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

(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

^ names are linked...

Thx

"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), Wednesday, November 28, 2018 8:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah, but it's a trick question, because the correct answer is actually Big John Shaft
(everyone forgets about Storytelling)

*moves judy and the dream of horses higher on ballot*

lol

i love "judy and the dream of horses" but that dual guitar line in "stay loose" is the truth

band has a lot of great moments within their songs and that is probably my favorite moment in the discog

(second fav: "when the music stops" in "like dylan in the movies")

oh yeah, one of my favorite examples of this: Songs that actually, like, stop when the singer says 'stop.'

My neighbours who just spotted me through my kitchen window dancing to "Me and the Major" have this poll to thank.

the horn solo in "judy" is maybe the single most joyous moment for me in their catalogue

was "me and the major" an explicit or implicit reference to this Major? couldn't have been a coincidence, right?

I think it was a coincidence.

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

'funny little frog' will almost certainly be in my top 10

the contrived pronunciation of 'throat' to rhyme with 'poet' is so good

Looking forward to relistening to those old songs I used to obsess over, and giving the last two albums a go.

I suspect my tolerance for the teenage girl character songs will have dwindled.

After listening to the first three albums and EPs, this has proved the case, or, more specifically, I tend to prefer Stuart's songs when he's singing in the first and second person. I think I'm OK leaving all his early character songs about girls and women that refer to them wholly or partly in the third-person (She's Losing It, Judy and the Dream of Horses, String Bean Jean and Mary Jo) off my ballot.

Something I've never noticed till today: the title tracks of both Sinister and Arab Strap end with references to masturbation. I'm sure if Tigermilk had had a title track he's have managed it there too.

Pretty sure it would be a plushie manifesto.

'funny little frog' will almost certainly be in my top 10

― devvvine, Thursday, November 29, 2018 1:40 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm gonna vote for it too

Funny Little Frog is the Frog Chorus of Belle & Sebastian's career.

"she's losing it" is a song about me imo. also don't cut "she's losing it" my god

"She's Losing It" is a manic-pixie-dreamgirl movie in song form.

oh we can't go down the 'that one is about me' road because obviously so many people feel that these songs are about them -- it's what makes B&S songs so great!! so intensely personal and also mundane <3

i might vote in this poll. the songs i love, i love pretty fiercely.

"She's Losing It" is a manic-pixie-dreamgirl movie in song form.

― enochroot, Thursday, November 29, 2018 12:48 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is completely untrue?

two angry and sad young women with ptsd transfer to a school where everyone is gay afaict, it's a perfect narrative

is a classic but also one of the fifteen songs competing for my last five ballot places, this is impossible