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

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).

I just did a first pass in 5 minutes and ended up with 28 tracks, which neatly leaves me two slots for discoveries in their recent output.

oh amazing, have just seen this is happening. will start putting a longlist together!

re 'fold your hands...' : fought in a war, leave the light on and the last three tracks are all timers

yeah i can agree the last three tracks were definitely the strongest section

two indisputable classics that haven't been mentioned itt: 'slow graffiti' and 'if you find yourself caught in love'. especially love the spitefulness of the latter.

'Slow Graffiti' is all time, agreed. Looking forward to putting a ballot together. I got off the bus after DCW (which I love).

Slow Gradditi is top five for me for sure. I don't read 'If you find yourself...' as particularly spiteful, just really straightforwardly christian.

Just re-listened to The Life Pursuit, actually really liked the first two thirds, but the end part really does sag. And heard Write About Love for the first time, not bad exactly, but almost nothing remotely memorable on the entire album.

Gradditi!

WAL might be their most consistent post-Jeepster album, just not a ton of super high highs.

I don't read 'If you find yourself...' as particularly spiteful, just really straightforwardly christian.

maybe more passive aggressive than spiteful, but it's always felt like it's baring it's teeth to me.

The only freedom that you'll ever really know
Is written in books from long ago

There is a comment on Youtube about this line which I found interesting:

If you read Martin Luther's "Freedom of a Christian," the answer is obvious. Murdoch is Calvinist, which isn't a huge difference. If you want to know what kind of "freedom" Murdoch is referring to, Luther wrote a pamphlet called.... something like "the slavery of free will," and Calvin was even more anti-free will, if that's even possible. If you want to read rebuttals written at a time to such a position, Erasmus the Humanist wrote some great ones to Luther, and I believe Cranmer (founder of Anglicanism) might have as well. So, there are a lot of key terms that only the "faithful" and those who have read the big (in this case) Protestant essays will catch. That's generally how evangelicals communicate with one another via "code."

"slow graffiti" is also top five for me

Oh wow, listening to Girls in Peacetime for the first time and four tracks in it's a real breath of fresh air after the previous two albums. I think part of the reason I never listened to it before was the terrible title, which was all bit God Help the Girl Keep Calm and Carry On.

Write About Love does have one non-Sarah track I really like, it turns out: the closer, Sunday's Pretty Icons.

the main issue with girls in peacetime is it's way too long (yet it doesn't feel as long as the life pursuit, though i may be the only person that thinks that). i enjoy just about everything on it regardless