PLAYLIST: Motivational Advice From Your Guidance Counselors Guided By Voices

When you think about musical success stories, Guided By Voices probably isn’t going to be the first band to pop into your head. Or second. Or hundredth… But everyone knows that success is spelled M-O-N-E-Y in the record industry, and that really isn’t a fair way to assess the career of a group that mostly just seemed interested in being able to pay their bar tab every night.

Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, and the rest of the ever-changing lineup were seemingly able to do that at least most of the time during the thirty-ish year run of the band (before their most recent “break-up”), and given their continuous dedication towards reckless lo-fi abandon, small town ideals, and an (almost) never-ending production of new music, that’s got to be a success story if there ever was one.

Now, this might fall into the “small-town ideals” section, but something else that the guys seemed mighty dedicated towards was optimism. Admittedly, that can-do attitude was usually watered-down with some surreal goofiness, but if you really dig into it, Pollard and Sprout’s lyrics are packed with enough gloriously straight-forward motivational nuggets to turn Matt Foley’s face red. So, in honor of the twentieth anniversary of Alien Lanes, one of the greatest—and most inspirational—records of all time, here’s just a sampling of those words of wisdom (delivered in highly-appropriate motivational poster form) from across the band’s catalog in order to help you put your best foot forward…into a power stance.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, success is spelled G-B-V.

Listen at Spotify.