History Music / GuidedByVoices

The band was formed by guitarist/vocalist Robert Pollard, and mostly featured a large cast of other band members, chiefly because of Pollard's habit of recording with whoever was on hand or announcing the band's breakup and assembling a new lineup shortly afterwards. The classic lineup of the band consisted of founding members Pollard and guitarist Mitch Mithcell, with guitarist Tobin Sprout, bassist Greg Demos and drummer Kevin Fennell. This lineup was in place from 1986 to 1997, and then again from 2010 to 2014.

GBV's first release was the EP ''Forever Since Breakfast'' in 1986, which [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness was recorded in a professional studio and had a harmony-laden folk-rock sound not far removed from]] Music/{{REM}}. However, the EP sank without a trace, and Pollard grew to regret it, deriding it as "sterile". From next year's ''Devil Between My Toes'' on, GBV became a purely studio band (to accomodate Pollard's day job as a teacher), and gained its SignatureStyle: [[MinisculeRocking short songs]] written at [[ArchivePanic a blindingly fast pace]] recorded in a lo-fi manner (usually to a Portasound 4-track), and drawing influences from what Pollard called "the four P's": PunkRock, {{Pop}}, PsychedelicRock and ProgressiveRock (PostPunk, [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion Pthe Pbritish Pinvasion]] and [[GarageRock Pgarage Rock]] also provided an influence). The material released during this period tended to only circulate among friends and family members.

* EarlybirdCameo: "Back to Saturn X" from ''Propeller'' is a patchwork of song fragments named after the proposed album that was scrapped in favor of ''Propeller''. These were all eventually released, mostly as non-LP tracks, but "Chicken Blows" appeared on ''Alien Lanes'' and a very different "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" and radically reworked "Clean It Up" ("Tractor Rape Chain") appeared on ''Bee Thousand''. That version of the former ''Bee Thousand'' track was later released on ''Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft (2000)'' and a faster version of "Clean It Up", still barely recognizable as its ''Bee Thousand'' countepart, was released on ''Suitcase 4: Captain Kangaroo Won the War (2015).

* EarlybirdCameo: "Back to Saturn X" from ''Propeller'' is a patchwork of song fragments named after the proposed album that was scrapped in favor of ''Propeller''. These were all eventually released, mostly as non-LP tracks, but "Chicken Blows" appeared on ''Alien Lanes'' and a very different "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" and radically reworked "Clean It Up" ("Tractor Rape Chain") appeared on ''Bee Thousand''. That version of the former ''Bee Thousand'' track was later released on ''Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft (2000) and a faster version of "Clean It Up", still barely recognizable as its ''Bee Thousand'' countepart, was released on ''Suitcase 4: Captain Kangaroo Won the War (2015).

* EarlybirdCameo: "Back to Saturn X" from ''Propeller'' is a patchwork of song fragments named after the proposed album that was scrapped in favor of ''Propeller''. These were all eventually released, mostly as non-LP tracks, but "Chicken Blows" and a re-recording of "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" ended up on ''Alien Lanes'' and ''Bee Thousand'' respectively. "Clean It Up" appeared in a faster version on ''Suitcase 4: Captain Kangaroo Won the War'', having been reworked almost beyond recognition as "Tractor Rape Chain" for ''Bee Thousand''.

* EarlybirdCameo: "Back to Saturn X" from ''Propeller'' is a patchwork of demos. These were all eventually released, mostly as non-LP tracks, but "Chicken Blows" and a re-recording of "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" ended up on ''Alien Lanes'' and ''Bee Thousand'' respectively.

The band was formed by guitarist/vocalist Robert Pollard, and mostly featured a [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters large cast]] of other band members, chiefly because of Pollard's habit of recording with whoever was on hand or announcing the band's breakup and assembling a new lineup shortly afterwards. The classic lineup of the band consisted of founding members Pollard and guitarist Mitch Mithcell, with guitarist Tobin Sprout, bassist Greg Demos and drummer Kevin Fennell. This lineup was in place from 1986 to 1997, and then again from 2010 to 2014.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Try to keep track of everybody who has been in the band.

** "Our worst song is better than Weezer's best song!"

The band's "classic" Pollard-Sprout-Mitchell-Demos-Fennell lineup announced a reunion in 2010, and true to their prolific reputation they released ''six albums'' between 2012 and 2014 before breaking up once more. They announced another reunion in 2016 with a lineup that initially consisted of Kevin March in his third stint for GBV on drums, plus newcomers Bobby Bare Jr. (the son of CountryMusic legend Bobby Bare) and Nick Mitchell (no relation to Mitch) on guitars and Mark Shue on bass, before Mitchell was replaced by long-serving post-classic era guitarist Doug Gillard. The reunion included a tour and a new album, ''Please Be Honest''.

** On the reunion albums, most of Toby's tracks take this trope literally.

** Bob's songs on the last two albums aren't that straightforward, attributing to a new songwriting style.

** Not quite. Kevin had used Guided By Voices as a selling point for his kit. Bob wasn't too pleased with that.

[[caption-width-right:350: The "classic" line-up[[note]]L-to-R: Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell [[/note]]]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Try to keep track of everybody who was in the band.

* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Their main philosophy, but they weren't shy about taking influences from more complicated genres.