Belle and Sebastian:Boy With Arab Strap:CoD

Sleep The Clock Around: just about OK - dull, really.

Is It Wicked?: surprisingly effective.

Ease Your Feet: excellent.

A Summer Wasting: terrific.

Seymour Stein: overrated.

Space Boy Dream: not my cup of tea.

Dirty Dream: energetic.

chickfactor: certainly the best thing Jackson has ever done.

Simple Things: ace.

Rollercoaster Ride: gorgeous.

I think much of the initial fawning over B&S was predicated on the fact that their *sound*---in terms of production, soundwriting, instrumentation, etc.---was a simplistic, organic backing-away from an indie scene that was growing increasingly inorganic and kitschy and removed from the few-guys-playing-in-a-room feeling many listeners associate with rock at its purest. Which is to say that everyone thought: "How brilliant---it's just a song!" Whether B&S deserve credit for that breath of fresh air is debatable, but then hey, neither did the Pistols invent punk.

Regardless. By "Boy with the Arab Strap" time, that initial wow-ing had faded slightly. Now remember that throughout the time preceding the "wow," we were all still hearing songs of the unassuming song-y sort that B&S would come along with---it was just that those were the hushed little ballads thrown on b-sides and ends of records. Had B&S released a record of such hushed little ballads, they would have fallen either into twee-ness (a more limited market) or self-parody (a non-existent market)---part of the refreshing nature of the first couple B&S records was the sense that they weren't necessarily *trying* to be pleasantly song-ish the way so many twee bands do, or, on the other hand, self-conscious and ironic about it.

Meaning that the one thing B&S could do at that point that seemed thoroughly original and long unheard---the one thing that neither fit their most pejorative stereotypes or gave up what was refreshing about them in the first place---was to apply their somewhat stripped- down take on songwriting and production to songs that were truly meant to be energetic and exciting. This worked best with the title track, and I think worked almost as well with "Dirty Dream #2." I would have been a happy, happy person if "Fold Your Hands. . ." had consisted entirely of such songs, as such songs aren't really getting played by anyone else right now---at least not honestly.

Which is to say: if you know of anyone else following that approach, let me know.

The short answer is that 'TBWTAS' is probably my favourite Belle & Sebastian track of all. Rhythm - a rhythm that's so easy to attain yet that they and the rest of us (us?) so rarely do. Melody - magnificent, if repetitive. (I know that Tom E's take is something like: the repetition is the point. He is probably right, or very close to it.) Lyric - OK, fine, dandy. (If anything I think Murdoch is slightly overrated as a lyricist - well, by his fans, anyway, which may be inevitable. But he's still way 'above average', whatever that means.) The whole track is, from my POV, as sublime, as swinging, as vital, as indispensable as this band who've played the odd Olympian role in my life have ever managed to be.

I utterly *hated* Boy With Arab Strap when it first came out, but that was due to A) the fact that it was the only record I had in the car, and therefore I had it on terminal repeat throughout one of the *worst* nights of my life, and B) what I thought were annoying intrusions of electronic nonsense and extraneous bongo-breaks ruining what was otherwise a pretty tame 60s late Velvets/Motown pastiche.

A year or two later, I finally got to hear it in a neutral setting, and I found that I had been a bit too harsh in my judgement. Amoung the dreck (Seymour Stein- UGH! Chickfactor - POO! Spaceboy Dream - GO AWAY!!!) there are actually some hidden gems, like Is It Wicked Not To Care, Summer Wasting, Dirty Dream and Boy With The Arab Strap.

I do think that Nitsuh has a point with the "wow" factor, though. Around Xmas, I was sitting around with a few friends, discussing which was our favourite B&S album, and each of us picked a different album. (mine, BTW, is still Sinister) Then a friend noted an interesting fact- each of us picked the particular album we'd happened to hear first. And coincidentally, 3 of us picked our least favourite as being the last record we'd heard. So it really might be a case of the "wow" factor wearing off, the more we were exposed to the music.

