Guided by Voices “Alien Lanes” (1995)

Arguably better than Bee Thousand for its sequencing alone, Alien Lanes runs at breakneck speed and nestles the tiniest fragments of the group's highly fragmentary career in among some of their (his) all-time best cuts ("Watch Me Jumpstart," "(I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger," "Game of Pricks," "Closer You Are," "Motor Away," "Striped White Jets"), which appear in a particularly high ratio over the course of what, at nearly 42 minutes, must qualify as a lengthy record by GBV standards. There's the rub, though: it may be a little too long; even at what seems a comparatively more languid pace, Bee doesn't have any downtime like "Auditorium" or "King and Caroline:" before this one's 28-song onslaught has come to a close, I get the feeling it wouldn't have suffered from a six or seven cut grooming. So it's only the second best of their four or five classics. Blame Bob's usual lack of quality control. –Will