Waking Up To Us (B&S)

Marx & Engels != pinkos but Reds, silly.

The cover art is dire. Although the back cover is pretty tasty, to be honest. I know that Peter Miller agrees with me.

I've listened to the record about three times so far.I think it's a vast improvement on the last two dreadful singles, but it's still a bit of a letdown. Despite the best efforts of Mike Hurst, the highlight is the Woody Allen interlude on I Love My Car. In my opinion the only road forward is for them to become the world's first eight-piece synth duo.

Incidentally, when you all realised this at the time of the last LP, did you feel as guilty as I do now?

Sarah, I think plain old boredom may play a part. For the last two or three years I've been listening to a lot of soul and reggae compilations and now they just bore me. Obviously they haven't got any worse, it's just me.

What is NYLPM? What is THE STREETS?

BTW, the vocals on WUTU sound odd, kind of clipped in a calypso stylee. Good thing or bad?

Boredom is probably also playing a part Pete, I don't listen to the rest of their AHEM BACK CATALOGUE as much as I used to do - back catalogues = rockist! - but comparing it to todays B&S it practically seems like amazing sonic innovation compared to the hoary E-Z 60s blandless of the latest single, at least. Legal Man = ridiculous but this one is on the level of a Hermans Hermits b-side!

And yes, when I realised this above I did actually feel guilty. But I think that was due to personal involvement with people who were running resources concerned with Belle & Sebastian and the whole "Club" thing. I'd dedicated a hell of a lot to that band, gawd, it sounds like a messy breakup but perhaps it's more of a dreary old fizzle out. Bastards!

Pinefox's alternative possibility theory = B&S have *never* been that good, but once upon a time it suited some of us to agree to kid ourselves that they were; and now, for whatever reasons, the agreement is falling apart - perhaps is no longer useful / helpful / necessary.

You should write for NYLPM btw.

'Guilty' = illogical Pinefox, I can't really defend it. I think it's because I associated my identity with being a Belle & Sebastian fan for along time - and there's also that feeling that if you love a band you stick by them: something which I SHUN UTTERLY. Still, I end up feeling guilty for realising... actually... they've gorn crap. You feel "disloyal". PISH TO ME says I. I think also the discourse and analysis about Belle & Sebastian has turned me off also and you find yourself getting sharp and testy about it. Especially when you are into this "Club" if you will, of Belle & Sebastian fans and then it turns hurtful and nasty and you find yourself hating something you were part of for so long.

There's a problem with reevaluation: the current releases are dragging the past down with them. It's interesting that Mrs. Welthorpe mentions Tigermilk cos it's easy to reinterpret that as part of the tweeness with which no one wants to be associated anymore. So it's clear that for central members of the Club, the Club had a lot of momentum and influenced the way in which songs were received. It was a MOVEMENT!

Yeah, I can sense something revolutionary in the way I first heard Tigermilk, on a tape in London, then at one of the listening booths at the Gibert Jeune in the Latin Quarter. Not that fans don't circulate bootleg copies or take advantage of flashy retail conveniences. It was just the sense of expectation among fans, without the interference of the media, by the time of the rerelease that seemed to me unprecedented.

I don't think I contributed to the C/D/S/D threads, so here: Electronic Renaissance, I Could Be Dreaming, My Wandering Days Are Over, all of If You're Feeling Sinister, all of the three eps, It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career, Sleep The Clock Around, Ease Your Feet In The Sea, A Summer Wasting, The Boy With The Arab Strap, Slow Graffiti, The Model, Women's Realm, There's Too Much Love, The Loneliness Of A Middle Distance Runner (not the ep version), and that scratchy version of Lord Anthony.

The first five songs on The Boy With The Arab Strap are really strong. I'm even including Isobel's song; listening to them straight through has that effect.

>>> In an odd way, I'm reminded of Lester Bangs: "We will never agree on anything like we agreed on Tigermilk/IYFS".

This is terrific - though remember, *I* didn't really agree. I can't stand agreeing with that many people at once.

>>> A great deal of the charm of the community that was established around this time, for me, was its diversity - far from the tweetard stereotype of legend, they brought together a) ageing C-86ers (who had gone on to their own adventures in electronica, reggae, country etc etc)

Hm... and what was your adventure?

The other audience types you mention, I'm not sure about. You may be rather exaggerating the diversity. The one real aspect of diversity where I think you're on the money is re. age. There was some sense of different generations being involved - and most particularly (and for some, tediously), of old Smiths fans like you and me having a last chance to come out of the woodwork.

>>> I think all interesting pop moments create a new kind of audience in this way, and inevitably they splinter off into their constituent elements

They do? Then why did the elements come together in the first place, if they were already clearly defined? Or: *did* they really come together? Or just coexist - ie. different people who at one time liked the same thing?

I don't know, the B&S thing is problematic for me... it always felt a bit like someone else's club, when it was at its height (which is probably inevitable - see above).

>>> (just like punk separated into its political, art and dressing up wings in RAR, newpop and goth). In a funny way, this is reflected on the last lp, degenerating into daft essays and pastiches in Northern Soul, Soft Rock, Lee Hazlewood etc etc. Stuff like WUTU is the increasingly soggy soft centre of a band who'd rather pursue solo projects. The question is, I suppose, whether the diaspora of their audience leads to entropy (ie tomcamera & paulinobscura), fierce, fragile efflorescences of burn-up (the clientele) or fresh formations (cf stereolab, st etienne, the manics arising from the ashes of c86 culture). I wonder.

