Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

Hmmm, I guess I just outed myself . . . I hope we can still be friends, Ned. : )

DESTROY: all their boring slow songs, "Lord Anthony", "Asleep on a Sunbeam", "Lazy Line Painter Jane", "You Made Me Forget My Dreams", every single one of their album titles but especially Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant

In short, I would love to hear some of their songs tackled by voices that don't inspire playground-bully fantasies.

And now, of course, an obligatory dig at the fans: people who like B&S strike me as a more self-conscious subset of people who like RENT.

i gotta say they were never the same after isobel left. (this may just be a coincidence)

I don't get all this anti-twee stuff. If I think about it, I think that the twee connection is something I like about B&S, on the whole.

But these things are contingent, and personal.

Am I alone in thinking that Dear Catastrophe Waitress just towers over every other album they've yet made?

(xpost)

hahaha! this is my default shower song!

also I'd like to defend Fox In The Snow and Lord Anthony.

There isn't really a bad song on IYFS. Well, maybe The Boy Done Wrong Again, but it's not a BAD song.

Destroy: Everything else, the smug fuckwits.

xpost to myself.

the original question is a chilling one, brrr.

Seriously, what else is there?

It rather reminds me of all the black-clad, multiply-pierced clove-smokers who'll swear on a stack of Bauhaus records that they're not g*ths. Denial's not just a river in Egypt, it would seem.

Search 'The State That I Am In'
Destroy 'Beyond The Sunrise'.

But also destroy 'Storytelling' while you're there.

Listening again to DEAR CATASTROPHE WAITRESS - some of it is probably the kind of thing that's improved by a decent hi-fi (which I now have), seems to have more point this way. But 'Asleep On A Sunbeam', my goodness, that is BAD and lame by any lights.

DCW IIRC is OK but has two songs that suck beyond belief - namely the title-track and "If You Find Yourself Caught In Love"

"Seeing Other People" is a fkn brilliant song, on the other hand.

I like 'Caught In Love', and don't find anything wrong with the title track

We disagree. Hurrah!

No bad tracks on DCW. Oh, apart from "Lord Anthony" of course.

I liked that one!

I quite like it too. This LP seems oddly divisive.

Actually I don't of course like the religious hectoring of 'caught in love', but I do still like the wilfully-naive (?) verse about foreign wars.

I also think the *arrangement* of 'Lord Anthony' is pretty marvellous.

Having just heard the end of the LP I am struck by sense of B&S as *performers*. On stage: they went from shambolic-could-hardly-play band (so I'm told) to astonishingly competent instrument-swappers. But also on record: they seem more and more to have become imitators (easy to say that), a band *performing* making music somehow, trying out guises and succeeding, putting on a show. The impression is very different from the early work (though maybe lots of that - 'You're Just A Baby', 'Electronic Renaissance' - was actually genre-essaying 'performance' too?), as most know. It's impressive, and can be enjoyable, but still an odd pop experience. But some of the oddity does testify to their abilities and ambition, not just to decline.

Then again, look at the time: 5 years already since DCW; DCW was only, what, 7 years after Sinister. Time always speeds up, or slows down, that way.

http://a615.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/48/l_886be3a1938bb32a3508ffc2ca534246.jpg

Disc 1 – Radio Sessions: The State I Am In, Like Dylan In The Movies, Judy and the Dream of Horses, The Stars of Track and Field, I Could Be Dreaming, Seymour Stein, Lazy Jane, Sleep The Clock Around, Slow Graffiti, Wrong Love, Shoot The Sexual Athlete, The Magic of a Kind Word, (My Girls Got) Miraculous Technique

Disc 2 – Live in Belfast: Here Comes The Sun, Theres Too Much Love, The Magic of a Kind Word, Me and the Major, Wandering Alone, The Model, Im Waiting For The Man, The Boy With the Arab Strap, The Wrong Girl, Dirty Dream 2, Boys Are Back in Town, Legal Man

INTERESTING though wait a miute not all the Peel session tracks are on here - even I can tell that.

minute

Trying to make a mix for a male friend who I think needs some B&S in my life. Anything missing?

My Wandering Days are Over
Expectations
She’s Losing It
Lazy Line Painter Jane
Dog on Wheels
Seeing Other People
Me & the Major
Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying
If You’re Feeling Sinister
Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
Mayfly
Is It Wicked Not To Care?
Dirty Dream Number Two
The Boy With the Arab Strap
Legal Man
Family Tree
Step into My Office, Baby
If She Wants Me
Piazza, New York Catcher
White Collar Boy
The Blues are Still Blue
Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It

NB I didn't put things like The Boy Done Wrong Again because he's got this idea that they are a sappy folk band, I'm trying to show him they know how to have fun.

well my favorites include:

The State That I Am In, Electronic Renaissance, String Bean Jean, A Summer Wasting, Ease Your Feet In The Sea, Beautiful, Simple Things, Sleep The Clock Around, I'm a Cuckoo, Big John Shaft, Jonathan David, Storytelling, Photo Jenny, This Is Just a Modern Rock Song, Slow Graffiti, Pocketbook Angel

I don't like these ones as much: Dog on Wheels, Mayfly, Legal Man (I know it's harder rock), White Collar Boy (I know it's harder rock), Family Tree, The Blues are Still Blue, Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It

But Finefinemusic, their lyrics are mostly sappy. If I cared at all about the lyrics being sappy though I wouldn't be listening to Belle and Sebastian in the first place. I don't care. The only time the lyrics bother me is when something awkwardly stand out like in The Model when he sings "it was the best sex she ever had". If it wasn't for that line it would be a great song.

btw, 'God Help The Girl' soundtrack by Stuart has leaked

If you're trying to prove that they're not a sappy folk band, "Stay Loose" or "Your Cover's Blown" would be ideal, I think.

