Do the Collapse (1999), Guided By Voices
On Guided By Voices’ previous album “Mag Earwhig,” prolific songwriter Robert Pollard crooned about becoming “produced.” Then, for their 11th album, 1999’s Do the Collapse, he hitched a ride in Ric Ocasek’s Mustang and rode straight into a full-blown studio complete with a hundred-track recording setup, poppy-warbling synths, and amplifiers that actually worked.
The joke is that Ric Ocasek was – is – the frontman for the hit 80s band, The Cars. He produced this album. And he, maybe, would drive a Ford Mustang? That last part is an assumption on my part.
The result is Guided By Voices’ most polished record to this point; but, not everyone was pleased. A certain subset of fans is only happy if the music sounds like it was recorded through a 1980s tape recorder in a basement with two defective washing machines on spin-cycle and a vacuum running in the background. “It’s just like, not ‘it,’ dude – where’s the lo-fi, man?” Of course, those fans are here for all the wrong reasons. Guided By Voices, lo-fi darlings they may be, never intended to sound like a cat-fight in the backyard. The music was a product of circumstance and surroundings. What matters most are the songs, not the production. Discounting one or the other solely based on one or the other would be folly.
And, contrary to what someone on Allmusic might tell you, the songs on Do the Collapse are some of the most consistent and strongest Guided By Voices have recorded since their 1995 cult-classic LP “Alien Lanes.” If one can’t get over the fact that you can actually hear all the instruments clearly, then consider taking a step back and analyzing why you like anything at all; is it because you put the band patch on your nasty leather jacket used solely for picking up cute alt-goth girls at the shows, and you’re thirty-five now with over forty-thousand in student loan debt for a useless degree, or is it because the music makes you want to sing-real-loud when no one is around? If the answer is the former, I can’t help you – that’s a personal problem.
Ric Ocasek’s professional nail polish is appreciated here because the songs themselves are spectacular, and the production only helps to highlight this fact. Every ounce of musical flair is clearly defined and aurally shimmering, like the coyly glistening Smiths-like guitar licks and accompanying strings in “Wrecking Now,” or the beautiful ringing of the picking in “Wormhole,” the former being an instantly arresting “stop what you’re doing, this is amazing” track. All of this detail would be lost or simply not included on previous Guided By Voices records because the production wasn’t there to make it happen, and it all exists within the classic wall of Guided-By-Noise.
“Do the Collapse” is more focused than previous records, including only 16 carefully selected tracks instead of the normal 25+ one would find on earlier records. The trade-off here is that the majority of these tracks are two minutes or longer, which is an oddity considering the band we’re dealing with, known for including – sometimes – 20-second long tracks throughout their albums. The longer the track, the more responsibility it carries: responsibility to actually be worth listening to, and, thankfully, every track rocks or pops or does something worthy of your time.
If you want the chaotic noise of past records, it’s here with tracks like “Zoo Pie.” If you’re looking for the bubblegum-poprock-mastery of “Game of Pricks” or “Gold Star for Robot Boy,” well, you’re in luck because this album contains the strongest pure-pop Guided By Voices ever released, starting with the very first track “Teenage FBI,” a somewhat off-putting radio-friendly track that is just too catchy to hate, followed by “Things I Will Keep” and “Surgical Focus,” which are immediately melodious to the point the Greek God Apollo is jealous of how simple Guided By Voices makes crafting a hook look.
This album gets mixed reception for all the wrong reasons. If you want ultra-catchy-sing-along-songs that mask the darkness swirling underneath the lives we all live, this is the Guided By Voices album for you.
Don’t believe the anti-hype.
