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My confusion over Guided by Voices
I absolutely love them and am basically obsessed with them. This has happened slowly over the last few months.
However, they are the only band I love that much who for some reason I don't think are "objectively" good enough to justify that love or at least explain in rational terms. I am confused by this.
I mean they have an amazing mythos and loads of incredible songs but they also seem to have some sort of X factor which keeps me coming back to them despite most of their albums being really inconsistent and featuring a fair amount of crap. Is it that the bad songs on their albums just make the good ones seem even better and offer a sort of pacing to the albums? or is it that the "objectively" bad songs are actually somewhat catchy as well?
I'm not sure if this makes sense outside of my head. Do you ever get this with bands?
there aren't any bad songs
just ideas that weren't explored to their capacity.
Unless you are referring to Earthquake Glue, in which case, there are a few songs that aren't very good.
I don't have that one
I guess you are right in that even in the weaker songs there is usually something very worthwhile about it. I do also think it is a kind of pacing thing and somehow they wouldn't be as good if all their songs were as good as their best songs (not that any band could manage that anyway).
sounds like much
the same reason i really like ryan adams. artists who put a lot out that isn't always perfect just come across as more human, more fallible to me, and i think that gives their work more 'depth'.
its because even when
they're crap, they have more soul and humanity to them than a million other bands. its because they're fans who happen to be able to write rather than rock stars. they're middle aged, unattractive drunks who love rock and roll, and so anything they do will be inherently more palatable than the careerist heartless crap that makes up most of 'rock'
well said
if only such virtues won out more often