Robert Pollard - Normal Happiness

In the entire span of his massively prolific career, Robert Pollard has never done anything other than write pop songs. In the 21 years since he began releasing material with now-defunct indie megastars Guided By Voices, he’s never strayed far from home base, releasing punch after glorious punch of two minute, brilliantly-conceived, poorly-recorded pop songs. So with nowhere to go but further in the same direction, and running as fast as he could, it was all but inevitable that at some point he would either fuck up or kill himself. And he did start to fuck up, somewhere around the turn of the millenium, when still fronting GBV and releasing what would be its last breath, Half Smiles of the Decomposed. So the fact that Bob’s latest material isn't on par with his past doesn’t come as any bit of a shock. The only question is, how much worse does he have to be before he becomes unlistenable? If you ignore the legacy, and take this record for what it is, then you have sixteen songs that run the gamut between sort of memorable and sort of forgettable, which puts it in the same spectrum as 95% of all indie rock. Every song here sounds like something Guided by Voices could do, but wouldn’t. And all the strongest songs, like the power pop anthem “Rhoda Rhoda” or the ironically-titled “Top of my Game,” which sounds eerily like a Lifter Puller song, demonstrate that Pollard still has talent, just not nearly as much. Just like you wouldn’t buy Frank Black's Fast Man Raider Man to preview The Pixies' sound, one can't expect Normal Happiness to be anything other than a far cry from Pollard's Guided By Voices-era output. But just like Black's solo records, neither does this warrant a “for die-hard fans only” tag. There’s certainly worse stuff you could listen to, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still love Robert Pollard. I mean, we all still love Joe Gibbs too, and the Redskins were what this year, like 5-11? [www.robertpollard.net]