Customer Reviews

Bee Thousand

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Be warned. This is audio heroin. One listen, and you will be an addict. Of course, Bee Thousand is just the gateway album. You will love it. (Haven't met a soul who doesn't.) And once you come to grips with your love of Bob Pollard's perfect lo-fi pop, you'll go in search of more. And, yes my friends, there is plenty more. Not just Guided By Voices, but Bob Pollard solo albums, side projects, ex-members side projects...Lexo and the Leapers. You'll buy them. I'm just letting you know ahead of time. Because it can get ugly. Vinyl EP imports from Holland. Split singles with obscure Canadian bands. You're going to need them all. And you'll get them. Whatever it takes. Trust me, I've been there.

So, go ahead and listen. But a year from now, when you're sitting in an empty apartment surrounded by nothing but GBV music and a crappy record player you borrowed from your cousin. Don't say nobody warned you. And welcome...you're one of us now.

Though I do have some pride, I'm far from most pretentious internet music critics; I know nothing about Guided by Voices. I wouldn't know Pollard if I saw him in a grocery store. I'm not sure what other indie bands were influenced by them. I don't own any of their other albums. I can't spout off this or that song title from this era that was import because it showcased both a reserve of political mindedness, while being forward-thinking and.... I don't care about any of that. I'm saying that despite my reluctance to get to know this band, I admit this album is one of the most interesting (and yes, BEST) albums of the 90's.

I'm amazed with the production. How anyone can listen to the White Stripes and really believe that their records are low-fi are beyond me. (I like the White Stripes, by the way). The production has this kitsch, kind of quirky homespun quality that extends beyond the production. It feels like that basement record your semi-close friend in high school made and bugged you every day about what you "really" thought. Only now he's a song-craft genious with ADHT. BGV sometimes abandon a catchy song right as it's getting interesting and somehow it doesn't detract. It sticks in your head. I find myself hitting the repeat button (but never the skip button) on this album more than any other I've listened to. Some records are great because they're catchy enough to move you and low-fi enough to not become popular. Not even CLOSE to popular. Those records make you feel like you're the only person in the world who's ever heard it and you feel great about yourself because of it. "Bee Thousand" is that record. Enjoy.

Overall: 9 out of 10.

Anyone who considers themselves a music enthusiast or even just a fan must listen to "Bee Thousand" by GBV. I have been listening to GBV for almost four years and I own over 450 CDs-this is in my top five with ease and next to Close to The Edge by Yes-may be my favorite. This album is the first of 4 masterpieces they released in succession(Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under the Bushes Under the stars and Mag Earwhig) and although much deserved debate exists as to which is best, I truly believe this to be it. All any "music fan" has to do is listen to the first 5 songs 2 or three times and they will be hooked. This is a timeless masterpiece and I am almost glad that GBV is not nationally recognized, they are our little secret. Buy all their albums-including Robert Pollard's solo work. Buy Bee Thousand first- it's what hooked me!You wont' be disappointed , this is some of the catchiest music ever written.

This is one of those records, like "Sgt. Pepper" or "Pet Sounds", that once you hear it music never sounds the same again. Other records in your collection begin to sound empty and eventually fall away. You cannot remember ever not knowing it, yet you'll instantly be transported to the first time you ever heard it EVERY time you hear it.And probably the most remarkable thing is that you probably won't even like it when you first hear it. But then suddenly "I am a scientist" will be itching in the back of your head while you're at work or lying in bed. Then you're caught. It's happened to me and everyone else i've ever let borrow this. It's like a twentieth generation dub of a homemade cassette by god himself. And then the follow-up was just as good...

I've been familier with GBV since the mid 1990s. Back then it was impossible to come across a review or critique of this band without the word, 'lo-fi', being mentioned in the same sentence. But merely making a virtue of 'lo-fi' as being part of some kind of 'sonic revolutiion' is entirely missing the point. The fact is Guided By Voices (fronted by Robert Pollard - a genius musician/artist) made these types of albums - with that sound - because the only equipment they had was an old 4-track recorder. But it was their attitiude behind the making of this album that makes it such a classic, which iss basically this: "Whatever. Just press record. No one buys our music anyway. Let's have the best fun amongst ourselves."

Most of these songs are no more than a minute long. Some even shorter. But when listened too as a whole album, it makes for one brilliant, ground breaking piece of art. That, my fellow readers, is the essence of this classic album: Don't worry about what others are going to think. Or worry if they're going to 'get it'. It doesn't matter. Just play and record.

