Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

I have not and will never get the love for Sinister, a weaker album than both Tigermilk and the first three EPs IMO.

it's because of all the incredible songs

Seeing Other People is good, Me & The Major too, the end of Like Dylan and the end of a few others too, actually the instrumentals at the end of the tracks are usually the best bits, but the songs themselves, I do not find to be incredible, sorry.

i prefer tigermilk slightly but it and sinister are about even imo. i didn’t get sinister for a very long time though, the songs took a while for some reason

the title track of sinister is maybe the best b&s song

B&S was the first band I learned about on the internet <3

Does not get better than the first side of Tigermilk for me, second side is good too except I don't care for the last two tracks.

To answer something from way upthread, The State I Am In was played almost every night by Mark & Lard on Radio 1 in 1995, between that and Sinister it was the only song of theirs I knew.

second side is good too except I don't care for the last two tracks.

*quietly moves “i don’t love anyone” to first place on tentative ballot*

it's great that so many people love them but nobody can agree on which tracks

We can probably agree that they are one of the few bands, like Led Zeppelin, who wrote a bunch of good songs but could still probably be well captured or defined by the first song on their first album.

*quietly moves “i don’t love anyone” to first place on tentative ballot*

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Monday, 26 November 2018 23:25 (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Tigermilk = an album culled from the first few EPs > Sinister >>> Arab Strap = Dear Catastrophe Waitress >>>>>>>

poll: which is better right now, this thread or POLLercoaster Ride - ILM Artist Poll #94 - Belle and Sebastian - Discussion/Campaigning Thread

Kind of insane how many ILXors love this band - are they the ultimate ILX band?

(They're a mystery to me, tbh)

i actually think barman has the superior "state i am in," but it's the first one i heard

same

xxp Are you, or have you ever been, a member of sinister?

I have not and will never get the love for Sinister, a weaker album than both Tigermilk and the first three EPs IMO.

I personally (PERSONALLY) think “Sinister” is an awful album, just the pits, and embodies some of the worst aspects of this band, as well as “twee-ness”/deliberate amateurism in general — just as surely as “Tigermilk” displays this band at its best, and embodies “twee-ness” / amateurism at its most charming and effective.

The naive drum crescendos and ducking French Horn solo on the opening track alone make me wish I could lash the album to a Wes Anderson Criterion Collection box set and launch the whole stinking package into the gnarliest tar pit on earth.

i bought Sinister on day of release due to hype having never heard a note the band ever recorded. It's one of the last things I remember buying that way (the other being the first Strokes album). can't imagine anyone thinking it's awful.

Kind of insane how many ILXors love this band - are they the ultimate ILX band?

― Monica Kindle (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 27, 2018 1:23 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

When ILX first started, a lot of the first 'members' came from a B&S fan board which closed down.

(That right? A simplified version of what happened?)

the few bands, like Led Zeppelin, who wrote a bunch of good songs but could still probably be well captured or defined by the first song on their first album.
I feel a thread comin' on...

When ILX first started, a lot of the first 'members' came from a B&S fan board which closed down.

My memory of it is that someone on the Sinister mailing list referenced a (typically fine) bit of pop writing by T0m 3w1ng, and a few of us sought out his website, got in touch and started contributing to articles and discussions (and hanging out socially) and out of that came ILM. ILM probably would've happened without the Sinister contingent but they were in at the birth.

So, yeah, I'm not here without B&S. I met my future partner at a B&S gig in '97 and most of my social circle was drawn from the Sinister list when I moved to London in spring '98. It's quite hard to separate anything that's happened in my life in the last two decades from the moment I heard the Radcliffe session in '96. It set the ball rolling.

One day I might try and listen to those early records again (I've not heard anything since Pursuit) and see if I can get anything out of them. It's been a long time.

I think it was me who referenced Tom's essay but maybe I'm building up my own part.

Yes! I think it was you.

Wow that's awesome! Interesting to hear how it all began. Is Tom's essay available online anywhere?

Don't worry in 10 years time someone will make a documentary on ILX and all will be revealed.

