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- Artist: Robert Pollard
- Rating:
- Release Date: May 18, 2004
- Type: Lyrics are included with the album
- Genre: Rock
Review
It was the spring of 2004, and since it had been nearly a month since Robert Pollard had released any new material, the mondo-prolific Guided By Voices leader decided it was high time he released another solo album, and so he turned to his frequent collaborator Todd Tobias -- occasional GBV keyboardist and producer, and member of one of Pollard's numerous side projects, Circus Devils -- for assistance. For Fiction Man, Pollard wrote the songs and handled the vocals, while Tobias was the producer and played all the instruments. If you're figuring the results sound like more of Pollard's smart, arty, and angular pop music, you'd be right as rain -- stylistically, Fiction Man lives in a middle ground between the joyously lo-fi grit of Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand, and the more muscular and rock-oriented approach of Earthquake Glue and Isolation Drills. Tobias' one-man-band arrangements manage to sound surprisingly organic in this context, and his ideas are admirably eclectic, from the graceful float of "Sea of Dead" and the big rock swing of "It's Only Natural" to the frenetic new wavishness of "I Expect a Kill." But while Fiction Man features 14 pretty good Robert Pollard tunes, there aren't any great Robert Pollard tunes, which is of course what always separates the wheat from the chaff in his ever-expanding body of work. In short, if you're a lifetime member of the GBV Army, Fiction Man will do nothing to change your mind about the frontman's genius, but it won't do much of anything to alter the opinions of the unconverted...then again, wait a month and maybe he'll have something else for everyone to listen to instead. ~ Mark Deming, All Music GuideTracks
| Track Title | Composers | Performers | Time |
| Run Son Run | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:27) |
| I Expect a Kill | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (1:46) |
| Sea of Dead | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:49) |
| Children Come On | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (1:27) |
| The Louis Armstrong of Rock and Roll | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:00) |
| Losing Usage | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (1:50) |
| Built to Improve | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:47) |
| Paradise Style | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (1:02) |
| Conspiracy of Owls | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:29) |
| It's Only Natural | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:18) |
| Trial of Affliction and Light Sleeping | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:27) |
| Every Word in the World | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (2:07) |
| Night of the Golden Underground | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (1:26) |
| Their Biggest Win | Robert Pollard | Robert Pollard | (4:05) |
