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

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

There's a kind of fatigue I associate with B&S - particularly with Fold and, it turns out, Life Pursuit. Fatweegue?

Sorry.

lol

oh, one song no one's mentioned yet that... may top my list, idk, is "if she wants me"

"if i could do just one near-perfect thing i'd be happy" is my favorite stuart murdoch lyric no contest

Life Pursuit could def lose a couple tracks from the back half pretty painlessly, but no more than that

"If She Wants Me" is in my top ten for sure, beautiful song and a lovely sentiment too

Was reading this nytimes profile - learned that he credits a faith healer for part of his recovery, also that “Take Your Carriage Clock” was about Isobel?

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/magazine/28Murdoch-t.html

These polls make me wonder how methodically everyone puts together their ballots. I tend to slap mine together a bit haphazardly, running on gut instinct, because if I start to think about it too much I'll never get it done.

i tend to listen to as much of the discography as possible, then cull a playlist of what i'm definitely voting for, and then agonize over placement daily until the deadline

of the later b-sides, i looooooove "desperation made a fool of me," that could've easily been on dcw

I fuss over selection but, outside the top 5 or so, not that much over placement. I do try to throw extra points to stuff i assume will be overlooked, which in this case will mostly be later stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMQuIALumVk

i love it so much

the top comment is a yikes from me fam

my girlfriend can relate to this song so much because i'm a horrendous liar and I enjoy, and thrive off of her pain and despair.

I've had a few drinks tonight and tried to make a list and it's everything before Modern Rock Song. I don't really understand this band after that.

Anyone planning to vote for any 'side project' songs? I'm a huge Looper fan, and like some of Isobel Campbell's albums a lot. But I couldn't with honesty rank any of their songs above my favorite 30 B&S songs.

The idea of listening to B-sides is like being told, "We're having a 10-course meal tonight with wine pairings."

Gluttonous? But they're so wispy!

"Mornington Crescent" is their best closer imho.

i like and respect this opinion. however, it's "stay loose" and/or "the rollercoaster ride"

write about love is prob my favorite production they've ever had, a lot of really crisp details and the arrangements really wander through space, but the songs are just... there, for the most part. i loooooooove "i didn't see it coming" and "i want the world to stop"

it's weird, they deescalate from life pursuit and make a record of subtleties and shadows and it should work but they end up as kind of self-erasing songs (how does "calculating bimbo" go?)

i also love the boxy snare tone on this record it's obnoxious

XXXP: I meant to ask on the first day whether a separate 'other projects' side poll was in order. I guessed interest levels would be modest. But setting them up to compete directly against the main attraction possibly isn't ideal.

This while 'Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner' was hanging around waiting to be thrown away on a b-side.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

I never could understand why this song wasn't a single. I first heard it performed live, and my first thought was, "how have I never heard this song before??"
And the reason of course, is that it was buried as a B-side. And that the recorded version packs none of punch that the live version had.

In any case that song is top 5 me, for sure.

Also XXXP about the side projects: I prefer the version of "Funny Little Frog" that's on the God Help The Girl album, so that song is gonna make my tracks poll.
Never got into looper though.

Back when I first got into B&S, I was trying to convince a friend of mine to check them out. He did, and he didn't like them. When I went to visit him later, I saw that he had bought 2 CD's: Fold Your Hands and the first Looper album, and I thought, oh no wonder, you bought exactly the wrong 2 albums.

"I Didn't See It Coming" is probably their very best non-Murdoch song, a real late career highlight.

"Mornington Crescent" is their best closer imho.

i like and respect this opinion. however, it's "stay loose" and/or "the rollercoaster ride"

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Thursday, 29 November 2018 01:56 (one hour ago) Permalink

judy and her dream of horses say hello