Guided by Voices - The Door is Much Smaller (1993)

 

1. The Terrible Two
2. Dank Star Ground Control
3. Flesh Ears From June
4. Shifting Swift is a Lift
5. The Fool Ticket
6. Exploding Anthills
7. Sickly Sweet
8. Unshaven Bird
9. Boston Spaceships
10. Drugs & Eggs
11. Grope
12. Heavy Crown
13. Home by Ten
14. Hallway of Shatterproof Glass
15. Shocker in Gloomtown
16. Alien Lanes
17. Break Even
18. Big School
19. Damn Good Mr. Jam
20. Glow Boy Butlers
21. Gelatin, Ice Cream, Plum...
22. Bye Bye Song

Like I said in my post about the early unreleased GBV album Learning to Hunt, I went through the first two Suitcase box sets looking for material to use for a classic era album, around 92-93. I didn't find a lot of good material at first cause most of the good stuff was from the late '80s. Eventually I found enough material to make an album. I used Suitcases 1, 2, and 4 and two EPs. 

Guided by Voices - Tonics and Twisted Chasers (1996)

 

1. Satellite
2. Dayton, Ohio-19 Something and 5
3. My Thoughts Are a Gas
4. The Top Chick's Silver Chord
5. Ha Ha Man
6. At the Farms
7. Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth
8. Optional Bases Opposed
9. Look, It's Baseball
10. 158 Years of Beautiful Sex
11. When 2 Hours Seem Like 5
12. Jellyfish Reflector
13. The Kite Surfer
14. The Candyland Riots
15. Jabberstroker
16. Stabbing a Star
17. Canteen Plums
18. If We Wait
19. Trendspotter Acrobat
20. Heavy Metal Country
21. Delayed Reaction Brats
22. Sensational Gravity Boy
23. Madroom Assistance

In 1996, Guided by Voices released their last lo-fi album Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. They had a whole other album of outtakes called The Flying Party is Here that wouldn't be released for another two years. However they released another album that year called Tonics and Twisted Chasers as well as an EP called Sunfish Holy Breakfast. They used the same image as the cover so it made sense to combine them. Some songs are extended versions of other songs, and this album potentially gives UTBUTS two albums worth of outtakes. 

Guided by Voices - Daredevil Stamp Collector (2000)

 

1. Catfood on the Earwig
2. Whiskey Ships
3. Girl From the Sun
4. Pick Seeds From My Skull
5. Powerblessings
6. The Kissing Life
7. James Riot
8. Shrine to the Dynamic Years
9. Trashed Aircraft
10. Underground Initiations
11. Interest Position
12. Fly Into Ashes
13. A Crick Uphill
14. Idiot Princess
15. Avalanche Aminos
16. Perfect This Time
17. Sucker of Pistol City
18. Wrinkled Ghost
19. Now I'm Crying
20. Real

Guided by Voices' first hi-fi sounding album was Mag Earwig! in 1997. But I think their next album Do the Collapse is a bit better remembered because it was produced by Ric Ocasek who made them throw away numerous songs in order to record new ones in a similar move he would do with Weezer when producing their Green Album two years later. Because of that there were enough songs to make a second album of outtakes.

Guided by Voices - Let's Welcome the Circus People (1999)

 

1. Submarine Teams
2. Smokey Joe's Perfect Hair
3. The Big Make-Over
4. Digging Up Wooden Teeth
5. Television Prison
6. Mayhem Stone
7. Strictly Comedy
8. Far-Out Crops
9. And So On
10. Snatch Candy
11. White Gloves Come Off
12. Making a Garden
13. You Can't Hold Your Women
14. Town of Mirrors
15. Vertical Insect (The Lights Are On)
16. Island Crimes
17. Maid to Order
18. Liquor Bag
19. Lucifer's Flaming Hour
20. 100% Delay
21. And the Crowd Showed Up

This is the last album in a trilogy of combining solo albums by Guided by Voices front men Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout from the late '90s. All I can say is that I liked Tobin's albums more. 

