Cheap Trick if they were 10 times smarter

New Guided by Voices CD is what Top 40 would sound like in a better world

Guided by Voices rose to semi-prominence in the mid-90s with music recorded in basements on four-track cassette recorders. The group's leader (and only permanent member), Robert Pollard, has boasted that their 1995 album Alien Lanes cost $10 to record. Underneath the tape hiss, however, there were always great pop songs, even if they generally averaged less than two minutes in length.

With Do the Collapse, Pollard has made the leap into slick, radio-ready pop. Ex-Cars frontman and producer to the stars, Ric Ocasek was brought in to oversee the album, and all the songs have beginnings, middles and ends. There is even a power ballad (the startlingly non-ironic "Hold on Hope"). This will undoubtedly alienate some of the GBV faithful and, to be fair, the release is not as quirky or charming as the older albums. What this album is, however, is one of the best pop albums to be released in a very long time, and proof that Pollard is one of the best songwriters of whatever generation you consider him a part of (he's 41 but has done his most well-known work since 1994).

There might not be one standout track on this disc as good as "Portable Men's Society" or "Tractor Rape Chain," but there is not one dud on the disc and absolutely no self-indulgence. Pollard seems to be an unending source of melodies and, even though he puts out several albums worth of material a year, he never seems to repeat himself. Every song on Do the Collapse has a memorable melody, from the big power pop of "Teenage FBI" and "Surgical Focus" to the more introspective songs like "Things I Will Keep" and "Wormhole."

Ocasek's new wave-style synth lines give the record a little extra color, but they are mostly peripheral. Guitarist Doug Gillard (the only other holdover from the last Guided by Voices lineup) makes the biggest instrumental contribution. His jagged, edgy and melodically inventive leads keep the album from slipping into easy listening territory.

The overall sense one gets from this record is that this is what Cheap Trick might have sounded like if they were about 10 times smarter. It would probably be a bad thing if everything Pollard did were this slick, but it's nice to hear at least one example of what Top 40 music might sound like in a better world.*