Included in this are the singles Doughnut for a Snowman, Chocolate Boy, Keep It In Motion, Jon the Croc, Class Clown Spots a UFO, White Flag, Hangover Child, Everywhere is Miles from Everywhere, Flunky Minnows, Islands (She Talks in Rainbows), Trashcan Full of Nails, Xeno Pariah, Noble Insect, Vote For Me Dummy, The Littlest League Possible, Save the Company, Planet Score, Alex And The Omegas, Table At Fool's Tooth, Males of Wormwood Mars, Authoritarian Zoo, and All American Boy.
13 of the 30 b-sides are Tobin Sprout penned songs, so right off the bat there is a decent collection here since Sprout can't write a bad song it seems. Where Pollard wavers all over the place between absolute perfection and absolute garbage (though more leaning on the good side), Sprout has a narrower "just plain good" range. You can tell a Sprout song in the opening chords often. Pillow Man has the wavey groove many of his songs follow, with trademarked echo and fuzz vocals bleeding through the music. Where you would expect a big chorus, in this case there really isn't any, with the guitar chords themselves playing that part. Person reminds me of Let's Go Eat the Factory's Who Invented the Sun, but a little more held back and muted. Like Who Invented the Sun, Person is both quiet and pretty. Both Second Chance and As the Girls Sing Downing are fuzzed-out with a whisper of vocals hidden in the distance, with the latter being a fuzzed-out dream of a song with the added jangly guitar. It is definitely a grower that gets better on repeated listens.
Sprout channels a bit of folk and country on the ballads She Wore Blue and Green and Build a Bigger Iceberg, and he channels a darker dirge on Urchin Promise, Doctor Driver Demon, and Cheese and Blankets. The latter two are piano-based and don't really go anywhere, but Urchin Promise is a brooding track that crawls and it is quite different to Sprout's other work. One, Two, Three, Four is literally Sprout singing "one, two, three, four" over and over, and honestly if anyone can make that sound good, it is probably Sprout.
Three of the better Sprout songs are Breathing, Message from the Moon, and Waves of Gray. Breathing is a frolicking pop tune that would have not been out of place on the Class Clowns album proper, except maybe for its long (well, long for GBV) runtime. There is definitely something spacey about the minute-long Message from the Moon its over verse-verse-verse groove. Lasty, Waves of Gray is a piano-based ballad that has a beautiful ending of Sprout repeating "Calling waves of gray, woooowooo".
Mitch Mitchell has a couple of tunes he sings as well. I appreciate the happy tone to Mitchell's The World's Getting Smaller. It is a fun and heavy song with the words "The world's getting smaller, now what'cha going to do" being repeated. With A Year That Could Have Been Worse, a version of this song shows up on the Teenage Guitar (Robert Pollard solo) album More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush released in the same year. The Mitchell version is less straight forward rock, and more subdued but dynamic with additional layers of sounds, and I think the overall better version. Kevin March is also credited with the Cool Planet Theme; which does truly sound like a theme song and part of me wishes it found its way onto the Cool Planet album.
It is interesting that Robert Pollard probably has the weakest songs among the b-sides of this era, and I'll cover the best ones later. We can start with Without Necks which is a low-key track that is more poem than song. Similarly Pink Wings is kind of cool and has Pollard talking about pink wings over harmonized "ahhhs". I wasn't a fan of the album version of Worms w/ 7 Broken Hearts, so I am even a less of a fan of the "home-fi" version collected as a b-side. Apparently tracks originally intended for Pollard's solo Mouseman Cloud, Casino Model and Zero Film Negative are serviceable mid-tempo rockers that do sound more "solo-Pollard" than "GBV".