This is brilliantly put - we need more such writing. I'm not really clear on the description of the Clientele, though; and not too sure at all, actually, on the idea of your C86 fresh formations - none of which I particularly like, and (more to the point) none of which has an obvious relation to C86 (assuming we can agree what that was).

I don't know, Ed - some of your points seem to go strange places. But the questions you're asking are the right ones - you've got the big picture as few others have.

Having met a lot of these people, yeah, I do like them, but frankly it was embarrassing, rather than life-affirming all-embracing wonderfulness like some people seem to think. Although, that said, I was overjoyed when they won the Brit, and I bought Legal Man without even liking it that much just to try and get them up the charts (one record, yeah, that'll make the difference), and did feel bad when I started to not get into their records.

But what are bands supposed to do? I'm all for the destruction of groups/people after they reach their greatest heights, but a)this is hard to judge, and b)um, I'm sure they wouldn't like it. For the wibbling indie kids there is new, fresh wibbling indie all the time- it's not that hard to move on, y'know...

Erm... I think the journey is more important than the destination for B&S, so the fact that the songs by The Other Seven aren't very good is less important than the fact they exist at all, which they wouldn't if it weren't for encouragement, or whatever, from The Leader. Likewise string arrangments and increasingly slick 'sixties inflections'. Unfortunately this theory leaves the listener in limboland.

The gratuitously strewn exclamation marks that sprinkled the early days no longer seem appropriate, but I don't think they should break up. I think this is a good record, it just doesn't seem very earth shattering.

Another reason I feel guilty is for thinking everyone was mental for liking the last two albums less than the others. I still think they're better, but I can now see why people might think otherwise. Re: The Duke's opinions.

Soft rock has always been part of it, hasn't it?

Edna, what is RAR? Also, I think I may have gone Afrobeat, you left that out of your list. 'Nigeria 70' deserves many exclamation marks.

because the Club was something I never felt a part of and never wanted to be a real part of- to me, and to many people, it looked like the easiest target for piss-taking ever. A bunch of namby-pamby bedwetting nouveau Smiths kids with teddy bears, hair-slides and glitter.

Well by that characterisation, I was never part of it either. And yet someone like Youn would insist that I was. It's a funny old game.

In an odd way, I'm reminded of Lester Bangs: "We will never agree on anything like we agreed on Tigermilk/IYFS"

Except did we? Ever since I got a hissy tape of Tigermilk I was a bit disappointed with it, compared with IYFS. Some great stuff on there, but too much nonsense about being 'kinda lonely' on the outro of 'My Wandering Days Are Over'; crappy kitchenette/caravanette/Hull lines on the reedy/weedy 'Mary Jo'; embarrassing "to read and to see" line on 'We Rule the School' (which pushes the twee line too far in the first place) and a weak idea stretched to breaking point on 'You're Just a Baby'. And Edna conveniently forgets all the 'Electronic Renaissance' arguments.

And I don't think IYFS is perfect either, cause I never gave two hoots for enemy ammunition song 'Judy and the Dream of Horses'. Oh, and Peter, despite its greater unevenness, I think I ended up preferring 'The Boy With The Arab Strap' to 'If You're Feeling Sinister'. So you're not alone there.

Observing the B+S phenomenon from a considerable distance, it seemed to me that this is exactly it - a last Hurrah for some old Smiths fans who are unable to move on. An affirmation that the mad, bad, dangerous world of late 90's techno/R+B/hip-hop wasn't really happening after all. Pretty sad. Also, I can't image why a Smiths fan would be satisfied with B+S's pale slop. Shouldn't Smiths fanship have encouraged investigation of some of Morrissey's '60's influences, maybe some of Marr's funk/soul/rock interests, other Manc/Moz associates (Ludus, Devoto) or even better - take a look at the stuff Morrissey hated - disco, reggae.

Maybe the disappointment with the latest releases means that people are coming belately to their senses about B+S. But as B+S (beans and sausages?) recede, I fear that another similar band will seize the moment to take hold of the B+S consituency. Is this the legacy of the Smiths - a series of successively duller, more twee guitar bands who are hailed as the next big thing every five years?

Are the majority of B&S fans set against hip-hop etc.? I'm not sure. A significant minority are, but I think your point is too generalised.

(yeah sorry Mark S for using the i-word but I couldnt think of a better one)

You're assuming that people who listened to Belle & Sebastian in the late 90s merely listened to them, and Hurrah! records? TBH I hadn't expected this from you Dr. C, you've pretty much been on the money before now but this is just bullshit. Of course I'm talking then, but Belle & Sebastian fans opened me up to SO much more than things like cockfarming Hefner and Camera Obscura, BMX Bandits and the like. And what I had been listening to when I was getting into B&S was yer Pulps/Manics and Welsh nonsense (mmmm Datblygu, yummy Melys, Gorkys before Gorky 5) but woosh: B&S - whole new wurlde. ACE. I admit it wasn't exactly "techno/RnB/hip hop but what the fcuk is wrong with THAT? My taste in music isn't polarised in the way I'd like to "affirm things don't happen" (sheesh) and I also take AFFRONT (yea sire!) of yr inherent value assumption that techno/hiphop whatevah is intrinsically "worth more" (get you to a rockist convention) than Belle & Sebastians form of "indie". I see this in so many places and it's shit reverse snobbery.

