Bee Thousand

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Midwestern obscure-rock archivists and curators Guided by Voices are back before you could consider them gone with another fun-filled, hook-happy hodge podge of songs, half-songs, ideas, and vaguely pleasing sounds to get you through summer. How many influences can you find in this picture? A Beatles harmony and a Syd Barrett musing here and there are easy to spot, but how about the pack of no-name psychedelicists and prepunk garage dwellers that only Guided by voices have ever heard of? Could be thousands. GBV are so good at integrating references, in fact, their records sound like nothing more than well-groomed and quirky modern rock. Call them post-postmodernists--what else to brand a group that sings a song named "The Golden Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" without even a smirk and doesn't come off disgustingly pretentious? Sincere? Timeless? We get the joke while they swear they never made one. --Roni Sarig --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Album Description
The holy grail. It still stands as their best (or at least among them), 20+ albums later. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Bee Thousand, Music, Guided by Voices, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock, Lo-Fi, Pop, Popular Music, Rock
Bee Thousand
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • That Awful Bliss
  • Songwriters Beware
  • believe the hype!
  • THE Gateway Album for the World's Most Prolific Band
  • One word: Excellent
 Bee Thousand
Guided by Voices
Manufacturer: Scat Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | American Alternative | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Lo-FiLo-Fi | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Indie RockIndie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop RockPop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Indie & Lo FiIndie & Lo Fi | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
RockRock | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
American AlternativeAmerican Alternative | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Loveless
  2. Propeller
  3. Isolation Drills
  4. Vampire on Titus
  5. Perfect From Now On

ASIN: B000002363
Release Date: 1994-06-20

Tracks:

  1. Hardcore Ufos
  2. Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
  3. Tractor Rape Chain
  4. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
  5. Hot Freaks
  6. Smothered in Hugs
  7. Yours to Keep
  8. Echos Myron
  9. Gold Star for Robot Boy
  10. Awful Bliss
  11. Mincer Ray
  12. A Big Fan of the Pigpen
  13. Queen of Cans and Jars
  14. Her Psychology Today
  15. Kicker of Elves
  16. Ester's Day
  17. Demons Are Real
  18. I Am a Scientist
  19. Peep-Hole
  20. You're Not an Airplane

Amazon.com

Midwestern obscure-rock archivists and curators Guided by Voices are back before you could consider them gone with another fun-filled, hook-happy hodge podge of songs, half-songs, ideas, and vaguely pleasing sounds to get you through summer. How many influences can you find in this picture? A Beatles harmony and a Syd Barrett musing here and there are easy to spot, but how about the pack of no-name psychedelicists and prepunk garage dwellers that only Guided by voices have ever heard of? Could be thousands. GBV are so good at integrating references, in fact, their records sound like nothing more than well-groomed and quirky modern rock. Call them post-postmodernists--what else to brand a group that sings a song named "The Golden Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" without even a smirk and doesn't come off disgustingly pretentious? Sincere? Timeless? We get the joke while they swear they never made one. --Roni Sarig

Album Description

The holy grail. It still stands as their best (or at least among them), 20+ albums later.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars That Awful Bliss.......2007-04-15

Sometimes, just sometimes, it is a little scatty to criticise something that Falls Between Stools. "Bee Thousand": lo-fi pop or pop with a lo-fi twist or overrated Beatles-fixated wannabes? It's hard to find the right description, because lovely as this album is, there is something to offend everyone paradoxically because there is nothing to offend anyone.
Take the songs. The album overflows with gems: "Hardcore UFOs", "Tractor rape Chain", "The Goldheart...", "Gold Star For Robot Boy" and "I Am A Scientist". All great songs, but hardly Dinosaur Jr. or Sonic Youth in complexity or noiseiness. Anyone wanting pop thrills, however, will find too much scratchiness and general unrounded edges. The genuinely touching numbers, such as "Awful Bliss" are almost treated as throw-aways. Pigeonholing something as straightforward as "Bee Thousand" becomes a tricky task, if you are only aiming to make holes.
"Bee Thousand" is gloriously anti-ghetto. The lo-fi ghetto would kick everything here out because it doesn't wear the right shoes, the indie-pop ghetto would freak that they actually want to sound like a McCartney-flavoured Beatles, the mainstream would freak at their undigitised un-FM "grunginess".... but all these ghettos would be tapping their feet all the time they were shaking their heads.
Perhaps it is best to classify the album as "demo pop" (dempop? D-Pop?), and accept that it isn't groundbreaking: but if you don't find its cut-and-paste, throwaway aesthetic and great tunes infectious, you really are talking ****.

5 out of 5 stars Songwriters Beware.......2006-12-15

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 but 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!

