POLLercoaster Ride - ILM Artist Poll #94 - Belle and Sebastian - Discussion/Campaigning Thread

What are people's opinions on the first Peel session? From memory, it started off with a halfassed throwaway about how much he likes the Go-Betweens (that didn't really show any Go-Betweens influence musically, to my ears), but the other three tracks were all pretty special, each in it's own way.

wait, there's a seven minute version of "judy is a dick slap"

i'm always with "i love my car" until that part that is pretty much straight up "piano man"

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 4:34 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't it start with that 6/8 break?

i try hard not to hold piano man against songs with descending whole step basslines in 6/8.

What are people's opinions on the first Peel session? From memory, it started off with a halfassed throwaway about how much he likes the Go-Betweens (that didn't really show any Go-Betweens influence musically, to my ears), but the other three tracks were all pretty special, each in it's own way.

― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 3:10 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i had never heard these before either! "magic of a kind word"... rules???

It's possible I get more mileage out of stuff about taking a Go-Between home to meet the parents than I should. I have a soft spot for "My Girl's Got Miraculous Technique" from that Peel Session, perhaps mostly for the pretty arrangement.

I just looked out the BBC sessions compilation to hear these again, and unfortunately the Radcliffe version of "I Could Be Dreaming" (the BEST version) fades out before the really interesting stuff. And "Just A Modern Rock Song" (again, the BEST version) is left off completely! Just gather all the early sessions in full and you'd have an alltime classic compilation, instead you get random whispers of magic, a bunch of so-so run throughs and a whole second disc given over to a live show by Belle & Sebastian, Professional Touring Rock Band. So no one ever reaches for the album that awesome all-originals Peel session kinda gets lost in the middle of it and forgotten about...

still love dear catastrophe waitress the most of their albums

"stay loose" is so wild and awesome and has so little precedent in their catalog

As far as later tracks go, I'm a big fan of "The Blues are Still Blue."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 9:00 AM

I heard this once or twice on the radio, around the time the album came out, and have always remembered it (it's lived in the very back of my head. Revisiting it now, good song! (What's that "rock 'n roll voice" he affects? I don't dislike it...)

it’s marc bolan

Ah cool. I definitely notice a broader swatch of "influences"/references/homages at this stage in their career (even if I'm not savvy enough to pinpoint them all).

Speaking of which, you all have me (happily) going through their records after many years and was listening to I Want the World to Stop this morning. Thought the intro sounded familiar and finally realized it was referencing Frankie Valli's "The Night" (the "the night, the night" refrain should have been a clue in hindsight). So good (can never listen to the Night enough).

still love dear catastrophe waitress the most of their albums

― princess of hell (BradNelson),

my boo

Man, the last quarter-or-so of Push Barman is a SLOG. Except for the hilarious “I Love My Car.”

That's funny - I was just seguing from "Jonathan David" to "Take Your Carriage Clock..." as you posted that.

I just skimmed through it, and all it did was confirm that the only EP tracks of theirs that I've ever loved are "Lazy Line Painter Jane" and "This is Just a Modern Rock Song."

The song "Lazy Line Painter Jane" is terrific, one of their best. I find it, like, almost physically moving, somehow.

I think that monstrous coda is what finally convinced me to buy something. (Sinister though, which was easier to find.)

Everything about it works beautifully -- the organ, the reverb, the other singer (she's great!); the chorus, the coda, the chord changes; the organ coming in again; that sinister little up-and-down bassline hook...

...which the organ picks up & plays along with the bass a few times to close it out! Fuck, that's great

thinking it'll take the top spot

Jonathan David tuneless???

If anything it has too much tune

ha that's otm

Monica Queen's bit in "Lady Painter" reminds me a bit of Maria McKee or Patty Loveless.

The Lazy Line bsides are phenomenal as well!! Well, not "a century of Elvis"

I like “Photo Jenny” a lot — it’s sort of a ground-zero B&S song. (What’s that line; “It’s 1995, the girls are just friends”?)

I like when the Stuart M. narrator figure seems aware of his own creepiness.

I can't imagine they'll make my ballot, but the Peacetime offcuts "Two Birds" and especially "A Politician's Silence" were album-worthy.

I like “A Century of Elvis.” Anyone read Stuart David’s novels?

