Guided By Ego

Let's talk about torrents. On second thought, let's listen to me talk about torrents. Those of you familiar with bit torrent downloads, keep reading. Those of you not familiar... well, if you don't already know, I'm not gonna tell you.

Okay, yes I will.

My music downloading habit began innocently enough-- a stuttering combination of Lime Wire for Mac ("Incredibly slow single song downloads! Buy full version!") and the occasional iTunes purchase. I don't know whom all of these untold millions are who regularly purchase individual song files, but I am surely not one of them. Like most music fanatics of my generation, I see an album as a whole piece of art, not a steady stream of interchangeable parts. Incidentally, if you think that that last sentence requires an explanation, you are most likely one of the aforementioned iTune buyers.

I became increasingly frustrated with this seemingly arcane format of downloading-- constant screen monitoring, apoplectic mouse clicking, trickling song downloads-- that I began to wonder where the savings was in acquiring music this way. It's no fun to get cheap stuff for free if it costs you your evenings.

And then a friend-- no, an angel, perhaps-- introduced me to the wonderful world of bit torrents.

Does anyone remember when the Nickleodeon channel held write-in sweepstakes for kids? If you won, they would cut you loose in a Toys 'R' Us with a shopping cart and, like, 60 seconds, and then they would televise your spree. Every kid always did the same (smart) thing, as if they had all been coached by the same child-loving production assistant: they raced maniacally up and down every possible aisle, sweeping their arms along the shelves, until they wound up with several carts full of junk that they couldn't possibly live enough lifetimes to play with.

That's like me, with bit torrents. Anything, just anything that might eventually be of consequence or minor enjoyment gets thrown in to the iCart. And things might not have gone this way, if not for one unique feature of bit torrenting-- a stark-raving mad example of the dangers of free music, a diabolical hidden capacity of brilliant programming-- the artist discography.

If you are a serious music lover, have never heard of discography torrents, and are in possession of disposable income, then I sadly recommend the following: Go to apple.com right now and buy the 160GB iPod-- you're going to need it, friend.

An artist discography torrent is exactly what it sounds like: you may be innocently searching for that mid-80's Lou Reed or early-90's Yo La Tengo album that's just impossible to find for free, and then you see it, all tarted up and link-highlighted, with the torrent name in all caps for the ultimate in suggestive downloading: LOU REED DISOCGRAPHY (1.8GB).

Your confused and outraged mind screams at you: "No, it can't be!" Or maybe it's something more like "After all this time!...." And then, you do what you must, what you cannot but do-- you download that sucker.

And it's a fucking religious experience. And within a year, you have an iPod meant to be filled with a combination of music and movies that is indeed full, but conspicuously absent of movie files. I've got 14,000 songs, folks, and 18G of space left on my 80G machine. Don't tell anyone.

Now, this is all very crazy, and sometimes humorous, but it has brought a different understanding of recording artists to my awareness. A musician, especially a prolific one, can really have their lives and careers laid bare before anyone inquisitive enough to look into all of their published works. I like it. It's given me a new perspective on Dinosaur, Jr., Sloan, Aesop Rock, XTC, Guided By Voices, lots of others.

Oh, that reminds me. Guided By Voices.

Until about a week ago, Lou Reed's discography was the largest one I'd pilfered, clocking in at a hefty, career-fulfilling 26 studio albums. To be sure, it is a staggering amount of music, and it speaks volumes about Lou's work ethic, staying power, and talent. Also, I have no idea how long it'll take me to get through it all, but I am able to listen large chunks of "shuffle all songs" every now and again while working. I consider deleting an album here or there, as it's clear I may never listen to it again, but the collector's indulgence of having an entire discography at my fingertips is still too juicy for me to let go of.

So there it is. Twenty-six unpaid for albums-- the most obvious testament to something that can only be referred to as a severe addiction, right there on my iPod, cover art and all.

Until about a week ago. That is when I began to catalog all of my discographies, make a playlist of them (called "Discographies"), wonder if I was missing anything that a collector with tastes like mine ought to have. And I realized that something major was being omitted-- Guided By Voices. Robert Pollard is the recording artist without whose career my current listening habits would likely be quite different. I know, without having heard most of his music, that he bears quite a bit of responsibility for the music-buying trends of that most ostentatious of rock subcultures: the hipster (If you don't believe me, check out my Last.fm widget, currently set to "Guided By Voices' similar artists"). Say what you like about hipsters (I may do the same in a future post), they produce and buy the best new rock out there, and my iPod is a slave to their tastes. Pitchfork Media-- you crazy, fickle, mercurial sons-of-bitches-- I am listening (P.S.: please stop giving redundant, boring, ambient-house-trance artists those unearned nine-point-whatever ratings. It's infuriating).