Was it maybe this?
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2000/07/belleseb/

(TBH, I don't know even recall whether Tom was writing about B&S in the article Alba linked).

I think it was a best of the 90s thing

Ah, ok.

Still, the above article does have this priceless line:
"Stuart Murdoch, in fact, knows the insides of a track better than anyone this side of Pan Sonic, and is house music’s greatest loss in our generation."

It was Stevie T -- he, characteristically, knew about Ewing's writing before anyone else, and he took me to meet Ewing in Notting Hill in, I think, May 2000. The Sinister / FT crossover started there.

In fact even before that, Stevie had written in praise of Ewing's writing in PAPERCUTS.

Now that does make it feel a long time ago.

I happened to be looking at ILX and on seeing that one of the Newest Answers was Michael Jones on a Belle & Sebastian thread, thought I might have fallen back in time by about 17 years.

Which would have been good.

Come on, Tim Roger!

I have a cold

I'm curious. B&S were the instigators (in my musical landscape, at any rate) of so many songwriting/production tropes that have just become lexiconical in the intervening 20 years-- most notably, the "Neu! beats played with brushes" thing, I guess. What inspired them? People said (on the other thread) "they sounded like Love" but there's more to it than that. I can't really think of what would be the conversation that would arrive at creating this music except "The Velvet Underground s/t, but fun"

Or maybe "Tindersticks, but cute"

Nick Drake, but useless

imagine how terrible ilx wd be if a nick drake message board had helped set it up

Indiepop, + other things to make it more diverse and surprising.

Murdoch seemed to mention Felt an awful lot for a while there.

Nick Drake, but useless

Ha, this is funny. Where did I just see/read either an interview or hypothesis that one thing driving Drake's depression was that he was writing songs too difficult or complicated to play live?

Anyway, obviously B&S's wimpyness has always been part of its appeal, and what distinguishes it from other sad sacks like Drake but also, sure, Tindersticks or Elliott Smith or whomever. That's where the Smiths come on. B&S never really sounded like the Smiths, not at all - for one, the Smiths were a muscular rock band - but the Smiths were often funny about its innate woe-is-meisms, and B&S glommed on to that sort of irony. Even early on Murdoch et al. were pretty goofy, esp. live, taking the piss out of themselves, which countered the sort of pretensions that many ascribed, imo.

FWIW, American Analog Set aced the Neu!-with-brushes trope.

quick mix for anyone who's only familiar with the early stuff to help get caught up with some obvious highlights:

Stay Loose
If She Wants Me
I'm a Cuckoo
Wrapped Up In Books
Your Cover's Blown
Another Sunny Day
White Collar Boy
Dress Up In You
Mornington Crescent
I Want the World to Stop
Sunday's Pretty Icons
I Didn't See It Coming
The Cat With the Cream
Nobody's Empire
Play for Today
The Same Star

https://open.spotify.com/user/suckerblues/playlist/22MZ6qdAASHRVZq4R90mwr?si=lHBGxTBtRwa_9yyagD3jgw

I just realized I posted thi to the wrong B$S thread. oh well

So many cameos in this:

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

I guess it was made by Lance Bangs in Athens, which explains the presence of so many E6 folks but also Corin Tucker.

As Hoffman board has Beatles, so ILX has B&S

Xps Have followed, thanks,

The other parts of the puzzle for me - Smiths, VU, Motown, Love, S&G accepted - are the Left Banke, the Zombies and Colin Blunstone.

And I wonder about that 'crutches' lyric. It might just be an unintentional echo but it's always made me think of Kentucky Ave.

We can probably agree that they are one of the few bands, like Led Zeppelin, who wrote a bunch of good songs but could still probably be well captured or defined by the first song on their first album.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 26, 2018 3:33 PM (yesterday)

This feels like a criticism to me and I'm not sure what that criticism is. Is it that they don't quite have, say, the normal stylistic range that a comparable, well-loved group with a similar size discography would have?

Yes Zombies of course I should've thought that

Go-Betweens?