Incidentally, I hate the bloody Smiths but we'll get into that little bugbear l8TXoR. And TBH I don't think sonically, B&S sound much like the Smiffs. At least not much like my BEST OF THE SMITHS PART WHO GIVES A COCKFARMER.

> moment to take hold of the B+S consituency. Is this the legacy of > the Smiths - a series of successively duller, more twee guitar bands > who are hailed as the next big thing every five years?

I think it depends on demand? I've seen wibblers like Hefner and Camera Obscura (can't be arsed thinking of any others, sorry) become a lot more popular than I would have given them credit for, and the majority of the fans = people who I know from being Belle & Sebastian fans. I just can't see the attraction. I think any band with a big "cult" appeal (kill me) spawn not so much conscious imitators but people who are "inspired" - howevah to me it just inspires me to fcuk off and listen to something a lot better (perhaps THE STREETS!). It's a case of you get what you deserve, if you wanted what I would call wibbling twee crap from B&S, then you'll get it and yer welcome to it. You are of course wrong but what can I say. If you want p!o!p! - they had it in spades. And the people who like their music with a bit of p!o!p! might move on, those who don't can stick with listening to Legal Mang or whatevah - I can't do it. I'm not saying that people who like Camera Obscura (and there's a hell of a lot of them and I'm friends with some of them) are wibbling lovers of twee crap, just that I think it's a case of looking for different things in music. Digging myself into a hole? Possibly.

And the less worthiness given to 60s soul, the better. History's not important, as someone once said. Especially not when you can't SEE BLOODY PAST IT, you twats. And provoke me into going on. And on. SHUT UP!

Just add this: at the time I got into B&S I was fucking fed up of indie music, and foresaw myself buying only dance music, hip hop and old records from then on. I HATED, say, Gene for their Smiths-a-like dross. I had fondness for some of the Sarah records I assume you despise, but that's a red herring really. I didn't see B&S as being part of that and I can completely understand someone hating the Fieldmice and loving Belle & Sebastian. I do identify something in B&S in common with the Smiths but the differences are so vast that it's not really helpful for them to be even brought up. Yes, most people of my generation who like B&S were avid Smiths fans but then again virtually all my friends were avid Smiths fans (before I knew them - I didn't meet them at some convention!).

As for your thing about other music - what? You really think we were all just sitting around listening to weedy indie music, waiting for another Smiths? Well, no. But then I was buying Todd Terry and Public Enemy records at the height of my Smiths obsession, so maybe I'm a crazy exception. But I doubt it. And seeing as you don't see them as being like the Smiths at all, what can you mean anyway? AH - you must be positing this band of Smiths fans who didn't 'really understand' what they were about at all, who have been exposed as fakes by their appreciation of B&S.

>>> An affirmation that the mad, bad, dangerous world of late 90's techno/R+B/hip-hop wasn't really happening after all. Pretty sad.

made me angry. Probably you can see why. But then I saw that it had made everyone else angry too, so I don't feel angry anymore - they've done it for me.

'Knowing that X is happening' != 'Liking X'. Presumably you can 'affirm' that rail privatization has Really Happened, but I wouldn't accuse you of endorsing it.

If we were to segment the B+S fanbase, I believe that there would be a significant proportion of people doing precisely this. But clearly not you, Nick. Or the others. Fine.

Ned, Kate the Saint, Dr C, and now me - I am thinking of forming the Anti-Twee Faction! - anyone want to read the manifesto?

[Market research to find out about twee types in London = Track & Field, and Track & Field website]

Seriously I think a lot of music listeners have this kind of Messianic thing - the number of hip-hop heads who talk abut De La Soul or A Tribe Called Quest (or more mainstreamly 2Pac), soul fans leaping on Macy Gray/Angie Stone as the returnoftruesoul, the way the whole US rockpress is hooked on '91, the way a lot of the UK rockpress wants it to be '77 again, the not-as-good-as-Shoomism of the dance scene. It's not surprising this tendency exists in indie too - the question is, did it dominate? Personal experience - and I came to B & S fandom with exactly Dr C's thesis - suggests it didn't.

Said photo is not in the Cd booklet, I've just had a look. It's in the cassette - 1984, by Jove! I wonder if it's worth anyhting? It has that decadent 'strawberry wine' coloured lead in tape.

No, B&S are more Smurfs than Smiths.

I'm really offended by music that doesn't show an awareness of the improved marketing of so-called world music. Duh!

Actually the Doc has no reason why anyone should *not* do this. He thinks that everyone must be big into TechnoHipHouseGarageBlah because "It's Happening". The Rational is the Real? If you don't accept this a priori claim, then the doc's argument - rather like me, no doubt - has nowhere to go.

By the way, I don't think anyone who really loves the Smiths wants or wanted *another* Smiths - that would probably be an impossibility, as 15 years of imitators have arguably shown. People who like a great band needn't hang around waiting for the *next* one - much more obviously, they spend their time listening to the *old* one.

But Edna and Ewing are both right here - it's not that B&S, musically = the Smiths, it's that the Smiths-Related Social Meaning of B&S = "New Opportunity for Pop Interaction, with some reference to the Smiths, depending on how important they are or were to you".

I COME TO BURY B&S NOT TO PRAISE THEM!

Tom, No. If by '1981' you mean that I'm hankering after a golden age of post-punk or something, absolutely not. I DO talk about this period a lot on ILM, but if you're suggesting that I've taken little interest in anything since then you're wrong.