Guided by Voices - Moonflower Plastic (1998)

 

1. Make Use

2. Get Out of My Throat

3. Just Say the Word

4. Subspace Biographies

5. Paper Cut

6. Waved Out

7. Beast of Souls

8. Angels Hang Their Socks on the Moon

9. People Are Leaving

10. Steeple of Knives

11. Rumbling Joker

12. All Used Up

13. Since I...

14. Second Step Next Language

15. Curious Things

16. Exit Planes

17. A Little Bit of Dread

18. Hit Junky Dives

19. Water on the Boater's Back

In real life, Guided by Voices didn't release an album this year, but in our universe, they released The Flying Party is Here, an album of outtakes from Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, and now this one. And I guess we're also assuming that Tobin didn't leave the group the prior year. 

Guided by Voices - The Flying Party is Here (1998)

 

1. Mice Feel Nice (In My Room)
2. Not Good For the Mechanism
3. Dodging Invisible Rays
4. Color of My Blade
5. Deaf Ears
6. Why Did You Land?
7. June Salutes You!
8. Key Losers
9. The Stir-Crazy Pornographer
10. Systems Crash
11. The Who vs. Porky Pig
12. A Life in Finer Clothing
13. Subtle Gear Shifting
14. Beekeeper Seeks Ruth
15. Cocksoldiers and Their Postwar Stubble
16. The Winter Cows
17. He's the Uncle
18. The Ash Gray Proclamation
19. Roofer's Union Fight Song
20. Pink Drink
21. Bug House
22. Pantherz
23. Finks
24. Beneath a Festering Moon

Guided by Voices' last lo-fi album was Under the Bushes, Under the Stars in 1996. It didn't produce a lot of hits for the band but it did produce a lot of material. The previously talked about album Bee Thousand had 20 tracks released but had 64 tracks recorded for it. I wasn't familiar with a lot of their more obscure songs from afterward but I was surprised to find that this album also had a lot of outtakes. I found 32 for this one and 22 for another called Do the Collapse. I cut out the intros to Beekeeper Seeks Ruth and Pantherz. 

Guided by Voices - Not in My Airforce (1996)

 

1. Maggie Turns to Flies
2. The Natural Alarm
3. Girl Named Captain
4. Get Under It
5. Release the Sunbird
6. E's Navy Blue
7. Parakeet Troopers
8. Carnival Boy
9. Chance to Buy an Island
10. I've Owned You For Centuries
11. Martin's Mounted Head
12. Flat Beauty
13. King of Arthur Avenue
14. Gas Daddy Gas
15. Psychic Pilot Clocks Out
16. Prom is Coming
17. To My Beloved Martha
18. White Flyer
19. Double Standards Inc.
20. I Didn't Know
21. Hermit Stew
22. The Last Man Well Known to Kingpin

1996 turned out to be an insanely prolific year for Guided by Voices in this alternate universe. They released their last lo-fi album Under the Bushes, Under the Stars as well as the album Tonics and Twisted Chasers. Also UTBUTS produced enough outtakes to release an album two years later called The Flying Party is Here. So wouldn't it be crazy if they released another album this year? Well apparently both front men Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout released solo albums in 1996, 1998, and 1999, giving us ideas for 3 potential albums as if we didn't have enough. 

Guided by Voices - Back to Saturn X (1992)

 

1. Fantasy Creeps
2. Perch Warble
3. Dusty Bushworms
4. Squirmish Frontal Room
5. Scalding Creek
6. Melted Pat
7. Spring Tigers
8. Crutch Came Slinking
9. Mallard Smoke
10. Sopor Joe
11. Tricyclic Looper
12. Scissors and the Clay Ox (In)
13. Back to Saturn X
14. Mr. Japan
15. My Big Day
16. Our Value of Luxury
17. Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)
18. The Garden
19. Heartbeat

Guided by Voices released an album in 1992 called Propeller, however it was compiled from two album projects they were working on at the time, Back to Saturn X and The Corpse Like Sleep of Stupidity. In fact one of the tracks on Propeller was a "radio report" medley of tracks from the unreleased Saturn album. When Propeller first came out, it featured a ton of variations of the cover, each one basically being unique. The one I used was one of those unique variations. 

