Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
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CD Details
Artist: Belle & SebastianEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued
CD Release Date: 1999-06-23
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:
- The Stars Of Track And Field
- Seeing Other People
- Me And The Major
- Like Dylan In The Movies
- The Fox In The Snow
- Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying
- If You're Feeling Sinister
- Mayfly
- The Boy Done Wrong Again
- Judy And The Dream Of Horses
Music reviews of If You're Feeling Sinister
Music Review: "It Only Happens Once A Lifetime..."
Rating: 5 Stars
So do you want talk of the music first or do you want The Theory?
Music? Okay.
It starts innocently enough, quietly enough. 'The Stars Of Track And Field' building softly to its confident acoustic climax - hints of pop purity amidst its (meaningful) meandering. There is nothing obvious about this but its beauty is - like all this - just that.
'Seeing Other People' is more immediate and kind of sums up why I love this album, this band. Lyrically it's very clever, about growing up ("We lay on the bed there/Kissing just for practice/Could we please be objective?/Cause the other boys are queueing up behind us...") and the stories we tell ourselves ("A hand over my mouth/A hand over the window/Well, if I remain passive and you just want to cuddle/Then we should be okay and won't get in a muddle/Cause we're seeing other people/At least that's what we say we are doing...")but I love this bittersweet gender blurring and then it's just plain funny ("You're going to have to change/Or you're going to have to go with girls/You might be better off/At least they know what they are doing..." - I love that pay-off line). There's nothing flash about the song though and musically it just draws you in. Before you know it you're hooked.
Candidates for best song on the album flow thick and fast.
'Like Dylan In The Movies' not only has a great title but just rolls along beautifully, so sure of itself, so sure of all of this. This was the first song I really adored on this album but now it's joined by 'The Fox In The Snow' (the repeated refrain of "What do they know anyway?/You read it in a book..." just gives me goosebumps)and the music merges with those great lyrics to form this mystical whole. I'm either sat there with tears in my eyes or this massive grin on my face.
It's joined by the self-deprecating glory of 'Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying' ("You could either be successful or you could be us...") and that is then joined by the Nick Drake of 'Mayflower' with its opening "Lovesick on a sunny afternoon..." which kind of nails the mood of much of this ("He had the moves to save the day/But you would love him anyway..."), a kind of celebration of the day to day, of the days as they go past with all the reasons how or why they change us, elate us or just leave us as we think we are.
The best is saved till last though. 'The Boy Done Wrong Again' and 'Judy And The Dream Of Horses' combine to round off this marvellous album in truly dreamy fashion. 'The Boy Done Wrong Again' sounds like a dream itself as it hypnotises ("All that I wanted was to sing the saddest song/And if you would sing along, I will be happy now...") and then the upbeat finale. "Judy wrote the saddest song..." is how it begins - see how everything just fits, how theme leads to theme and all moves to where you are or where you should be or where you want to be. "You dream of horses" is how it ends. In between you have pop perfection.
And then it's over. all too soon. So you have to stop and play it all again. Everything drifting...
And the theory? Sorry, The Theory? Oh,it's something and nothing. Well, compared to the music. Just something about how Belle & Sebastian almost singlehandedly saved indie (as in independent) music at a time when the greatness of Nirvana had inadvertantly ruined it, having ushered in an era where every indie band was being signed by the majors and then spat out after an album when the expected 'units' weren't 'shifted'. Creativity stifled and any idea of independent thought gone, just little things like a band being allowed to develop...whatever. Belle & Sebastian changed all that. A wilful independence, a refusal to acknowledge the game let alone play it...and then the change. Indie. Independent.
But then, come on, you can save your theory, all theories. Nothing much matters next to the majesty of this music. Play it again and play it louder each time. Yes.
Description of If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle And Sebastian includes: Stevie Thomas Jackson (vocals, guitar); Christopher Thomas Geddes (piano); Richard (drums); Isobel, Sarah Martin, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch. There's nobody named Belle or Sebastian in this Scottish septet, but that's just part of the self-effacing mythology with which the band has surrounded itself. Their low profile in the media and even on their own albums (no personnel or songwriting credits) is in keeping with the shy-boy aesthetic promulgated on this, their debut album. While the influence of lovable British wimps like Nick Drake, The Smiths and Al Stewart (!) and fellow Scot Donovan can be heard throughout, the band has an identity and highly developed sense of songcraft all its own. Led by Stuart Murdoch, Belle and Sebastian offer up a largely acoustic folk-pop sound with deep roots in the '60s. Their guitar-and-piano arrangements are often filled out by luxurious trumpets and strings, but the clever, sardonic lyrics keep things from ever getting too mushy. The bright, irresistible pop melodies stand in sharp contrast to decidedly downbeat lyrics that recall Morrissey at his sharpest. Timeless, gorgeous and just cool enough to avoid a mainstream breakthrough.There are several schools of thought about Syd Barrett, the early leader of Pink Floyd. Some think he was a genius songwriter, even when he was utterly whacked out. Others think he was just a druggie tosspot (those people are wrong). If you subscribe to the former school, you need to hear Belle and Sebastian, who seem to inhabit a musical universe close to Syd's. Songs seem to fly off the cuff, as attractive as a summer day when you were 16. We're not talking self-conscious strangeness here, but just natural, organic weirdness with melodies that make these songs work. --Chris Nickson
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