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

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

Glad to see some love for '...Middle Distance Runner.' It's high on my ballot and again memories of live renditions heard before the B-side recording are partly responsible. (Though I'm not sure how that happened: I've never seen them in the flesh and don't recall stumbling on many live recordings in dark turn-of-the-century days.)

(how does "calculating bimbo" go?)

Ha I kinda love that one, mostly for the "rich girl creamy parchment paper" middle eight thing

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

― ufo, Wednesday, November 28, 2018 8:18 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the other sarah martin song, "i can see your future," is also wonderful

i also really like "sunday's pretty icons" and sorta wish the entire album was more like it

the first five tracks on girls in peacetime are all so awesome, they feel like a completely new band that's also capable of reaccessing their old mystery ("nobody's empire," "the cat with the cream")

Glad to see some love for '...Middle Distance Runner.' It's high on my ballot and again memories of live renditions heard before the B-side recording are partly responsible. (Though I'm not sure how that happened: I've never seen them in the flesh and don't recall stumbling on many live recordings in dark turn-of-the-century days.)

Possibly you heard it on TV: long before the studio version was released they did a great version of it on a fin-de-millennium revival of The Tube on Sky 1 called Apocalypse Tube (presented by Chris Moyles and Donna Air!)

I love “Outer Bongolia” but can’t imagine ever thinking about it in a poll about B&S

Also I played B&S around the house past two days and bf does Not Like Them

Their slack approach on those first three albums and 3xEPs really needs the try-hard context of 1996-1998 for the revolution to really be understood

Is it so slack? Most of it sounds pretty intricate to me.

both tigermilk and sinister were recorded and mixed in a matter of days fwiw.

The outro of Dylan In the Movies is sloppy af

Yes It Is Slack

"This Is Just A Modern Rock Song" is so slack that I sometimes can't believe that it was actually recorded and released. A friend of mine likes to talk about how Beat Happening are "the most punk" because of the 'slack', and I get the theory behind it, even if I personally think there's a difference between 'a controlled environment in which mistakes are allowed and encouraged' and 'a completely half-assed approach to music-making that gets a pass because something about it seems vaguely anti-capitalist, and it's a bitter pill, because you Hate Capitalism, but you also still recognize that it is Stuart Murdoch's and Calvin Johnson's face on the cover of this magazine, being celebrated and paid for his half-assedness, and you know too that Calvin Johnson made enemies in his time also, so you think that 'slack' might be a dead-end but you don't want to be the whistle-blower on it, because you'll just sound elitist, so you sit around and listen to those moments in "This Is Just A Modern Rock Song" where literally nothing is happening and you think about how the 3xCD boxset did cost some fucking dough when you saw it behind the counter at the record store, and you develop a sense of cynicism toward politics-when-represented-in-music, and suddenly Stuart starts making sense, because he's a grifter too, and the band just sounds like an ironic in-joke, and we're all still here, polling their tracks, a literal group of piss-ants who called their song "Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie" and there's nothing you can do about it, so might as well just look at Stuart's shoes and scream "what are thoooooooose", because we're post-post-post-everything now, so will we be happy when Belle & Sebastian make a comeback? Appear on Ellen? Will they make their masterpiece or will this real-band-with-fake-intentions be outed over time and will we finally recognize them for the Pink Floyd that they are?"

errm, i think you might be overthinking it. the guys just knows how to write a good melody.
slack or not, "modern rock song" is catchy as fuck.

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

Same here, lovely.

God I love "I'm a Cuckoo" -- 5:30 minutes long and unlike some latter-day poppy B&S it just builds and builds without dragging.

Yeah, it's just fantastic. I've probably overlistened to it. One of those songs where if you asked me what it's about I'd realise it's never really thought about it, but which makes complete emotional sense when you're singing along to that chorus.

A song I don't think has been mentioned so far, but which had grown and grown in my affection is A Summer Wasting. It captures something even more precious to me as the years go by.

"I'd realise I've," rather.

Would be nice to include a worst songs top 5 in this voting (I see you, 'Funny Little Frog'...)

As someone said, it might just descend into 'list lots of Stevie songs' for many people. Talking of which, I have to find a way to squeeze Seymour Stein on to my ballot.

I gave "A Summer Wasting" a whole heap of points. The words are affecting and the performance on record is woozy (slack?) in the just right way. The short little tracks on TWATTYBUS that no-one much seems to talk about ("Simple Things" is another) are secretly the best bits. :)

"just the right way" rather. My typos just get odder and odder.

'He reminded you of Johnny before he went Electronic' is such a beautiful line. For all the richness of the connotations and allusions and Murdoch's ambiguous yearning, it seems to float in space, a pre-echo of the plane in the final line.

Yikes, I will log off next time I decide to get stoned and stay up late listening to B&S

Ha ha.

I had just given up working at a couple of (really) small record companies when Boy With the Arab Strap came out. "Seymour Stein" (and "Chickfator") perfectly sums up the ambivalence of involvement in the business. That line "Record company man, I won't be coming to dinner" kills me. Mentioned so sadly casual but, really, it'd be a big deal to the A&R guy or whoever. Labels and publishers taking twenty-whatever year olds out for sushi was either staggeringly complimentary or completely gross depending on the person who wielded the company credit card.

Did that Seymour Stein meeting really happen?

Wow, why didn't I notice that "I Don't Love Anyone" rips Hootie & the Blowfish?

xpost -- yeah here's Stevie and
Seymour about it