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

i binged last night and listened to almost all of their post DCW material. the only one i haven't listened to yet is Girls in Peacetime. in general i'm finding the later material to be much, much more patchy, like only a song or two from each album that really grabs me.

life pursuit, in particular, was a weird listening experience. there were all these risks taken, and not any overt disasters, really - so why did it all just drift by? it's the only full length that doesn't have any representation on my ballot so far, but i'm going to revisit before submitting.

not enough has been said about their "how to solve our human problems" series, which i find more compelling than pretty much anything they released between 2005-2015. it's also patchy, i think, but it seems to represent more of a new direction for them - more electronic and dance oriented.

"wrong girl" is my favorite non-stuart song on there for sure. but imo it's the last B&S with several top notch stuart songs on there. he reaches those heights again in places, but never so consistently.

Jonathan David

this song is a tuneless trainwreck and exactly the reason I stopped listening to this band

― Οὖτις, Tuesday

same until DCW, an album later

god "woman's realm" is the most perfect song

Are you coming or are you not?

i also think that part of my disenchantment with 2005-2017 era B&S is that so many of the lyrics seem to turn to how much stuart is mad at someone for slighting him, paired with enthusiasm for prayer. elements that have been part of the band since the beginning, to be sure, but in the earlier material he seemed more like he was uncomfortable being at a party, which i always found relatable. in the later material he seems like he hates the people he's partying with. and the churchy stuff seemed more subversive in the early material - it makes me think of a nun dreaming about having hot sex or something. in the later material it's more like "try prayer. seriously. it could work for you."

anyway i'm probably reading too much into all that stuff but in general i feel like things were a little more subtle and subversive in their older stuff

karl if you end up trying the life pursuit again: it's all about "dress up in you"

it can be hard to see the trees for the forest on that record, it's so extroverted and kinda in your face about it which makes it a v unusual belle & sebastian record

i am also considering voting for "another sunny day" and "we are the sleepyheads" but honestly i probably don't have the room

i love the life pursuit, and i'll be voting for dress up in you and a couple others

"We Are the Sleepyheads" is *nuts*, I remember playing that for a metalhead muso co-worker and his ears perked up throughout.

"Mornington Crescent" is their best closer imho. Also, re: non-Stuart songs on Fold Your Hands, "Family Tree" is lovely.

Another Sunny Day is the one that leapt out at me from Life Pursuit. I didn't realise how well I knew it until I listened again via Brad's playlist. It's a beautiful song, with some killer (mostly 15 syllable) lines but it's a bit B&S join the dots, somehow.

'We took the evening ferry over to the peninsula' might just be the perfect Murdoch line and absolutely kills me.

i missed brad's playlist! er...i can't seem to find it

hold up

here you go karl https://open.spotify.com/user/unbornwhiskey/playlist/4EvRvOmaS4T7qjh6kEkJjI?si=_cwi_GFdRRS-SE82nZSgFA

I also like that they seemed to feel the need to drop an f-bomb in as many songs as possible on that record

idk I thought Stuart Murdoch was an embarrassed p***hound who surrendered to his natural tendencies from DCW onward.

thanks!
xp

The Wrong Girl is their nadir afaic, from that out of tune cowbell in the introduction to the straining, meandering vocal, it was the moment I got off the bus.

Stop the TWATTYBUS I want to get off.

people sure tend get off the bus at decent-to-good stevie jackson songs

It's that, then The Chalet Lines, which is equally awful for completely different reasons, then Nice Day for a Sulk, which is the loveliest production wasted on the most nothing song. This while 'Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner' was hanging around waiting to be thrown away on a b-side.

meanwhile i forgot how good "take your carriage clock and shove it" is xp

I think "I Fought in a War" was the first B&S song I ever heard. Not a bad introduction, really.

the first b&s song i ever heard was "like dylan in the movies," downloaded from a website that hosted a few random mp3s by bands i'd always wanted to hear

it was a great introduction, lotta room to dream in that song

my intro: "The Boy in the Arab Strap" at an indie disco circa 2000

where's the love for a Fold Your Hands track like "I Fought in a War"? to me, it would have fit right in with the Tigermilk/Sinister era tracks.

"Women's Realm" has been mentioned, but same deal. i feel like so many fans of the earlier material completely sleep on these tracks and have no idea what they're missing

xp! simon gets it

i think "Fought in a War" was also the first one i ever heard, via some pretty well known MP3 blog that some ILXor probably administered

i'm always with "i love my car" until that part that is pretty much straight up "piano man"

I really like the pulse/piano of “Woman’s Realm,” but not the strings or the wordless instrumental bits so much. Feels like just shy of a complete song to me.

the strings on that song make me dizzy in the best way

xxxp to Karl - the upfront optimistic Christianity on some of the recent songs really surprised me, I figured anyone who’d write a line like “so I gave myself to God, there was a pregnant pause before he (He?) said OK” had at least an ambivalent attitude towards religion.

I almost feel like doing a "worst" ballot would actually be fun for these guys

Seriously happy to add this, if there's interest. I believe I'm keen myself! Maybe even 5 selections?

I fear it would turn into a selection of which other singer people dislike the most - for me I'm afraid it would just be a list of five Stevie songs.

Man I love Fold Your Hands, Child so much. Sure, a couple of the non-Stuart songs are skippable, but my god the Stuart songs! The Model might be my absolute favorite: the harpsichord; the flood of oblique, compelling images (highlighted further by the song's lack of a chorus); the way Stevie sings the sixth line of each verse; the extended orchestral outro...

i had never heard storytelling before today and idk if i necessarily ever needed to. it's fine but... just fine. "wandering alone" is a lovely stevie/sarah joint at least

anyway that's it for the jeepster records, onto the rough trade era

sarah martin is the secret mvp of the later records imo

Couple of other really good tracks on Storytelling - Black & White unite, Scooby Driver - actually it's really pretty solid overall, just easy to forget all the instrumentals.

i do like "scooby driver" too

What are people's opinions on the first Peel session? 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), but the other three tracks were all pretty special, each in it's own way.

wait, there's a seven minute version of "judy is a dick slap"

i'm always with "i love my car" until that part that is pretty much straight up "piano man"

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 4:34 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't it start with that 6/8 break?

i try hard not to hold piano man against songs with descending whole step basslines in 6/8.

What are people's opinions on the first Peel session? 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), but the other three tracks were all pretty special, each in it's own way.

― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 3:10 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i had never heard these before either! "magic of a kind word"... rules???

It's possible I get more mileage out of stuff about taking a Go-Between home to meet the parents than I should. I have a soft spot for "My Girl's Got Miraculous Technique" from that Peel Session, perhaps mostly for the pretty arrangement.

I just looked out the BBC sessions compilation to hear these again, and unfortunately the Radcliffe version of "I Could Be Dreaming" (the BEST version) fades out before the really interesting stuff. And "Just A Modern Rock Song" (again, the BEST version) is left off completely! Just gather all the early sessions in full and you'd have an alltime classic compilation, instead you get random whispers of magic, a bunch of so-so run throughs and a whole second disc given over to a live show by Belle & Sebastian, Professional Touring Rock Band. So no one ever reaches for the album that awesome all-originals Peel session kinda gets lost in the middle of it and forgotten about...

still love dear catastrophe waitress the most of their albums

"stay loose" is so wild and awesome and has so little precedent in their catalog

As far as later tracks go, I'm a big fan of "The Blues are Still Blue."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 9:00 AM

I heard this once or twice on the radio, around the time the album came out, and have always remembered it (it's lived in the very back of my head. Revisiting it now, good song! (What's that "rock 'n roll voice" he affects? I don't dislike it...)