**You're assuming that people who listened to Belle & Sebastian in the late 90s merely listened to them, and Hurrah! records.**

Sarah, I didn't mean Hurrah! the band. I meant "a last hurrah". But anyway, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that IN MY EXPERIENCE a lot of the B+S fan base (but obviously not you lot) were old Smiths fans who jumped upon the B+S bandwagon. Pinefox's comment (**..old Smiths fans like you and me having a last chance to come out of the woodwork**) seemed to be close to phenomenon which I'd recognized. I know quite a few people to whom this applies. Everyone I met through them seemed to like a small number of similar bands Smiths, James, Go- Betweens, Gene and then B+S. Oh and gawdhelpus, The Wedding Present. Hence my comments.OBVIOUSLY I ACCEPT THAT THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU LOT, as you've all been quick to point out, or to many others. I still maintain that they're a significant part of the B+S fanbase.

**and I also take AFFRONT (yea sire!) of yr inherent value assumption that techno/hiphop whatevah is intrinsically "worth more" (get you to a rockist convention) than Belle & Sebastians form of "indie".

I didn't say that Sarah, although I see how you could have read it into my post. It's not MY value assumption - I'm not much interested in hip-hop for example - but an attempt to perhaps caricature some values that I'd seen in the B+S fans I'd encountered.

**He thinks that everyone must be big into TechnoHipHouseGarageBlah because "It's Happening"**

PF - No I don't, and you know it. I'm hardly at the cutting edge of that. But if I had a quid for everytime I've heard comments along the lines of "this bloody dance music these days is crap" from old-school indie types I'd be loaded. Again - IN MY EXPERIENCE there's a reluctance to engage in much of anything post-Smiths in a lot of people I've met. Not everyone as catholic tastes as the majority of ILM posters. You/we are in a minority.

This has been so completely refuted above, I hardly feel the need to comment, *but*...

Part of the reason B&S meant so much to me in 96/97 (*before* I knew there was such a thing as the Sinister list, *before* I saw them live and met my future wife, *before* the Blue Soda socials and the Primrose Hill football marathons) is precisely because I *had* 'moved on', and didn't imagine sensitive boy-vocal guitar jangle would *ever* be my bag again. It was The Boredoms, Juan Atkins, Tricky, Omni Trio and Ligeti for me back then. For this songwriterly crew of shambliness to so completely win me over was such a shock, I became obsessed with the buggers.

It's since become impossible to separate the achievements of the band from the extraordinary collection of fans that I met when I moved to London in '98... my B&S experience became less to do with the absolute quality of the records (though I still think "Strap" is terrific). It wasn't any kind of general reintroduction into delicate guitar-pop either - I think most of the bands who've emerged in the wake of B&S are terrible. They have/had something that these chancers will never come close to.

Dr C: Future hating indie kids who never got over the Smiths are a majority in B&S fandom.

Loads of people who have been at the centre of B&S Fandom for 4 years: No actually they're a minority.

Dr C: No they're not.

Honestly, if anyone knows the ways and opinions of B&S fans, its Nick, Mike, 'Edna;. Starry and the Pinefox. I just wonder where your evidence is, Doc! They're not basing their assumptions on this board.

Ok, you're all open-minded people with good taste - B+S somehow brought you together with others of a similar ilk via this club or mailing list or whatever. Fine - I believe you. But,how many people were involved in that. I still maintain that a significant proportion of B+S record sales were to the type of people I've described. I can't measure that, nor can you - but do you deny that there's anything in what I say?

Am I bewildered about what you see in them? Well we haven't talked about that really, have we? We've talked lots about what else you like, or what you liked before B+S etc etc. Anyway, yes I don't understand what it is about B+S which provokes such intensity. I have heard SOME good B+S (The title track of BWTAS and Dirty Dream #2 had a decent swing about them, and there's an excellent track on IYFS - Seeing Other People?), but I've disliked virtually everything else.

(I have never been a member of Sinister.)

I think there is something in what you say Dr C - but I think it's a minority tendency rather than the defining factor in explaining their success.

Oh, not that old chestnut. I can't win!

I can't measure that, nor can you - but do you deny that there's anything in what I say?

Well I dunno, but in the absence of knowing any people like this, it just seems a lame argument. The point was that this came up on a thread where people were discussing what is is about the band that has gone wrong. Then you come along with your analysis that the fans are all people who've never moved on from the Smiths and the suggestion that "Maybe the disappointment with the latest releases means that people are coming belately to their senses" Which it turned out didn't apply to the people who were discussing the question, and is therefore of no use as an explanation at all.

In hindsight I agree that the line about "...belatedly coming to senses..." makes little sense!

Do you think those dozen people would accept your analysis of them (as having spent the last decade hating all music that didn't show signs of being the next Smiths?)

Edna was right in saying that B&S fans coalesced from various strands. The Fox and the Doctor were right in identifying fans of 1980s jangly pop (Smiths for shorthand) as one of those strands. I think Dr. C was wrong to belittlingly dismiss members of this faction as having been waiting for another Smiths. My experience of this bunch is that they had mostly done exactly what he says they should have, and gone on some peculiar musical adventures.

Like Jonesy, I didn't believe I'd ever love a jangly guitar band again, and finding myself loving B&S was a great surprise and a great pleasure. My experience is that a whole lot of B&S fans of a certain vintage felt much the same way. It's possible to characterise that as "waiting for a new Smiths" in a weird sort of way I suppose.

Where's Tag?