Guided by Voices - Learning to Hunt (1989)

 

1. Blue Gil

2. Turbo Boy

3. Soul Flyers

4. Let's Go Vike

5. Dust Devil

6. Uncle Dave

7. Settlement Down

8. We've Got Airplanes

9. I Can See It in Your Eyes

10. Long Way to Run

11. Where I Come From

12. Oh, Blinky

13. Telephone Town

14. The Lodger Carried a Gun

15. Soul Barn

16. Lonely Town

17. The Issue Presents Itself

18. Cox Municipal Airport Song

This is probably the most well known early unreleased album by Guided by Voices. Some of the songs would later go on to be on the album Self Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, and one song called Taco, Buffalo, Birddog, and Jesus would later go on to be an outtake for Bee Thousand and end up on my 2 LP version of that album. In 1995 when they were compiling their first box set, they added an exclusive album called King Shit and the Golden Boys. The first side contained two songs from the unreleased album Learning to Hunt and five songs from the unreleased album Back to Saturn X. The second side mops up outtakes from Bee Thousand.

Because the band had so much unreleased material, starting in 2000 they began releasing box sets as part of a series called Suitcase, named so in reference to band leader Robert Pollard's literal suitcases full of cassette tapes. I listened to the first two cause the years for the songs seemed to be well documented. However I was hoping to create an album in the style of their classic era, say 92-93, when a different era emerged. An earlier, poppier sound from them began to unfold in the era 87-89. And by that I just mean there was a lot more material. 

Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand (2 LP) (1994)

Side A:
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

Side B:
9. Gold Star for Robot Boy
10. Awful Bliss
11. Mincer Ray (samples Way to a Man's Heart)
12. A Big Fan of the Pigpen (samples 2nd Moves to Twin)
13. Queen of Cans and Jars
14. Her Psychology Today
15. Kicker of Elves
16. Ester's Day (samples At Odds With Dr. Genesis)
17. Demons Are Real
18. I Am a Scientist
19. Peep-Hole
20. You're Not an Airplane

Side C:
21. Crunch Pillow
22. Indian Was an Angel
23. Bite
24. Revolution Boy
25. Deathtrot and Warlock Riding a Rooster
26. 2nd Moves to Twin (full version)
27. Please Freeze Me
28. Scissors
29. Postal Blowfish

Side D:
30. Good For a Few Laughs
31. What Are We Coming Up To?
32. I'll Buy You a Bird
33. Twig
34. Curse of the Black Ass Buffalo
35. Do the Earth
36. Planet's Own Brand
37. Taco, Buffalo, Birddog, and Jesus
38. Supermarket the Moon

This is my answer to the question: What if Guided by Voices had released Bee Thousand as a double album like they intended? The Director's Cut was mostly based on an earlier version of it that was gonna have two LPs, but if we're really gonna imagine it as a double album, then the first two sides would be the two sides of Bee Thousand, the third side would be based on the second side of King Shit and the Golden Boys, and the fourth side mops up the rest of the best from the Director's Cut and the first Suitcase as well as the "I Am a Scientist" EP. 

For the second LP, I tried to stay away from songs that would later end up on an album, like "Don't Stop Now" on Under the Bushes, Under the Trees and "Crocker's Favorite Song" on Class Clown Spots a UFO. Though its track listing at 38 is the same as the abridged version of the Director's Cut. Just for reference, there were 64 songs that were at one point gonna be on Bee Thousand. Officially there were 65 but I couldn't find the last one. Some songs had multiple names though and one song (Scissors and the Blue Ox) was listed incorrectly.