Oh my god, I've just admitted to not hating Belle & Suckasstian in a public forum. Gosh, I hope Paul doesn't read this, I'll never live it down! ;-)

Anyway, I think that with each successive album, Belle and Sebastian have been slightly weaker. And I don't necessarily think it's their fault: they just seemed fresher when Tigermilk first came out, and then Sinister.

The Boy With The Arab Strap is okay - it features each band member doing his or his thing more than any other B&S record. But I do think it lost something for this. Loved the Stevie songs though...

I see Seymour Stein as a love song and the record company meeting as just context for his feelings for the girl ("Seymour bring her back to me"). I adore the song for the heart-swelling-music-washing-over- me feeling I get just after the lyrics finish. Bliss. One of my favourites.

Of the others: Great - A Spaceboy Dream, Dirty Dream Number 2, The Boy With The Arab Strap. Pretty Good - Simple Things, Sleep the Clock Around, A Summer Wasting, The Rollercoaster Ride. OK: Brilliant Career, Is it Wicked Not To Care, Ease Your Feet In The Sea.

I don't dislike any song on the album, in fact the only B&S song I can't stand is Beyond the Sunrise. TBWTAS better than FYHCYWLAP? Yes and no. As well as the aforementioned clunker, FYH has a couple of songs that I'm not really at all keen on, but some real good'uns as well. There's nothing on TBWTAS to match the Model. So I think one's more consistent but the other has higher peaks.

1) Strap 2) Sinister 3) Tigermilk

(haven't heard the latest) and that is exactly the order I would rank them. The highs on Arab Strap ("Ease Your Feet," the title track, "It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career") are the best things they're done in my opinion. It just seems the slightest bit more *lush* than the other records somehow, probably because it was my first exposure.

I can see that, but it still strikes me as whiny. Even if it had been another name, I might have liked it. But something about the way he sings "See-hee-moh-ore Stah-eye-ahn" bugs me.

And calling someone "Record Company Man" seemed a little too Rik from the Young Ones to me.

I can see that SS could be interpreted as a love song with the record company stuff as context, but like Nicole I find the lyrics to be a bit too whingy. The fact the music doesn't do anything for me to make up for this doesn't really help either.

And it's 'Seymour Stein' by B&S.

'She lives in a house, she's stupid as a mouse'. Thanks for that Suede. Profound.

Whoops! Sorry, wrong board. 40 licks with a wet Thom Yorke. Back to ILE with me!

And as far as Brett Anderson being sexy...no! He looks like some villain from Scooby Doo now, Neil was the cute one.

Instrumentally it's one of the most interesting things they've ever done - pulsebeat, electronic touches, bagpipes, and still within a template which is just about 'indie'. Matches the subdued, highly rhythmic singing perfectly, and it's probably the best thing B&S have ever done in terms of building each verse to a (quiet) climax.

And the lyrics are very good, though what's unique is the mood of the song - there are very few songs about personal redemption in pop I think, or rather personal redemption which is not explicitly tied to a love story or a political goal or something. STCA is about moving from a state of distress to a state of calm, calm also not being something rock 'handles' well. The second-person-singular lyrics are the icing on the cake here, explicitly making the song a comforting one. Comforting not in the cosy-familiarity sense but in a pastoral- care sense. At least that's how I've used it and it's a very special song to me for that reason.

Tom: the reason why I didn't go into details about "Sleep The Clock Around" is because I find B&S, for some reason, one of the hardest bands to write about when it gets down to individual songs. I think you're absolutely spot on about it, though.

Anyway, I love it. And I love 'Seymour Stein' as well. Most of TBWTAS meets with the Dirty Vicar's approval, particularly the title track, 'Sleep the clock around', 'Simple Things', 'Is It Wicked Not to Care', 'Chickfactor' and so on. The songs I can't remember the titles of are probably the ones I'm not too pushed about.

I can't say I enjoy either of Stevie's songs on that record, but certainly "Chickfactor" is thematically the same as "Seymour Stein" -- another name-dropping, across-the-ocean lament about his love. Gail O'Hara just doesn't happen to be as big a name to drop as Stein or Marr.