Sent my ballot

Incidentally, I'll be trying to do data entry as we go and acknowledging receipt quickly. If you don't see a response in 48 hours or so, certainly feel to check.

Also happy to amend ballots if you belatedly realise you forgot "La Pastie de la Bourgeoisie" (Other tracks too, probably)

Er, "feel FREE" even.

I definitely notice a broader swatch of "influences"/references/homages at this stage in their career (even if I'm not savvy enough to pinpoint them all).

Mixed feelings about this period because the songs are some of their best (Blues Are Still Blue (T-Rex), Jonathan David (Love), Stay Loose (Squeeze/Attractions), I'm A Cuckoo (Thin Lizzy), that Simon & Garfunkel one on Storytelling, etc - but they really lost their own sound. And this period followed the loss of some major band members too so it perhaps communicates a lack of confidence in what they were doing.

but they really lost their own sound.

that kinda fits in with something that stuck out to me from the Sinister pitchfork doc. it was two different anecdotes, one by Stuart and another by someone else in the band (I forget)

Stuart said something along the lines of songs, the very best songs, being ones that were important to the songwriter and where they were really trying to express something. "songs that mean something", iirc. that sounds really obvious and lame when i paraphrase it, but it was better than that.

separately, another band member mentioned that he really felt like stuart dumped all of his loneliness and repression from chronic fatigue syndrome into those first two albums, like he had all of these things he really had to get out of him. and that after that, it was when he opened up the songwriting and singing to other members of the band.

those two things together made a lot of sense for me, thinking about their progression as a band. those first few releases are really special in a way that was hard for them to recapture later.

i really do enjoy some of the latter day material on its own terms but it usually doesn't have that same quality of feeling like songs that really MEAN something to the writer, although of course it's all subjective

“a century of fakers” still totally blows my mind

Monica Queen's bit in "Lady Painter" reminds me a bit of Maria McKee or Patty Loveless.

Her vocal section in 'Lazy Line Painter Jane' is the only time in one of Murdoch's songs where a female character that he observes from a distance actually seems to come to life and have a voice and energy of their own.

https://youtu.be/4de-RHHLCBA
Just watched this and it was really good!

I'm in a full fledged B&S reverie

From memory, it started off with a halfassed throwaway about how much he likes the Go-Betweens (that didn't really show any Go-Betweens influence musically, to my ears)

― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Tuesday, 27 November 2018 22:10 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is one of my favourites and will almost certainly make my ballot. It makes me grin all over. I love the loose improvised feel of the lyrics (in that respect it's reminiscent of the gaucheness of a song like Karen). "Now I'm in a band people try to make me do things / Kiss arses and pay tribute" Come ON. Felt like a massive sonic surprise at the time, at once a callback to their earliest spoken word experiments and pointing elements of a new direction beyond the chamber pop thing they were starting to overhone on Fold Your Hands.

sarah martin is the secret mvp of the later records imo

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 22:02 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Waiting for the Moon to Rise absolutely melts me. I Didn't See it Coming is the only song I can remember from Write About Love. She is great.

How many times do I have to listen to The Life Pursuit before it stops washing over me?

listened to Fold Your Hands for the first time in forever but it still didn't leave much of an impression on me. it's low-key even by their standards and certainly one of their weakest records

Monica Queen's bit in "Lady Painter" reminds me a bit of Maria McKee or Patty Loveless.

― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 November 2018 02:20 (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember hearing this for the first time: "Blimey, someone who can actually sing!"

Fold Your Hands was the first B&S album I bought, definitely their weakest up to that point but there are a couple of tracks I'm sure I'll be voting for.

I revisited the EP collection last night, I haven't listened to a lot of this stuff in a long time but it turns out a lot of the lyrics are very deeply ingrained in my memory (as well as lots of little things like that one background "I dunno" in Photo Jenny).

Waiting for the Moon to Rise absolutely melts me. I Didn't See it Coming is the only song I can remember from Write About Love. She is great.

― Alba, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 11:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and all of her songs on girls in peacetime are the best songs on the record!

me last night: "is 'beautiful' actually the best b&s song"

Thanks to this thread I now have 109 B&S songs on my phone

I need to spend a little more time with the new EP set, also.

First draft ballot is now up to 39 songs.

(And I'm no longer sick: these two things are no coincidence).