Pinefox, Nick, Sarah, Michael et al - I hope no offence has been caused here. You're posters who I like with views I respect and I hope this afternoon's rumble hasn't upset anyone. I stand by what I say, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say too. We should cover B+S's music if you're up for it - I'd like to hear what I'm missing.

But now it's already half past beer and I must be off to tip a few ales. Back anon.

Let it be said that I'm not specifically anti-twee. Indeed, to turn around Youn's point, I find the Field Mice far more successful and interesting to me than B&S ever were or have been. Then again, I find what the Field Mice do with their influences -- specifically New Order and early eighties post-punk -- rather more quietly spectacular than what B&S have ever done with theirs. What little I have noticed and cared about Murdoch's et al's lyrics doesn't strike me in the slightest, musically they bore me senseless.

I have a great sympathy for where Dr. C was coming from initially on this thread, I admit. But his portrait of B&S fandom in general, as has been demonstrated, an over-the-top stereotype, though scarily enough it's one which I've dealt with over here in the States in real life, where like with any other such self-perceived clique few dare identify themselves as liking much beyond a certain sort of music. The highest profile representation of an American B&S fan is that one 'indie milktoast' character in _High Fidelity_, after all...

But in the end my annoyance with the band is not what they're supposed to be standing for, this presumed Wet Grey Indie World of Precious Mimsy. It's the fact that they've got a whole bunch of nice influences and they can't do a goddamn thing with them to arouse anything in me other than contemptuous barking annoyance. They make me want to listen to the records they themselves love, *NOT* them.

Honestly: I first heard a 30-second sample of IYFS ("went to the Catholic church...") back on Addicted to Noise, and I nearly fell over. It was as if I'd forgotten something hugely important, and there it was again -- not sonically, because B&S don't "sound" like the indie bands I loved in my youth, but in terms of social / emotional aesthetics. It is HUGELY TELLING that B&S are compared to the Smiths despite the bands' greatest similarity essentially being the cover art, along with a particular lyrical mode of address -- the connexion is not the music but rather the way the fans feel they're relating to the band when they sit there with the CD insert in their hands, reading the lyric sheet.

The Pinefox said: New Opportunity for Pop Interaction

Part of this may be attributable to the emerging nature of the Internet and mailing list forum, too. It was my first experience with the use of the Internet as "social" experience and I lurked for a very long time before ever contributing, and even then did so rather unconfidently. (Hey, nothing’s changed there!) Perhaps I was a bit slow. This element of romanticism, I’d guess (maybe unfairly), was heightened for those who unfortunately peppered our mailboxes with tales of misunderstood woe because they living in the unrefined lands of Kansas or North Carolina or wherever and complained that nobody in their school/city even knew B&S. The charisma and community-within-a-community of Sinister London massive (as touched upon by Michael above) was no doubt attractive, too. For the tweehuggers, the worst caricatures of B&S fandom – which there were some, to be sure -- it also allowed them to magnify those qualities and virtually embrace rather than confront any social ineptness they may have felt.

Second, the word-of-mouth nature of being an early B&S fan -- passing copies of Tigermilk and the BBC Sessions, knowing something that others didn’t, no matter how smug that sounds. That last bit may not have made myself or any ILxers like them more, but it accelerated the necessity for a community. Living in Chicago, I would not have acquired a copy of the BBC Sessions, or even Tigermilk, without Sinister.

Dr.C’s "waiting for the Smiths" argument, I’d say, is a bit backward. The younger, stereotyped B&S fan (at least in the U.S.A.) I don’t think were so much waiting for the New Smiths as wishing they were there the first time around. Sinister had a serious generation gap and I’d think that those of us that were a bit older – which, I think, is most every Ilx/Sinister person – may have had other literate pop bands in his/her record collection that B&S at least loosely are associated with (I’m thinking also of the Smiths, Go-Bees, Field Mice, Orange Juice, Dexy’s, but admittedly am projecting my own likes/dislikes onto that list), but assuming they'd been sitting about waiting for more like that assumes that they were not listening to any contemporary music or that it was a bit of a nostalgia thing, and that’s faulty. The sensibilities that were touched by B&S may have already been there, but they weren’t sought. I’d say, too, that for many, as Tim and others have hinted, when the band struck they were more resonant precisely because -- rather than waiting about for the New Smiths -- many believed the opposite: that post-adolescence and post-hiphop/acid house/techno/whatever they would never again be so seduced by jangly guitar pop.

Tim said: I think it's probably fair to say that lots of B&S fans have been exasperated by the continual inaccurate caricatures of what makes a B&S fan.

This is too true.

Does anyone else selfishly wish that the band went away as mysteriously as they arrived? *sigh*

The big difference between Smiths sleeves and B&S sleeves (which have obvious graphical similarities) is that the Smiths' made explicit reference to an outside iconography, public images brimming with other connections, while B&S's show private scenes featuring people you will most likely never know anything about. I think there's a clue there to the differences in the ways people related to the bands. Is this what Tom said in his (now mythical) piece on the subject? I can't remember.

I can remember Channel 4 showing a season of kitchen sink stuff in the early/mid '80s when the Smiths' covers were all Rita Tushingham and T. Stamp and stuff, and it all made a huge amount of sense to a Smiths obsessive (not to mention Orphee on BBC2 around the same time). There's no equivalent exercise available from B&S sleeves. Maybe digging out that copy of 'The Trial', I suppose, but that's hardly the same thing, is it?