So, looking to find out why this man is so influential, to hear for myself the constant far-flung references so numerous on critics' blogs, I downloaded the GBV discography. Friends, when I tell you that the initial import contained 57 albums, and that these albums each had cover art to boot (meaning that they are official releases), please know that I am seriously not fibbing. Also, hours of tinkering in iTunes-- deleting live albums, poor-quality recordings, and narcissistic box sets-- left me with 41 studio albums.

Wait, go BACK and read that shit AGAIN.

41 albums! What the--?! Who the---?! Really, at first, I just didn't know what to think. Does Pollard have a army of loyal copycats trying to help him cement his legacy? Are there robots? How the hell does one man record so much music?! And then it hit me: there may be tens, hundreds of people who have recorded this much music in the last 2 decades, it's just that Bob Pollard is the only person who has released it all. This is Ani on a much larger scale: Pollard and DiFranco each have no inner editor, and no producer ballsy enough to tell them when an album, or a track, is shit. Ani runs her own label, so she just releases everything she records, whereas Robert Pollard is a megalomaniac.

As I sifted through the albums, listening to the first few seconds of songs, looking for chaff to cull with the "delete" key of fate, I stumbled upon this gem of a live show greeting: "Brighton! How are you? Tonight, I am going to teach you to make rock music."

Wow.

Could he be serious? Could one man really ask you to take every moment of his life's work seriously? The answer is: not only is he asking you to, he expects you to. The more you pick over his work, the more his ego seems to inflate. In his chords and rhythms, one hears a palatable smacking of the tongue, in his lyrics, a taunt. It is almost as if he is wringing his hands in some dark rocking-chair corner, saying to himself, "yessssssss........ lissssssssstennnn..." He is both serious and hysterical, alternating, within any single album, between songs which express the yearning of formative years, and the skepticism of looking back and learning from mistakes. He's damn good at pulling you in, but, lest you forget-- 41 ALBUMS!

You would think there would be some stinkers in there, and so far-- and I know this much-- you'd be right. Much to his chagrin, Pollard's releases are not all worth listening to, in fact some things are downright despicable in their intent, and by that I mean:

Bob, since you have refused to see any of your creations as unmarketable crap, you have tricked unwitting fans into buying unlistenable albums-- many times over. Yes, you are indeed a genius, but this does not forgive masturbating all over your fan base. Just because there are some people out there who want to own every thought you've ever had doesn't mean they should be able to, and not only that, but your character suffers for it.

You know, I've only heard legends about it, but I bet you're impossible to hang out with. The size of your discography is enough for me to make that judgement, unless you are 90 years old and have been wearing makeup all this time-- and I'm not sure, but I think you detest makeup.

I'm sure you said that exact thing somewhere in one of your lyrics, as you have released so many recorded lyrics that it is impossible to avoid having said everything ever (incidentally, you also love makeup).

Seriously, man, it's just too much stuff. What you've got here isn't a career-- it's an ego. The biggest ego I've ever seen in music-- and I know music and egos. Still, it'll be interesting to find out how much of your catalog is, in fact, worth buying, as I "shuffle all" through your dastardly maze and curse my addiction, and curse your eternal musical pregnancy.

And one of these days, maybe I'll even bring myself to see you perform live at one of your notorious Metro shows-- although, I don't know. My friend tells me that, on a recent visit, you sat on the edge of the stage, drinking beer, phoning it in, and generally harassing your die-hard fans, who have followed you through a literal shitstorm of releases that, as die-hard fans, they are more or less forced to purchase.

On second thought, Bob, I'm not really sure it matters much anymore. After all, I'm just another junkie waiting for the Pitchfork pusher to review your next release so that I can, you know, download it.

For free.

Think of it as payback for all the times you inadvertently but thoughtlessly asked thousands of broke kids to skip lunch for a week so they could buy an album of your afterthoughts and throw-away tracks.

Think of it as tough love.
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UPDATE: Pitchfork riffs on Pollard's over-productivity.