Belle & Sebastian

Those are the best four albums to own, without doubt. I Know Where the Summer Goes is an underrated tune I've always loved from Push Barman.

I've always had a soft spot for Dear Catastrophe Waitress too.

nerd alert.

Just looking at 'critic' reviews for their albums and noticed Pitchfork gave Arab Strap a 0.8/10.

web.archive.org/web/20040805162134/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/belle-and-sebastian/boy-with-the-arab-strap.shtml

Utter cunts and that's just for the decimal :wank:

nearly spat me teeth out when melody maker had 2 records in the top 100 albums list.

Apparently they deleted the review through their own site once time revealed what retards they were are   

Bad review of a great album...error
Decimal point rating...tedious
Deleting said bad review of great album and pretending you never made it...SHARE A DEATH CELL WITH AXL

P.s. - I fucking hate pitchfork x

I really wasn't keen on the recent album, but all those others you mention are superb. Agree with Tucker as well, I think Dear Catastrophe Waitress is brilliant, it's a bit of a shift from the earlier records, but I think it's a really strong record and has a couple of my absolute favourite B&S songs (Piazza New York Catcher probably my favourite)

Last conversation I had about B&S:

Me: "They're pretty great eh?"
Him: "Yeah even though they all dress and act like camp librarians"
Me: "Harsh, their lyrics are witty and pretty brutal in places"
Him: "What's their best track then dya reckon?"
Me: "Tough call but would say String Bean Jean"
Him: "Can't remember how it goes, what's the opening line?"
Me: "I got my fingers dirty at the school of rock"

Me and popular forum member Forever love to debate the merits of B&S. In my view the first two albums are stone cold classics, tracks like The State I Am In are as good as anything released in the last 25 years.

They've released some great songs since 2000 - I Didn't See It Coming being a recent highlight - but I don't think they've made a decent album since then. The older they get, the more they become a parody of themselves. I found the last album to be garbage, quite frankly.

Stuart Murdoch started out as a refreshingly different lyricist but the stuff he produces now makes my skin crawl. The absolute low point was that film and the accompanying soundtrack that came out a few years back. Horrific.

Living in Glasgow you used to see so many middle class wannabe arty types who carefully modelled their look on B&S covers. Thankfully that's now on the wane. No cunt wants a return to students wearing brown suits unironically.

I thought some of the lyrics on Nobody's Empire, especially towards the end were just brilliant. That's the track that springs to mind. I need to go back to the rest of the album.

What's Life Pursuit like as an album. That got quite a lot of press didn't it?

brilliant band. as others have said, some of the later output is a bit patchy but i still think there's decent stuff on pretty much all their albums. well worth catching live too, always a real joyous experience.

The Party Line is a TUNE tbh

Fold Your Hands is patchy but worth owning just for The Chalet Lines & I Fought In A War. The former is one of the saddest songs ever.

There's a couple of tunes on it, esp. Another Sunny Day. The production is a bit in your face however and Murdoch's lyrics are awful.

i'd forgotten all about another sunny day. what a song. the best post classic era belle and sebastian song for sure.

The Chalet Lines makes me want to kill everyone in the world, starting with Stuart Murdoch and ending with me. It's an atrocity of a song.

As my good friend and popular forum member Columbia_rocks_man says, sadly the fact that B&S have made some great music over the course of their career is offset by the fact they're largely a bunch of preening arseholes, as are many of their fans. It's over a decade since they made a solid album imo (I still rate The Life Pursuit) and Murdoch's shtick has only got worse - I couldn't even bring myself to watch that film he put out. I'm actually surprised he hasn't been Yewtreed, given he spends half his gigs looking for teenage girls to drag out of the audience.

Fake edit: I genuinely came in here to talk about their music.

I was looking forward to your response Rod, I knew it wouldn't let me down

I see B&S are playing that new festival in Glasgow. Are you and Rod going Chrissie?


Not to see B&S obviously going by Rods post