Alien Lanes

Alien Lanes
Studio album by Guided by Voices
Released April 4, 1995[1]
Recorded 1995
Genre Indie rock
Length 41:00
Label Matador
Producer Mr. Japan at Collider X-L
Guided by Voices chronology
Bee Thousand
(1994)		 Alien Lanes
(1995)		 Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
(1996)

Alien Lanes is a 1995 album by lo-fi band Guided by Voices, their eighth full length album.

Pitchfork Media included Alien Lanes in their 'Top 100 Albums of the 90s' polls, at No. 27.[2] Magnet named it the best album of 1995.[3]

The album was GBV's first release with Matador Records. According to James Greer's book Guided by Voices: A Brief History: Twenty-One Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forests of Rock and Roll the advance for the record was close to a hundred thousand dollars, one of the more expensive deals in Matador's history. In contrast to the lucrative deal, Greer mentions that "The cost for recording Alien Lanes, if you leave out the beer, was about ten dollars."

Contents

Track listing

All songs written by Robert Pollard unless otherwise noted.

  1. "A Salty Salute" (R. Pollard, Tobin Sprout) – 1:29
  2. "Evil Speakers" – :58
  3. "Watch Me Jumpstart" – 2:24
  4. "They're Not Witches" (Greg Demos, Jim Pollard, R. Pollard) – :51
  5. "As We Go Up, We Go Down" – 1:37
  6. "(I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger" – 1:13
  7. "Game of Pricks" – 1:33
  8. "The Ugly Vision" – 1:34
  9. "A Good Flying Bird" (Sprout) – 1:07
  10. "Cigarette Tricks" (Demos, J. Pollard, R. Pollard, Sprout) – :18
  11. "Pimple Zoo" – :42
  12. "Big Chief Chinese Restaurant" (J. Pollard, R. Pollard) – :56
  13. "Closer You Are" – 1:56
  14. "Auditorium" (R. Pollard, Sprout) – 1:02
  15. "Motor Away" (R. Pollard, Sprout) – 2:06
  16. "Hit" – :23
  17. "My Valuable Hunting Knife" – 2:00
  18. "Gold Hick" – :30
  19. "King and Caroline" (R. Pollard, Sprout) – 1:36
  20. "Striped White Jets" – 2:15
  21. "Ex-Supermodel" (R. Pollard, Sprout) – 1:06
  22. "Blimps Go 90" – 1:40
  23. "Strawdogs" (Sprout) – 1:17
  24. "Chicken Blows" – 2:21
  25. "Little Whirl" (Sprout) – 1:46
  26. "My Son Cool" – 1:41
  27. "Always Crush Me" – 1:44
  28. "Alright" – 2:56

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [4]
Robert Christgau [5]
Rolling Stone [6]

Mark Deming of Allmusic feels the record is similar to Bee Thousand, though without "as many obvious masterpieces" and "fewer obvious mistakes".[7] Matt Diehl in a 1995 review in Rolling Stone described the album's music as "hooky rock that infuses songwriting smarts and a love of melody with a sometimes spiky, sometimes whimsical sense of experimentation".[8]

Cover versions

Tracks from the album have been covered by various artists since its release. These include:

References

  1. ^ Alien Lanes at the Guided by Voices database
  2. ^ "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s". Pitchfork. http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5923-top-100-albums-of-the-1990s/8/. Retrieved July 6, 2009. 
  3. ^ "Acclaimed Music". Acclaimed Music. http://acclaimedmusic.net/. Retrieved December 6, 2011. 
  4. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/r212244
  5. ^ "CG: Guided by Voices". Robert Christgau. http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Guided+by+Voices. Retrieved December 6, 2011. 
  6. ^ "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. April 21, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20090421002248/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/guidedbyvoices/albums/album/199561/review/5946481/alien_lanes. Retrieved December 6, 2011. 
  7. ^ Mark Deming (2011 [last update]). "Alien Lanes – Guided by Voices | AllMusic". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/alien-lanes-r212244/review. Retrieved June 25, 2011. 
  8. ^ Matt Diehl. "Guided By Voices: Alien Lanes : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". Archived from the original on April 21, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20090421002248/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/guidedbyvoices/albums/album/199561/review/5946481/alien_lanes. Retrieved June 25, 2011. 
Guided by Voices
Former members
Nate Farley • Doug Gillard • Jim Pollard • Chris Slusarenko • Kevin March • Jim Macpherson • Tim Tobias • Don Thrasher • James Greer
Albums
Devil Between My Toes (1987) • Sandbox (1987) • Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia (1989) • Same Place the Fly Got Smashed (1990) • Propeller (1992) • Vampire on Titus (1993) • Bee Thousand (1994) • Alien Lanes (1995) • Under the Bushes Under the Stars (1996) • Tonics and Twisted Chasers (1996) • Mag Earwhig! (1997) • Do the Collapse (1999) • Isolation Drills (2001) • Universal Truths and Cycles (2002) • Earthquake Glue (2003) • Half Smiles of the Decomposed (2004) • Let's Go Eat the Factory (2012) • Class Clown Spots a UFO (2012)
EPs
Box sets
Compilation
Related articles
Robert Pollard
solo albums
Not in My Airforce (1996) • Waved Out (1998) • Kid Marine (1999) • Motel of Fools (2003) • Fiction Man (2004) • From a Compound Eye (2006) • Normal Happiness (2006) • Standard Gargoyle Decisions (2007) • Coast to Coast Carpet of Love (2007) • Superman Was a Rocker (2008) • Robert Pollard Is Off to Business (2008) • The Crawling Distance (2009) • Elephant Jokes (2009) • We All Got Out of the Army (2010) • Moses on a Snail (2010) • Space City Kicks (2011) • Lord of the Birdcage (2011) • Mouseman Cloud (2012)
Tobin Sprout albums
Airport 5 albums
Boston Spaceships albums
Brown Submarine (2008)  • The Planets are Blasted (2009)  • Zero to 99 (2009)  • Our Cubehouse Still Rocks (2010)  • Let It Beard (2011)
Acid Ranch albums
Circus Devils albums
Ringworm Interiors (2001)  • The Harold Pig Memorial (2002)  • Pinball Mars (2004) • Five (2005) • Sgt. Disco (2007) • Ataxia (2008) • Gringo (2009) • Mother Skinny (2010) • Capsized! (2011)