Belle & Sebastian - Boy With the Arab Strap
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Belle & SebastianEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-09-08
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:
- It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career
- Sleep the Clock Around
- Is It Wicked Not to Care?
- Ease Your Feet in the Sea
- A Summer Wasting
- Seymour Stein
- A Space Boy Dream
- Dirty Dream Number Two
- The Boy With the Arab Strap
- Chickfactor
- Simple Things
- The Rollercoaster Ride
Free Music Notes for Boy With the Arab Strap
Free Music Review: A near-perfect "Listen in bed with headphones" album
Hit: 5 Stars
The Boy with the Arab Strap moves like the tides. It's the aural equivalent of napping on the beach too close to the water, as it cycles among feelings of baking in the sun, to the gentle lapping of water against your toes, to the soft crashing of waves washing over. And back out again. If I had to list the best "fall asleep with the headphones on" albums of all time, this album would be right at the top with the Cure's Disintegration, and Pink Floyd's Meddle. One of Belle and Sebastians finest works.
It could have been a brilliant career - 4/5 Great opener. It's not uber mellow, but it is ubermelodic.
Sleep the Clock Around - 5/5 A wonderful, bouncy song that's hard to describe. After all this time I still have no idea what it's about, because I haven't ever tried to assemble the lyrics into any coherent story. When I first listened to it I loved it but assumed that due to it's simple melody, it would become repetetive, but I was wrong.
Is it Wicked not to care - 3 One of Isobel Campbells few self-written songs. I've never been a huge fan of her voice (When not used in a backing capacity) and her song writing isn't particularly good either, but this is not too bad. The melody seems a bit sophomoric, and seems to sound like a theme song for a BBC children's show from the 80's.
Ease your feet in the sea - 4 I love Stuart's vox in this one. Nothing about this tune is meant to be riveting, just a simple song about the ocean. It fits in well with the imagery evoked by the music and lyrics of the rest of the album.
A Summer Wasting - 3.75 Another summery tune (obvious?) that seemed like a low point at first but grew with my love for the album. If you heard this alone you might be inclined to think it's not a great tune, but in context of the album, it works well.
Seymour Stein - 2.75 This song achieved a little fame when it was featured in High Fidelity. In the scene, Dick is listening to the track and Barry (played by Jack Black) comes in and shuts it off, saying it sucks, only to put on Katrina and the Waves, of all things. Barry isn't far off the mark - I've always considered this the albums low point - The music is boring and uninspired and Jackson's vox are a little too warbly to be convincing. It also doesn't seem to fit well with the album. On the bright side, i've always been fond of the delivery on the lyric "Record company man....I won't be comin' to dinner."
Space Boy Dream - 2 Oops, except for this throwaway track. When will B&S learn that electronic music is for people that can't write good songs without help from computers? Even Electronic Renaissance on Tigermilk is a "skipper" on most days.
Dirty Dream Number II - 5 Annnnd we're back. Very possibly the best song on the album. Driving and delicious to behold, with a great intro.
The Boy with the Arab Strap - 5 Another winner, easily one of the best tunes on the album and one of B&S's classics.
These song by song reviews always tend to take longer than I expected, so I'll sum up the last three tracks like this. "Chickfactor" sounds exactly as you'd expect a song called chickfactor to sound. "Simple things" is not the worst Belle and Sebastian song ever, but it's not the best either. And finally, if I were writing this album, I could not have thought of a more fitting way to end the album than "The Rollercoaster Ride."
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