I've just been thinking this over during lunch -- I opened up a month- old New Yorker to try and take my mind off of it, but found a picture of Momus staring back and was diverted back to mental ILM -- and I've thought of a few points I think are urgent and key, one of them enough so that I'm going to start a whole other, hopefully "thought- provoking," thread about it. But for here.

(a) Scott is absolutely right about younger B&S fans: for many of them, B&S were the first coming of what we're calling the Smiths.

(b) There is a grain of truth in Dr. C's assessment, but he makes it ridiculously pejorative where it shouldn't be all, because he sort of assumes that certain types of emotions can be passe -- a hideous thing to believe. I don't have time at present to explain this adequately, except to say that IYFS didn't sound anything like it sounded when my 13-year-old self first put on a tape dub of Louder than Bombs -- but it felt the same, and that was a good thing.

(c) Ned: I'm guessing it's a conversation you're not particularly interested in, which is perfectly fine. It can still be a good conversation.

"It’s telling to look at the two bands’ sleeves, whose superficial sepia similarities are misleading. The Smiths’ sleeves were a gallery of Morrissey’s idols: the most the fans could do was to follow the leader in worship. Belle And Sebastian’s sleeves, though, show people who could be characters from the band’s songs or kids buying their records. Admittedly sometimes they’re doing outlandish things (suckling a plush tiger isn’t high on most indie kid priority lists) but even so the aspirational appeal is friendlier and less singer-centric than the Smiths’ was, while the aesthetic fit of sleeve and music is much tighter. And so the fan community grows."

That it can, but in and of itself the conversation is one I don't object to (I do like the way this perception of the music is being set up, actually). Dare I say it, delivery has something to do with it, and not simply lyrically or via sleeve images.

It occurs to me that Disco Inferno, to select a similarly private or seen-as-private act (and one which perhaps wore even more openly its Smiths affections on its collective sleeve -- and indeed had its own style of sleeve design that proved important), creates such a 'conversation' that works for me where B&S fail. Though now fixed in a moment of history, of course, Disco Inferno tried to get to grips with the idea that those certain emotions, which you wisely noted weren't and aren't passe, can be delivered in a way which slots into the non-rock continuum rather than reacts against it.

Ned: Now I need to hear this band you speak of.

I remember, when first reading Tom's piece, thinking and never saying that the figures on Smiths sleeves weren't there as a shared worship with Morrissey but as a weird kind of substitute image for SPM. We're not being invited to join his club - that never happens with the Smiths - we're being invited to admire, be led, stay away.

I suppose it's sensible to add that I was a very different fellow in '96 to the young man I was when "This Charming Man" came out, and that may have *just a little* impact on my perception of how they're received.

the figures on Smiths sleeves weren't there as a shared worship with Morrissey but as a weird kind of substitute image for SPM.

This seems right!

He was right to say that the Doc and I were right to say that Smiths- hangover-stuff *was indeed* a aprt of what B&S was all about. That was what I said, way upthread, re. me and Edna, hence (I think) provoking the Doc's initial comments.

From my POV, Nitsuh is correct to say that the Doc's initial observation was OK, but that it was the *evaluative* (ie 'pejorative') aspect to them that was bad. To that extent, my difference from the Doc was exaggerated. I partially agreed with his characterization (= A Load of Old Smiths Fans on a Hill), but - unlike him - am unprepared to call it a bad thing.

I have criticized Tom E's B&S article before, but I have to admit that it is excellent, as well as occasionally wrong.

This means what, Nick?

I've met quite few B&S fans who are too young to know what a Smith is, or indeed a Thatcher.

At first I thought B&S were more of a Tindersticks band than a Smiths band.

I listened to a bit of I'm WUTU this morning, it was better than the other day, although I still couldn't be bothered to listen to it all the way through.

Dr. C is 100% OTM when he sticks to talking abt the music - to this jaded old Smiths fans, B+S just sound so second-hand, tepid and precious, and I am always amazed they can inspire so much passion! Is it an age thing (he asks nervously...)?

I learned a lot from this thread, but one thing I'm no closer to understanding is what it is in their music/lyrics which inspires such devotion. Maybe you either get it or you don't, in which case I don't. Or maybe you had to be there at the start, and I wasn't.

As I said yesterday, I hope I haven't greatly offended anyone here.

The next songs I downloaded I found I also liked, though not as much. Stuart M's voice really infuriated me, but I liked the melodies a great deal. The lyrics and moods of the songs were neither here nor there. I bought 'The Boy With The Arab Strap' in a sale and THEN got into the lyrical/emotional end of things thanks to the title track and "Sleep The Clock Around", both of which I thought were brimful of a sympathy, humanity and depth pretty much entirely lacking from any other indie music I knew about (They're still my favourite songs). The basic situations - self-dislike and fucked-upness, and loneliness/nervousness in a big city - were familiar stuff, yeah, but the sympathy with which Murdoch treats his characters is very impressive, the way Sleep The Clock moves from fucked-upness to exhausted redemption, the way Boy With combines big city nervousness with wit, detail and local colour.

And the music was SO GORGEOUS too - both those tracks dropped verse- chorus indiepop for a more rolling, highly-arranged (and rhythmic!) structure which mirrors the mood of the song - a build-up to a point of release on one hand, and a jaunty-but-soothing repetition on the other.

Now, those tracks remain my favourites, but I've come to like and love a lot of other stuff too. But the arrangements for me are less interesting now and there's more of a reliance on verse-chorus shifts, some of them quite jarring. Anyway, that's my B&S story and defence.