God Help The Girl

After the success of the most recent Belle And Sebastian album, "The Life Pursuit", band leader/singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch decided to pursue his dream of writing a rock musical scored for female singers. After auditioning vocalists via Internet contests, he made his choices and, with all members of Belle And Sebastian backing him up, recorded this breathtaking record. It combines the strengths and feel of early Belle And Sebastian records in a broader musical palette, which draws equally on musicals, 60s girl groups, 80s indie, and most of all, classic pop.

of the ones I mentioned the least folky are: Simple Things, Sleep The Clock Around, Electronic Renaissance, Slow Graffiti

xxxp I respectively disagree, I think they tread a nice line of sinful and repentant.. "A sharp suit and a clip-on tie, a big arrow pointing to my fly," "She said you ain't ugly, you can kiss me if you like.." "Saint Theresa's calling her, the church up on the hill is looking lovely," etc. I like their sappy stuff but I don't think it's nearly as infectious and easy to approach as the poppier stuff... I've never really given Storytelling a listen and I see you've mentioned a few songs from there, will check them out -t hanks!

jaymc I forgot about YCB, that's a great one but maybe too disco-y for this dude (likes include: Public Enemy, Propoghandi, Gwar) - might stick it in anyway. Never heard Stay Loose! Now I am intrigued.. as well as this God Help the Girl compilation I never heard of, wow!

I feel that you aren't going to impress him by playing the hardest or most electronic Belle and Sebastian songs. I would stick with the best ones that aren't annoying or boring (Legal Man is annoying. And this guy probably won't like Belle and Sebastian anyways.. so it really doesn't matter.

We were cottaging this weekend and he was into The Blues are Still Blue, which is one you don't seem to like. Legal Man annoying? Or fantastic? I seem to love the stuff that you don't.. but I wouldn't consider any of it hard rock! :)

that's also one of my favourite cure songs

also a fan of the tv series

cat with the cream really is wonderful

Yes great TV series for sure! :D

devvvine: 'cat with the cream' is a really unusual song, quite mysterious, quite slow burning, a complex construction, and even in its lyric its meanings seem ambiguous. But I think it may be the most ambitious, accomplished and stimulating work on that LP.

Still, I see B&S as Murdoch’s band, and its decline runs parallel with Murdoch’s retreat from Glasgow’s hipster community into staid domestic stability.

xp indeed, a very promising road absolutely not taken from what i've heard from the last few records

Enochroot's top 10 B&S songs since 2010:

A Bit of Previous
Juliet Naked
Working Boy in New York City
Unnecessary Drama
I Want The World To Stop
Play For Today
Do It For Your Country
Nobody's Empire
Every Day's A Lesson in Humility
I'll Be Your Pilot

I tried to come up with a top 10 since 2010, but I could only manage 7 tracks (which gives a good idea of when I lost interest, though I still torrent each new release).

Born to Act
Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John
Sunday’s Pretty Icons
I Want the World to Stop
The Ghost of Rockschool
Enter Sylvia Plath
Play for Today

"Come On Sister" (ctrl-f: 0 results) is not only one of their best post-2010 but I'd slot it comfortably in their all-time top 10.

I don't even know some of those.

And I don't think I knew there was a song called 'a bit of previous' !

The quality of their releases also correlates with who they chose to put on the cover of the album/EP: friends >>> models >>> fans

It correlates with their cover art in general. In 2014 I read one of those DIY articles "How to hang vinyl records on your wall" and I hung up all of B&S’s albums and most of their EPs. Visitors to my home loved it. But then Girls in Peacetime came out and there was no way I was going to display that shit.

I thought the last two LP covers were a slight step up in quality.

some classic era singles and EPs have crap covers - Dog On Wheels, I'm Waking Up To Us, Jonathan David

Not sure I agree with the view that B&S cover art has declined.

Is WRITE ABOUT LOVE much worse than SINISTER? Both are nice.

Unlike poster Camaraderie, I find that DOG ON WHEELS has a magnificent cover - perhaps the most charming in their career.

But then TBWTAS itself has a cover that has always put me off, an ugly picture that says little about the contents and is only redeemed by the deep green cover.

And I'm not sure that the FOLD YOUR HANDS cover is better than THE LIFE PURSUIT.

Maybe more recent 'display the fans' is poor but then LATE DEVELOPERS (which I've never seen in reality) feels like an ep cover from 20+ years earlier.

Overall I think the covers have maintained quite a lot of continuity while also all looking different from each other (due to the colours).

A point that in Sinister List days would have been massively discussed and now maybe never has been:

'If They're Shooting At You' deliberately reuses the melody and chords of the bridge of 'Poor Boy' for its bridge or maybe pre-chorus.

It's a rare case of a songwriter flagrantly repeating the same musical material and presumably feeling it was OK do so. Maybe because few remember 'Poor Boy' anyway.