ARTIST: Guided By Voices
TITLE: Mag Earwhig!
LABEL: Matador
TYPE: Normal release
GENRE: Alternative
SOURCE: CD
BITRATE: 216 kbps avg/44100 Hz
ENCODER: LAME
SIZE: 75.56 MB
PLAYTIME: 45:33
RELEASE DATE: 1997-00-00
RIP DATE: See your pre db.
Track List
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1. Can't Hear The Revolution 1:36
2. Sad If I Lost It 3:10
3. I Am A Tree 4:40
4. The Old Grunt 1:28
5. Bulldog Skin 2:59
6. Are You Faster? 1:13
7. I Am Produced 1:06
8. Knock 'Em Flyin' 1:52
9. Not Behind the Fighter Jet 2:13
10. Choking Tara 1:24
11. Hollow Cheek 0:32
12. Portable Men's Society 4:17
13. Little Lines 2:02
14. Learning To Hunt 2:24
15. The Finest Joke Is Upon Us 3:08
16. Mag Earwhig! 0:39
17. Now To War 2:44
18. Jane Of The Waking Universe 2:26
19. The Colossus Crawls West 2:13
20. Mute Superstar 1:24
21. Bomb in the Bee-Hive 2:03
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Total Playtime: 45:33
Release Notes:
After Bee Thousand gave Guided By Voices a wider audience, it became evident
that Robert Pollard saw himself as more than just the band's songwriter and
frontman, and as his career ambitions grew, he became increasingly frustrated
with the limitations of his band. Matters came to a head prior to the recording
of Mag Earwhig! as Pollard broke ties with longtime guitarist and fellow
songwriter Tobin Sprout and fired the rest of the group. While Pollard and
Sprout soon buried the hatchet, Sprout opted not to stay on as a full-time
member of the group, and Pollard was now Guided By Voices' uncontested leader.
He hired Cleveland-based blues/garage rockers Cobra Verde as his backing band
for the next GBV album, and Mag Earwhig! sounded a good bit different as a
result; while there were a few stray four-track experiments with Sprout
scattered about, most of the album had a solid, professional sheen, and Cobra
Verde rock harder and sound tighter than any of the lineups Pollard had worked
with in the past. Unfortunately, his songwriting wasn't quite up to his usual
standards, which the new clarity of this album makes all the more evident.
Pollard is incapable of making an album without a few fine songs, and "Bulldog
Skin," "Sad If I Lost It," "Not Behind the Fighter Jet," and "Portable Men's
Society" certainly fill the bill, but it may well be significant that Mag
Earwhig!'s most exciting song, the joyous "I Am a Tree," was written by Cobra
Verde's Doug Gillard. While there's plenty to enjoy here, Robert Pollard's next
experiment in hi-fi record making, Do the Collapse, would prove to be much more
successful.
http://www.gbv.com