Atom Eyes - Guided By Voices - Under the Bushes Under the Sky - 1996

Tobin Sprout's songs on the Guided by Voices albums that came out during the reign of the "classic" line-up are always a bit of an enigma. It seems inconceivable that an ego as outsized as Bob Pollard's could allow another songwriter, even a minor one, to have his moment in the spot light. Beyond that, Sprout's songs, while rarely bad (And this, along with Alien Lanes' "Little Whirl" is probably one of the two best), are generally pretty mundane affairs. Typically the fall into the niche of sub-REM mid-90's indie rock. Eschewing the arena rock gestures that always elevated GBV's lo fi days, Tobin's songs were...nice, and little more. And by and large they were interchangable, offering little sonic variation.

So again, the question is...how did they make it onto GBV albums that were already overflowing with tracks? I have no good answer...there is a temptation to say that Bob put them on the record to showcase how much they were inferior to his work...but that is hardly being fair to Uncle Bob. Also arguable is that Bob, always the coneisseur of the classic rock move, decided he needed a George Harrison to his Lennon/McCartney, a Spiral Stairs to his Malkmus...which isn't outside the realms of possiblility. Or perhaps Bob just liked Tobin's songs...we don't have an answer...instead, they just stand as interesting side alleys on albums already full of experiments, both succesful and less so.