2. Unlike you I was there from *fairly* early on (Edna played IYFS to me in April 1997) - and was fairly unconvinced. My biggest B&S moment was c.July 1999: Tigermilk on walkman on a first-thing bus through London (on which I also wrote the Foxgloves' only, um, hit) to catch a train to Manchester. Songs that had seemed featureless and annoying in the washing-up background suddenly came to life: most simply I could hear the lyrics properly, hear how things fitted together. *Big* difference it made. But this is a diversion from my point that I was, in general / initially, fairly unconvinced: I have never been as enthusiastic about B&S as the other fans on this thread.

3. One early reason for this = irritation at Murdoch's voice and its manner. Thanks for reminding me, Tom E - I'd forgotten how crap this sounded until everyone else somehow taught me not to hear it that way.

4. Also, the lyrics, as Tom E said: overrated, not vastly original; dubious feeling of belated 2nd-hand Smithsdom right from the start when Edna first showed me the sinister sleeve and lyric inlay. Perhaps she can remember my reaction.

5. Tom E, though - I think that you vastly overrate the 'content' of the 2 songs you like. This stuff about sympathy, humanity, compassion etc - sorry, I don't buy it. It's just standard tossed-off Murdochism ('You'll feel better in a while, kid / when you've had some sweets / in the cafe / and thought about the friends that you have made' blah blah) and it really grates to see it overpraised so.

Ned, just because you don't see a lot of substance or worth in what B&S does (or used to do), do you really suppose that their aesthetic has to be bland or dull?

I mean, I don't get a lot of what Tool does but I don't assume that what they're saying or who they're speaking to must be simple.

>>> how many other songwriters - even indie songwriters - even tried to do this before Murdoch?

Surely tons. Just listen to the Housemartins' Now... compilation: it *teems* with comradeship.

I guess you were affected by it, and there's no arguing with that? But still - I can't see how it worked on a canny soul like you. Honestly, I think Murdoch's 'compassionate' writing is ten-a-penny toss, really.

The Housemartins didnt do it very well. Hmph.

I apologize if that was seen to be the theme behind the comment -- I was more taken by the PF's description in that point number 5 and was doing some (to me) amusing reduction. I certainly wasn't meaning it as a serious point!

Though your question is an interesting one. *thinks* If one views the aesthetic (for lack of a better term) of a band negatively, is it always the case that one finds said aesthetic to be bland? Can one talk about an 'exciting' approach but still dismiss it? Your Tool example is intriguing...*ponders some more* There's something to be thought about here.

In that respect, If You're Feeling Sinister is not unlike Psychocandy.

Whenever that happens to me I hear the grumbling of the monsters' tummies under my bed and I get the fear.

I'm just trying to prevent the thread dying gracefully, I think WUTU's fantastic now. Sometimes my own reactions are hard to phantom.

Didn't the Housemartins all sleep in the same bed? No wonder there was so much comradeship on display. And is it true that Paul Heaton was on Question Time, or is Mo-Jo having a laff?

I've now actually sat down and listened to the new single, twice. I think it has the best strike-rate of any release of new B&S material in three years. It has Murdoch all over it, which is VITAL. The closing song mentions the town I grew up in; it's clearly a fiction, so, fictionally, I'm going to say that I know her and her name is Kathryn.

We were waiting for you. To be fair, there's only a tiny fragment of melody which calls to mind JH's big Martian hit. Perhaps they should've called it "Forever Changes Autumn". Heh-heh.

But first, can we not club together and hire a winsome, tactful, observant research assistant, learned in the ways of Google and, er, perhaps even less tasking methods, to place in the employ of the Greatest Living Englishman?

Starry Sarah: "Marx and Engels seemed to WIBBLE, a reference to "a girl who reads M&E" at the end of the song seemed to be there just for... show."
GLE: "what 'M&E' is, I have no idea"

Clue: there are as many as ten words between baffling cryptogram and startling solution.

but this was just the most pinefoxey pinefoxing i had evah seen: i thought it deserved a fancy set-up to celebrate it

anyway he will be bigged up royally when i expand on my b&s thoughts later this week next week sometime er yeah soon

i am on drugs please give generously

Is this Jools thing repeated?

(what i think already: "ill-rehearsed twee- prog, in a good way")

From Peel, the breathy Isobel one is another dull breathy Isobel thing. The rave-up Northern Soul one sounds like a 1960s cartoon band or Up With People or some other such nonsense. (Actually, that's not fair, I quite like "Sugar, Sugar")

However, the one about the Go-Betweens is excellent! I fear, though, that this is a ha-ha throwaway for the radio, even though it posseses more wit and charm than most anything they've done in years. The violin bit in the middle is lovely, too. The "Technique" one isn't too shabby, either. Nothing to demand devotion, but those last two are enough to remind me of when "Struan" was stamped on all of the songs in big, lovely letters rather than "compromise" and "pastiche."

let's just say that pinefox's alternative poss theory ABOVE combines with THIS (= pinefox in feb on Orange Juice) — “Now, asking fans why they like something can be a red herring, an unfair question. Love may be a thing that we can't fully explain to ourselves, let alone to others: and if we feel it sincerely and strongly, we may not want to bother trying to justify it to another, especially as - who knows? - we may feel our love slipping away from us in our inept bids at justification. So I sympathize with fans who don't want to explain why they're fans: perhaps they can see that there is no truly final vocabulary here, no ultimate justification beyond a passion which will do for now” — to produce the jump-off for a brillt theory re B&S

My contribution is that it's because B&S are deliberately austere recessive as regards the things Dr.C claims they are "affirming their dislike of" (or whatever he said), and that these things (beats, glamour, noise, whatever) represent aspects of music that all of us somewhat hanker for or expect in SOME form (even if not always in the form eg hip-hop presents them), that the BS audience over-compensate and supply alternatives themselves: except in this new case/new interweb-connected situation, one of the alternatives is also the method of the evolution of the alternatives, eg the mutually inter-communicating discussion group

Final point, to expand on Edna's claim re conglomerate audiences: when they dissipate again, they have nevertheless changed one another.