No plush recording studios here. No pro-tools, no digital consoles. This is the sound of the American Midwest suburbs (GBV were from Dayton, Ohio), plugging in and playing their hearts out. I mean, the entire album was recorded onto a cassette tape, for crying out loud! It's not that GBV didn't care about their music. They did, passionately. Rather it was that they just wanted/needed to get this music out there . . . using whatever they had. In this case a Tascam Portastudio 4-track . . . onto a cassette tape!

So, to all you aspiring musicians and songwriters out there reading this: Buy this record. Listen. Enjoy . . . and keep writing and recording your songs. Use whatever you have at your disposal. And don't worry about whether your music is 'fashionable' or 'chic'. Otherwise your art will be lesser for it. We can all learn a lot from this album.

I still am. Enjoy.

This album is a great throwback to the classic, catchy pop of the 1960s. GBV has been hailed as sounding like the second coming of the British Invasion (even though they're from Dayton, Ohio), and it's easy to see why. The one and a half to three minute (max) pop songs which sprawl over this record recall some of the best pop music since the Beatles (no joke!).

The raw quality of the recording has homemade feel to it, which I think adds to its charm. You can vividly picture these guys having a great time in their basement or garage cranking out these songs. For a first time listener, the poor quality may take some getting used to. But if you appreciate great pop music, you'll be hooked after a few listens.

Some may become frustrated that GBV's songs are so short, but I feel that their brevity is what makes them work. A catchy pop hook only lasts so long before it becomes tiresome anyway, so it's a blessing they quit while they're ahead.

I'm going to listen to it right now!

A once in a lifetime album. Masterpiece. Best album of all time. Im saddened that an album this good may never come along again but this album, 7 years after I bought it, is as refreshing as day one. BUY IT, OWN IT, LOVE IT ~

Nine tracks into the fuzzy Frankenstein pop odyssey that is Bee Thousand, you get a gnarly little tune by the name of "Gold Star For Robot Boy." A short song by most standards, but of about average length on this twenty-cut whirlwind, "Gold Star For Robot Boy" comprises ninety-nine of the greatest seconds in the history of music. It doesn't produce a single sound-wave that isn't shockingly poignant, violently infectious, or endearingly gawky. The band makes this big, freaky, celestial noise out of warbling guitar feedback, a childlike and sweetly sci-fi wall of sound that conceals a string of achingly beautiful melodic hooks, hooks so articulate and starry-eyed that they send shivers down the spine of my subconscious. Robert Pollard's vocal is almost physically impossible in its ability to evoke, to charm, to worry, to reassure, and to cajole the listener into these weird and wonderful little emotional vistas. "Gold Star For Robot Boy" is a song so unassumingly perfect and profoundly satisfying that it makes entire genres of music superfluous. It's also one of the better songs on Bee Thousand.

I love "Dollar Dan"... look for his review. It pretty much sums up the "opposition" to the Guided by Voices hodgepodge ethos.

I was unprepared when I heard this being played in a little record store near where I lived at the time it was out... it was one of those "WHAT THE F***?" moments: "Did that lead guitar just cut out briefly like someone just taped over it? Did that amazing song just end after only one verse/chorus?" and so on.

I've written a lot of songs in my day and loving this album started to reveal and challenge the rigidly constructed walls in the fortress i'd constructed in my mind of What Is A Song.

It must be what many classical music fans thought when their first heard Webern's odd miniatures. IT'S TOO SHORT! IT DOESN'T COUNT!

So I will say this: If you feel that a rock song must be at least two minutes long and repeat choruses, or if you are hard-core (songs must have this: intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-solo-chorus-chorus-fade), or whatever rigid song format fortress you've built, you may very well be disappointed in this album, and down with Dollar Dan. You can still be hip to GBV and get Mag Earwhig or one of the other more fleshed-out normalish GBV records, or pull back further for safety's sake and get the Best Of they put out a coupla years ago.

But, maybe you should try this, seriously, it might change how you feel about rock music, which isn't something you can say about many albums. For me it's one of my favorites of the '90s for sure. One of the best things about it: there's nothing else like it, from the weird production, the super-hooky melodies and kaliedescopic lyrics.

My fortress walls don't go so high anymore and the gate is always open. Hooray for GBV!

For the longest time I walked around like a zombie with a ghost rock band playing in my mind. I wanted tunes you could hum, choruses you couldn't get out of your head, sloppy guitars, and hooks that are impossible to escape. Then a friend at work let me play some Guided By Voices CDs and it felt like the clouds had parted and all that was darkness was now light. This is it, the band I had in my head. Sure nonsense lyrics, muddy production values, an annoying and unlistenable song for every gem -- but this was it, man! I had found my band.

Discover them now and get ready to fall in love with Rock n Roll all over again.