Artist Bio

Inspired equally by jangle pop and arty post-punk, Guided by Voices created a series of trebly, hissy indie rock records filled with infectiously brief pop songs that fell somewhere between the British Invasion and prog rock. Led by songwriter and lead singer Robert Pollard, the Dayton, Ohio-based band recorded six self-released albums between 1986 and 1992 that attracted a handful of fans within the American indie rock underground. With the 1994 release of Bee Thousand, the group became an unexpected alternative rock sensation, winning positive reviews throughout the mainstream music press and signing a larger distribution deal with Matador Records. Initially, the bandmembers stuck to their aesthetic, continuing to record their albums on cheap four-track tape decks, but by 1999, Pollard recruited new bandmates, moved up to a larger label (TVT), and began working with name producers in real studios (Ric Ocasek was at the controls for Do the Collapse). Despite this, Pollard's melodic sensibilities changed very little, and when the band moved back to Matador for 2002's Universal Truths and Cycles, they learned to strike a middle ground between more professional technique and Pollard's spontaneous, compact songcraft. GbV broke up in 2004, reunited in 2010 in a lineup dominated by Bee Thousand-era sidemen, broke up again in 2014, and came back a second time in 2016 with a new lineup that proved to be one of the strongest in the group's long history.

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