5 out of 5 stars believe the hype!.......2006-07-23

very few albms get the attention this one does and with so few people having actually heard it. if you are new to GbV, start here. all of robert pollard's four P's are present: pop, punk, prog and psych. i have no idea why, but i still hear gabriel-era genesis in these songs. what an album! this, to me, is one of the finest pieces of art ever created. shakespeare, picasso, beethoven. i'm serious!

here's the deal. a great artist sees things, hears things, a little differently. i hear these perfect songs recorded on a radio shack tape deck and wonder...what if...how would these crazy-good songs sound if recorded in a real studio and my mind constructs the rest. it informs the music and vice versa. it forces the listener to work things out and destroys the barriers between artist and consumer. hey! i could do that! and so many tried and the music world was refreshed with new voices and new ideas. this is important stuff. and yet we hear songs about robots and UFO's and god knows what else.

believe the hype. this is indeed one of the great triumphs in the history of music. the tape hiss, the four track dropping guitar parts (on purpose?), the overall horrible sounding thing that is bee thousand. my all-time favorite.

5 out of 5 stars THE Gateway Album for the World's Most Prolific Band.......2006-06-02

Like shards of broken glass that are arranged into a stained-glass window, this is the record where all the pieces first come together for the musical collective known as Guided By Voices. "Bee Thousand" is their first album to enjoy mass distribution, which is to say that, unlike previous albums, more than 1,000 copies were manufactured. To be straight about it, it's also their first album that is capable of withstanding scrutiny by the commercial marketplace. Main songwriter Robert Pollard remains as inscrutable as ever, and the songs recorded herein remain decidedly low-fi in recording methods, but each of the twenty songs on "Bee Thousand" are not only fathomable as music, but have a hook. They also last just long enough for them to sink in, with no song lasting much more than three minutes, and yet all of them are thoroughly unpredictable in structure and content.
This is by no means a perfect album. The low-fi approach that Guided By Voices choose by design virtually guarantees that each performance can be analyzed for sloppy instrumentation, bum notes, ridiculous lyrics....but that is what provides much of the appeal. If you can't buy into that concept, then you'll never be able to appreciate these guys. On the other hand, if you're a fan of spontaneous invention and unbridled creativity - recording methods be damned - then you owe it to yourself to experience "Bee Thousand". A -- Tom Ryan

5 out of 5 stars One word: Excellent.......2006-02-28

A brilliant melding together of great songwriting and neo-sixties garage rock. This is a timeless classic which is truly in a class of it's own. Buy this album!
Bee Thousand
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • That Awful Bliss
  • Songwriters Beware
  • believe the hype!
  • THE Gateway Album for the World's Most Prolific Band
  • One word: Excellent
 Bee Thousand
Guided by Voices
Manufacturer: Scat Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | American Alternative | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Lo-FiLo-Fi | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Indie RockIndie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Indie & Lo FiIndie & Lo Fi | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
American AlternativeAmerican Alternative | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Loveless
  2. Propeller
  3. Isolation Drills
  4. Vampire on Titus
  5. Perfect From Now On

ASIN: B000002364
Release Date: 1994-06-20

Tracks:

  1. Hardcore Ufos
  2. Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
  3. Tractor Rape Chain
  4. Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
  5. Hot Freaks
  6. Smothered in Hugs
  7. Yours to Keep
  8. Echos Myron
  9. Gold Star for Robot Boy
  10. Awful Bliss
  11. Mincer Ray
  12. Big Fan of the Pigpen
  13. Queen of Cans and Jars
  14. Her Psychology Today
  15. Kicker of Elves
  16. Ester's Day
  17. Demons Are Real
  18. I Am a Scientist
  19. Peep-Hole
  20. You're Not an Airplane

Amazon.com

Midwestern obscure-rock archivists and curators Guided by Voices are back before you could consider them gone with another fun-filled, hook-happy hodge podge of songs, half-songs, ideas, and vaguely pleasing sounds to get you through summer. How many influences can you find in this picture? A Beatles harmony and a Syd Barrett musing here and there are easy to spot, but how about the pack of no-name psychedelicists and prepunk garage dwellers that only Guided by voices have ever heard of? Could be thousands. GBV are so good at integrating references, in fact, their records sound like nothing more than well-groomed and quirky modern rock. Call them post-postmodernists--what else to brand a group that sings a song named "The Golden Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" without even a smirk and doesn't come off disgustingly pretentious? Sincere? Timeless? We get the joke while they swear they never made one. --Roni Sarig

Album Description

The holy grail. It still stands as their best (or at least among them), 20+ albums later.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars That Awful Bliss.......2007-04-15