Though we were happy, as Lamacq played the new Camera Obscura single on the Evening Session, and then proceeded to announce their Strange Fruit show at the Spitz next week! That was pretty durned cool.

1. I really don't understand the acclaim for 'Sleep The Clock Around'. I had some affection for it cos of having that radio session on a tape, but at the end of the day I don't think it's a strong song at all. Yes, lyrically it's 'dense' - but, hey, weren't some earlier songs too ('State I Am In', 'Sinister', 'SB Jean')? And I didn't think that Tom E would especially think that density was a good thing in lyrics. (It CAN be - I agree - but in that song I don't think it comes of cos I can never really HEAR the lyrics.)

I appreciate that Tom E seems to have a 'personal' reason of some kind for liking the song so much - and such reasons are not swiftly to be gainsaid.

2. A fact about this LP is that it's an LP of two halves: a sort of standard half, then a more way-out half. No? That's what we were all saying when it came out. I just don't recall anyone saying so, exactly, on this thread yet.

3. I am very surprised that Nick D thinks 'chickfactor' is bad 60s pastiche. I have long thought it delicate and sophisticated. Musically and melodically, it seems to me relatively 'advanced'. By Jackson's standard, the lyric is quite good, too. But I should add that I don't really think Jackson's standard very high.

4. I think it was Scott P who mentioned that 'chickfactor' is a name- dropping song just like 'Seymour Stein' (whose 'Electronic' line really is, my god, as utterly terrible as everyone has said; oh, golly, yes). I think that Scott P is on a good point here - in that the two songs together show, I suppose, a lack of thematic imagination. (That would be a harsh way, though, of saying that Jackson happened to be - why not? - brooding on the same themes for a while.)

But there is a bigger issue here, actually. 'chickfactor' does *not* really drop any *names*, and 'SS' does: and I think that the fact that 'SS' does is a sign of how it's bad. Proper names in pop songs seem to me to be a risky device. I know that we all have a few songs named after proper names that we like (even if they're 'general' names - you know, 'Alison', 'Jeane', or whatever); but on the whole I think that names, esp. FULL names, are to be avoided in lyrics. Why? Again, they suggest a lack of imagination - a lack of art, or craft - a lack of the ability to turn the particular person into a more significant image.

But I can see that with my tastes, I am steering down a particularly dangerous alley here, in a beat-up Grace Kelly car, looking like a friend of Truman Capote, riding my luck with the traffic police.

Thinking about it, I don't know which Beach Boys record I'm actually talking about here (perhaps none) so can we take it as a mythical Beach Boys record in which a Smile outtake towered above inferior new material, please? You know what I mean. "LOAMDR" is the best song on the new LP by a street. And it was written back in the days when B&S put out good records.

But actually, more than anything, they really remind me of Modesty Blaise.

Wow, B&S don't even sound like they are aping the original anymore, they sound like they modern Elephant6 copyists... wow, that's a shame.

I'm not sure I quite agree with you about 'Loneliness' - not cos I don't like the song, but cos (as Honey and others have said), it doesn't seem as dynamic a *version* as it could have been. In particular, Peter Miller is right that the guitar solo is laid up on a couch drinking Lem-sips. I still think that you must be right that the song is better than the other songs, though.

Let me add another name to the influence / resemblance -mix, re. the A-side: Elvis Costello!

First side is their peak

plus B1,B2

If You're Feeling Sinister was their peak, I think.

Some quality analysis in this thread.

I think Dear Catastrophe Waitress is the one that has held up the best.

This record is such a let down after the first 2 plus the EPs. If you think this is their peak... I... don't know what to say really.

"Dirty Dream #2" & "Simple Things" are great though.

say "brimstead had the best taste in music"

has

feel like this album is the one for folks who like felt and smiths and stuff but think sinister is not all that

and trip hop

alas, poor brimstead had the best taste in music... twas a pity.