Friday, May 27, 2005
In Appreciation of the Ornately Sissified
Like most self-absorbed college dullards inordinately impressed with their own meager intelligence, I was a big fan of Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister back in 1997. It truly was a great record, one of the top fifty or 100 or so of the decade, for sure. I would listen to my roommate's copies of the various singles and eps they released in '97 and '98, which were all pretty much great. I began to lose interest after '98's The Boy With the Arab Strap, when Stuart Murdoch started letting his bandmate's middling scraps waste a few slots per album. The most recent B&S release I've owned has been 1999's excellent This Is Just a Modern Rock Song ep, which I got gratis from my old pals at Music Boulevard. But so I definitely used to be a fan, and I was familiar with most of their output during the years of my most fervent interest. The ebb was swift, though, and by the end of '99 I couldn't care less about the prospect of new Belle & Sebastian music. Their pitifully lackluster show at the 40 Watt in 1998 probably had much to do with that. I half-heartedly kept track with subsequent albums and singles, first through WUOG, and later through my wife, who remains a fan. For the most part, though, I stopped caring about this band six years ago.
I've never owned most of those eps from '97, as ten bucks for four songs was never worth it, and Matador's weird boxed set deal similarly seemed like a rip-off. When I read that they were releasing a two-disc set with all of their singles up to 2001, and that it would cost the same as a single album, I figured it was probably worth my twelve bucks. That's a decision I am now proud to have made. Push Barman to Open Old Wounds is a fantastic collection, despite the putrid name. The first disc, containing those three eps from 1997, rivals Sinister as their most essential release. "The State I Am In", "You Made Me Forget My Dreams", and "A Century of Fakers" are easily among their best songs. The second disc starts off strongly with the Modern Rock Song ep, followed by the three three-song singles released in 2000 and 2001. The quality level dips a bit here, but there's still some slivers of sturdy platinum, most notably "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It" and "Marx and Engels". If anything, this set is irrefutable evidence that the band was either lackadaisical in their album sequencing, or else a bad judge of their own music's merit. Or maybe they simply prefer eps to full-lengths. Either way, most of Push Barman outclasses half of the songs that made it on to Arab Strap, and is superior to almost all of 2000's anemic Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant.
Like most self-absorbed college dullards inordinately impressed with their own meager intelligence, I was a big fan of Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister back in 1997. It truly was a great record, one of the top fifty or 100 or so of the decade, for sure. I would listen to my roommate's copies of the various singles and eps they released in '97 and '98, which were all pretty much great. I began to lose interest after '98's The Boy With the Arab Strap, when Stuart Murdoch started letting his bandmate's middling scraps waste a few slots per album. The most recent B&S release I've owned has been 1999's excellent This Is Just a Modern Rock Song ep, which I got gratis from my old pals at Music Boulevard. But so I definitely used to be a fan, and I was familiar with most of their output during the years of my most fervent interest. The ebb was swift, though, and by the end of '99 I couldn't care less about the prospect of new Belle & Sebastian music. Their pitifully lackluster show at the 40 Watt in 1998 probably had much to do with that. I half-heartedly kept track with subsequent albums and singles, first through WUOG, and later through my wife, who remains a fan. For the most part, though, I stopped caring about this band six years ago.
I've never owned most of those eps from '97, as ten bucks for four songs was never worth it, and Matador's weird boxed set deal similarly seemed like a rip-off. When I read that they were releasing a two-disc set with all of their singles up to 2001, and that it would cost the same as a single album, I figured it was probably worth my twelve bucks. That's a decision I am now proud to have made. Push Barman to Open Old Wounds is a fantastic collection, despite the putrid name. The first disc, containing those three eps from 1997, rivals Sinister as their most essential release. "The State I Am In", "You Made Me Forget My Dreams", and "A Century of Fakers" are easily among their best songs. The second disc starts off strongly with the Modern Rock Song ep, followed by the three three-song singles released in 2000 and 2001. The quality level dips a bit here, but there's still some slivers of sturdy platinum, most notably "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It" and "Marx and Engels". If anything, this set is irrefutable evidence that the band was either lackadaisical in their album sequencing, or else a bad judge of their own music's merit. Or maybe they simply prefer eps to full-lengths. Either way, most of Push Barman outclasses half of the songs that made it on to Arab Strap, and is superior to almost all of 2000's anemic Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant.
