Thursday, November 26, 2020

RE:SCORE - Guided By Voices: Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft: DISC ONE (2000)

TOTAL SCORE: 48, AVG: 1.92

Parsing through the Suitcase releases is a lot of work, but luckily I did most of that already in my original post for the 1st disc of Suitcase 1, so please refer to that for details. The first disc of Suitcase includes the amazing Bunco Men, but just recently a new and slicker version of Bunco Men has appeared on Guided By Voices' 2020 album Mirrored Aztec. The most annoying thing about the song was the incredibly low volume it is recording at which makes it tough to include on playlists or whatnot, so I'm going to start using the Mirrored Aztec version from now on...

    Spring Tigers and Pink Drink round out the most essential songs on the 1st disc, with the former having a softer and slower (and not quite as good) version on Get Out of My Stations. I think I'll hold off on checking out The Crawling Distance version of It's Easy when I get to reviewing it, and both Pluto the Skate and Sabotage appear elsewhere; Sabotage on the Hazzard Hotrods album, and there is a revamped Boston Spaceships version of Pluto the Skate on Zero to 99 that is still not spectacular by any means.  

    I love Dorothy's a Planet, but the Boston Spaceships version on Planet's Are Blasted is the ultimate version, and I have both James Riot and Flesh Ears from June on my "They're Good" list. I know James Riot is considered a classic and one of the bigger what-if's in GBV canon, but the recording quality really does hurt it here. Here is the updated ranking:

    Among Bob's Best
    07 Bunco Men

    Gems
    -- none

    Almost Gems
    13 Pink Drink
    17 Spring Tigers

    They're Good
    01 The Terrible Two
    09 Dorothy's a Planet
    14 James Riot
    19 Flesh Ears from June

    They're OK
    02 Bloodbeast
    03 The Kissing Life
    11 Let's Go Vike
    22 Have It Again
    23 Little Jimmy the Giant
    24 Taco, Buffalo, Birddog And Jesus

    Could Live Without
    04 Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)
    05 Tear It Out
    08 Bad and Rare
    10 Pluto the Skate
    12 Sabotage
    15 It's Easy
    16 Dank Star Ground Control
    18 Born on Seaweed
    21 My Big Day [3 versions]
    25 Ding Dong Daddy (Is Back From The Bank)

    Toss-Offs & Throwaways
    06 Cinnamon Flavored Skulls
    20 Driving In The U.S. of A.

    Given the scoring above, Disc 1 would get 48 points total (and an average of 1.92). 

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