(Sorry, this is join-the-dots time)

b&s = muggletonians heh

I guess punk ought to have been similar, but (to me at least) wasn't. The bands and music seemed to share equal billing to the thrill of getting together. Maybe a hangover of the rock 'cult of personality', in other words, we didn't know how to participate without focusing on the lead singer or guitarist. (This in direct contradiction to what I just said above re: N. Soul) That said, I wasn't in London in 76/77 and N. Lincs was as ever off the pace in all things yoof cultural.

Who is this Hayward geezer that Edna is on about?

Have to admit that - after all this B*S-bashing - seeing the song performed on TV - catchy, flowing, dramatic - has actually made me feel quite *keen* on it. I'm even thinking of *buying* it.

Mark S need not explain his mysterious 'GLE' tag (how odd - that he should say this just when GH's death had got me thinking that Macca must be the GLE), but must certainly reuse it. Sporadically and surprisingly, if necessary.

Steady M: if I'd known it would really mean anything to you to hear a song that mentioned Wallasey, then I would have made the extra effort to finish my country song 'Wallasey' in June. But darn it, it's too late now.

2. I LOVE MY CAR: musical richness, yes, and I like the tint of Ray Davies in the voice - but at the end of the day, I think it's time to park this car and get the band out of the garage.

3. MARX AND ENGELS: is a revelation. Repeated listens have only spurred more repeated listens. Yes, lyrically, it's Old B&S - very standard stuff; but I'm hardly the one to complain about people doing the same old thing. It's astonishingly catchy; the music sounds lush; the lyric has enough going on without overdoing it (but - Riot Grrl? hm, leave it out); the vocal is high-class. The coda is imaginative. The guitar parts are neat and sweet. The Marxian 2nd-vocal actually works tremendously. This is, I think, an outstanding pop track. It's a C-side.

It's POSSIBLY THE BEST TRACK EVER TO APPEAR ON A BELLE AND SEBASTIAN SINGLE.

as an aside: Marx & Engels is quite an old song, being mentioned in early 99 as a track to appear on their (not very)-forthcoming next album.

The song Marx and Engels was demo-ed in '98, might even have been written earlier. I don't know how this fact affects its being seen as heralding Stuart's return to form.

The mannered vocal delivery on IWUTU didn't remind me of Arthurly - (now that my attention has been drawn to the comparison I can see how one could think that, but still don't buy it. Arthur does it to sound cool). He (Stuart) sounds like he wants to enunciate every syllable - for clarity? He sings it in a similar style on the 2 live recordings of the song that I have heard. Might that be because the lyric is more personal than most?

How big is that arse that likes to be kissed by men?

I only stumbled across this thread tonight & have necessarily skimmed it a bit, but have been disappointed not to find myself included in any of the generalisations of B&S fans. Maybe I will have to start my own.

All 3 songs on the single work for me. Lack of objectivity in respect of SM's songwriting will clearly feature in the characterisation of this particular fan.

Steady now. Isobel's waffle mid-song on Jools the riposte to SM's put-down? Or are we reading too much into this? Christ, I bet the Sinister list's going crazy-ape bonkers on all-fours for this interpretation.

Info that M&E was written that early backs up my intuitive reaction, I think, ie: it's really grate (and in some ways is like Old B&S - though I wouldn't want to press that point in terms of sound, as against song).

Relevant compare and contrast (cos both grate B-sides, far apart in time): 'Photo Jenny' vs 'Marx & Engels'.

I'll have to watch the Later ... appearance again to remind myself of the actual words, but after the last line of Isobel's spoken word part is delivered with striking vehemence SM seemed to turn around with a curious expression of mild surprise & amusement.

Your theory is terribly provocative, almost too good to be true.

"Danger now..."

This town (?) blah blah [swamped by strings] Blah blah for someone else But I'll meet someone (new/here) And he won't be rich And he won't be mad Just as long as it's not you

My first reaction was that they had something in common with The Band of Holy Joy, of all things. No idea what, though?

Yes, Marx & Engels = possible false dawn, given age. Still terrific, however. I'm WUTU is better than I first thought, but has some awful moments on record. I Love My Car sounded better live, but I still favour it as an instrumental.

In answer to Sarah's original question - no. Packing it in would be a bad move right now. Until fundamental proof arrives that Murdoch has LOST IT, there is still room for B&S.

I also woke up in a cold sweat with the sudden realisation that everything that's missing from this record was probably everything that Stuart D contributed, ie: snarling aggression, rough edges, cavalier attitude to sound quality, dogbreath.

My life's a ruin.

I was thinking this too the other day. I think Stuart MMMM has been swearing more lately in an attempt to compensate.

Tim - have you been at the liquid cocaine and vodka jelly again?