Sometimes, just sometimes, it is a little scatty to criticise something that Falls Between Stools. "Bee Thousand": lo-fi pop or pop with a lo-fi twist or overrated Beatles-fixated wannabes? It's hard to find the right description, because lovely as this album is, there is something to offend everyone paradoxically because there is nothing to offend anyone.
Take the songs. The album overflows with gems: "Hardcore UFOs", "Tractor rape Chain", "The Goldheart...", "Gold Star For Robot Boy" and "I Am A Scientist". All great songs, but hardly Dinosaur Jr. or Sonic Youth in complexity or noiseiness. Anyone wanting pop thrills, however, will find too much scratchiness and general unrounded edges. The genuinely touching numbers, such as "Awful Bliss" are almost treated as throw-aways. Pigeonholing something as straightforward as "Bee Thousand" becomes a tricky task, if you are only aiming to make holes.
"Bee Thousand" is gloriously anti-ghetto. The lo-fi ghetto would kick everything here out because it doesn't wear the right shoes, the indie-pop ghetto would freak that they actually want to sound like a McCartney-flavoured Beatles, the mainstream would freak at their undigitised un-FM "grunginess".... but all these ghettos would be tapping their feet all the time they were shaking their heads.
Perhaps it is best to classify the album as "demo pop" (dempop? D-Pop?), and accept that it isn't groundbreaking: but if you don't find its cut-and-paste, throwaway aesthetic and great tunes infectious, you really are talking ****.

5 out of 5 stars Songwriters Beware.......2006-12-15

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 but 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!

5 out of 5 stars believe the hype!.......2006-07-23

very few albms get the attention this one does and with so few people having actually heard it. if you are new to GbV, start here. all of robert pollard's four P's are present: pop, punk, prog and psych. i have no idea why, but i still hear gabriel-era genesis in these songs. what an album! this, to me, is one of the finest pieces of art ever created. shakespeare, picasso, beethoven. i'm serious!

here's the deal. a great artist sees things, hears things, a little differently. i hear these perfect songs recorded on a radio shack tape deck and wonder...what if...how would these crazy-good songs sound if recorded in a real studio and my mind constructs the rest. it informs the music and vice versa. it forces the listener to work things out and destroys the barriers between artist and consumer. hey! i could do that! and so many tried and the music world was refreshed with new voices and new ideas. this is important stuff. and yet we hear songs about robots and UFO's and god knows what else.

believe the hype. this is indeed one of the great triumphs in the history of music. the tape hiss, the four track dropping guitar parts (on purpose?), the overall horrible sounding thing that is bee thousand. my all-time favorite.

5 out of 5 stars THE Gateway Album for the World's Most Prolific Band.......2006-06-02

Like shards of broken glass that are arranged into a stained-glass window, this is the record where all the pieces first come together for the musical collective known as Guided By Voices. "Bee Thousand" is their first album to enjoy mass distribution, which is to say that, unlike previous albums, more than 1,000 copies were manufactured. To be straight about it, it's also their first album that is capable of withstanding scrutiny by the commercial marketplace. Main songwriter Robert Pollard remains as inscrutable as ever, and the songs recorded herein remain decidedly low-fi in recording methods, but each of the twenty songs on "Bee Thousand" are not only fathomable as music, but have a hook. They also last just long enough for them to sink in, with no song lasting much more than three minutes, and yet all of them are thoroughly unpredictable in structure and content.
This is by no means a perfect album. The low-fi approach that Guided By Voices choose by design virtually guarantees that each performance can be analyzed for sloppy instrumentation, bum notes, ridiculous lyrics....but that is what provides much of the appeal. If you can't buy into that concept, then you'll never be able to appreciate these guys. On the other hand, if you're a fan of spontaneous invention and unbridled creativity - recording methods be damned - then you owe it to yourself to experience "Bee Thousand". A -- Tom Ryan

5 out of 5 stars One word: Excellent.......2006-02-28

A brilliant melding together of great songwriting and neo-sixties garage rock. This is a timeless classic which is truly in a class of it's own. Buy this album!
Enchanting Harmonist - A soiree with the Linleys of Bath (English Orpheus, Vol 21) /Invocation
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Learn to breath a sweeter sigh
 Enchanting Harmonist - A soiree with the Linleys of Bath (English Orpheus, Vol 21) /Invocation
William Benson Earle , Henry Harington , William Herschel , William Jackson , Thomas (The Elder) Linley , Thomas (The Younger) Linley , Invocation , Julia Gooding , Charles Daniels , and Rufus Muller
Manufacturer: Hyperion
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Chamber MusicChamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
CompilationsCompilations | Classical | Styles | Music
ClassicalClassical | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Thomas Linley: Music for The Tempest; Overture to The Duenna; 3 Cantatas

ASIN: B000002ZTU
Release Date: 1994-04-05

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Learn to breath a sweeter sigh.......2002-04-14

This collection of 18th century songs of Linley, Harrington, and Jackson gave me a wonderful conviction of the rich repetoire of music from the Georgian era. The elogies of Linely are so sweet and the poetry is the most artful I was read and heard sung. I'm sure Amor himself inspired these composers, since the texts are too eloquent to be compared or compeated. The only wrong thing about this album is that the recording volume is a tad too low and you might have to turn up your volume to really hear the voices. But this is such an elegant collection of songs for those who long to hear a sweeter song.

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