With Jellypop Smiles, the creepiest recorder adds madness to a sunny-sounding Pollard invoking some Circus Devils-like off-ness that, though interesting, would definitely throw things off on English Little League. With Full Framed Luberon there is yelling with weird grooves and sounds. I am so close to calling this a toss-away, but I feel that it is all entirely intentional and an experiment from an art perspective. Also at home on a Circus Devils album would be Eyesore Wives, though it is a bit more of standard rocker, but really heavy for Pollard and crew. Rounding out the not-so-great Pollard tracks are a fuller-band-sounding version of Little Jimmy the Giant, the piano-based but production choked See You Soon, and similarly poor production limited, but bouncy I'm Dancing Again.
There are three somewhat stand-outs from Pollard among the b-sides from this era. With So High the recorder part was added and mixed into the song Doughnut for a Snowman. This original song is a short but nice song in itself with a wonderful melody from Pollard. Fish on My Leg is a self-referential groover ("After a night in the Monument Club/figure it out/wolfbane and sauerkraut/I left it out on the blatant doom trip/clown prince of the menthol trailer/I forgot to sing it in break even"). It is quite catchy even if it isn't entirely meant to be taken seriously (or is it? I don't know). There really isn't a whole lot among these b-sides that is an obvious miss for making one of the six albums the classic line-up put out between 2012 and 2014, however, I am amazed that White World didn't make the cut! Wait, is that a cover of Debaser by The Pixies I'm hearing? After the Pixies-esque intro, White World jumps into a pop wonderland with horns and chords. It is such an upbeat and fun song, and I'm incredulous that it wasn't itself an album track, and honestly, a potential single itself.
Almost all of these singles are available on YouTube Music, so I'm guessing they are on other streaming music platforms as well. I do not own any of the singles, so that is how I access most of the songs (any missing were on YouTube proper). Given their quality, they are definitely worth checking out, but in most cases do not really compare that great compared to the songs that made the various albums. In the rankings below I also included the single the b-side can be found on.
You can read about the new ranking style here. And without further ado, here is the ranking of the b-sides from all the singles between 2011 and 2014:
Among Bob's Best
-- none
Gems
White World [2012 - Keep in it Motion]
Almost Gems
-- none
They're Good
So High [2011 - Doughnut for a Snowman]
Fish on my Leg [2011 - Doughnut for a Snowman]
As the Girls Sing Downing [2012 - Chocolate Boy]
Breathing [2012 - Jon the Croc]
Message From the Moon [2012 - Class Clown Spots a UFO]
Waves of Gray [2013 - Noble Insect]
A Year That Could Have Been Worse [Mitch Mitchell Version] [2014 - Males Of Wormwood Mars]
Eyesore Wives [2014 - All American Boy]
They're OK
One, Two, Three, Four [2011 - Doughnut for a Snowman]
Pink Wings [2012 - Chocolate Boy]
Casino Model [2012 - White Flag]
Zebra Film Negative [2012 - White Flag]
Urchin Promise [2012 - Hangover Child]
The World's Getting Smaller [2012 - Everywhere is Miles from Everywhere]
She Wore Blue and Green [2013 - Islands (She Talks in Rainbows)]
Build a Bigger Iceberg [2013 - Trashcan Full of Nails]
Little Jimmy the Giant [2013 - Xeno Pariah]
Person [2014 - Alex and the Omegas]
Pillow Man [2014 - Table At Fool's Tooth]
Cool Planet Theme [2014 - Authoritarian Zoo]
Could Live Without
Without Necks [2011 - Doughnut for a Snowman]
Worm w/ 7 Broken Hearts [home-fi] [2012 - Class Clown Spots a UFO]
Jellypop Smiles [2013 - Flunky Minnows]
Full Framed Luberon [2013 - Islands (She Talks in Rainbows)]
Doctor Driver Demon [2014 - Vote For Me Dummy]
Cheese and Blankets [2014 - Vote For Me Dummy]
Second Chance [2014 - Save the Company]
I'm Dancing Again [2014 - Alex and the Omegas]
Toss-Offs & Throwaways
See You Soon [2013 - Noble Insect]
Given the scoring above, the album would get 61 points total (and an average of 2.03).
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