Album · Guided By Voices
Alien Lanes by Guided By Voices
Alien Lanes is an album by Guided By Voices, released in 1995. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 15 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “My Valuable Hunting Knife”, on 10 lists with a best position of #201.
Alien Lanes, Guided by Voices' eighth full-length album, came out on April 4, 1995, their first for Matador, and the contrast in the deal is the stuff of legend. The label's advance ran close to a hundred thousand dollars, among the priciest signings it had made, while by band member James Greer's account in his GBV history, the recording itself cost roughly ten dollars if you don't count the beer.
That's the Dayton band's lo-fi creed in a nutshell: Robert Pollard's songs true to the group's four-track roots, most of them gone before you've caught the chorus, with Mitch Mitchell and Kevin Fennell in the ranks. Scraps of British Invasion pop, garage and prog flicker past in a blur. "My Valuable Hunting Knife" is the one the countdowns keep coming back to, with "Motor Away", "Game of Pricks" and "A Salty Salute" also getting their turns.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Alien Lanes on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | My Valuable Hunting Knife | 10 | #201 | – | 1999–2023 | |
| 2 | Game of Pricks | 3 | #478 | – | 2019–2022 | |
| 3 | Motor Away | 1 | #139 | – | 1999 | |
| 4 | A Salty Salute | 1 | #575 | – | 2024 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.