same giddy excitement that I haven't been able to fully recapture since I listened to Mag Earwhig! for the very first time. I may have heard them all a hundred times before, but these are my 32 new favorite songs.