I first encountered Guster in the late 90s when I returned to college after a brief hiatus in retail. Lost and Gone Forever was some of the most genius music I had heard in a long time. The 1990s were extremely wanting in terms of commercial music, but if you did a little digging, you could find bands like Guster, Barenaked Ladies, and Indigo Girls.
I do not have the least bit of hesitation grouping Guster in with the other two stellar Indie Rock talents. I actually wrote a glowing review of Guster's Lost and Gone Forever for a communications class in college, and I got an A.
Guster as a band has fairly common impetus, college friends making it big and all that, but their lyrics and musicianship are what keep me coming back for more. Guster was very big on the Internet. They became very astute at connecting with fans from the very earliest days of the online music gambit. They became a band that broke through the bland bandwitdh of pop with some indie-folk rock songs with heart.
I have to be honest, that I often am lost when I look for new music, but I actually found out that Guster had a new album through an ad on facebook. (Yes, I was Zuckerburged.) I clicked through and downloaded the free file "Bad Bad World," and completely dug it, so I splurged on the full ablum, Easy Wonderful on iTunes later that same day.
I could hardly stop listening to it after I bought it. It had been months since I had bought anything new, and this album was really good. Though the band doesn't really discuss the meaning behind its lyrics, I get the impression that some of these songs are a social critique. Consumerism, Politics, Religion. They all have some sort of thing to say about all of the big topics.
The album is actually playing as I write this, and I keep slapping my forehead, "Oh gosh, that's what they're talking about."
I highly recommend this album if you like to be intellectually stimulated by your music. And if not, the songs are still catchy and good on a superficial level.
Guster on Wikipedia
Easy Wonderful on iTunes
Video link for "Do You Love Me?"
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