Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.35 You Save: $4.63 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.47 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for If You're Feeling Sinister
Free Music Review: I'm Feeling Sinister
Hit: 5 Stars
This is truly one of the great albums of recent years. One of the reviews said that they "disagreed that this is a rainy day album, but that rather it was a sunny road trip record." Personally, I believe that it is both. It is a beautifully done record that can be scene as a sunny road trip record, or as a record to reflect to while sitting inside watching the rain spatter against the windows. With a single listen you don't realize all the nuances of this CD and just how great it is.
This was the soundtrack to my spring break in New York City and will forever bring me back to NYC whenever I here any of these songs. Belle and Sebastian incorporate a number of sounds to make their own distinct sound. If you like the Shins or Tegan and Sara, I believe that you will enjoy this CD.
Ratings of songs (Every song got an A, simply one of my all time favorite CDs):
1. The Stars of Track and Field - "A" This moody song has a number of different levels to it and is simply beautifully done.
2. Seeing Other People - "A" This is a light hearted song, a nice pick-me-up after the previous track. Once again beautifully done.
3. Me and the Major - "A" Yet another great song. Combination of the harmonica and piano sound great in the fast paced song. Nice lyrics.
4. Like Dylan in the Movies - "A" Continues the fast pace of the previous track but turns its that fast pace into a whole different song. Becomes wistful (rainy day song perhaps)
5. The Fox in the Snow - "A" Another "rainy day" song. Beautiful and fragile. Piano and guitar are great together.
6. Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying - "A" Great song. Picks up from The Fox in the Snow.
7. If You're Feeling Sinister - "A" Fast guitar with a nice piano part. Kids playing in the background is a nice touch. Makes you reminisce about childhood.
8. Mayfly - "A" Different sound to the guitar as with the previous tracks. Awesome organ in the background. Female vocal backing up main male vocal is great.
9. The Boy Done Wrong Again - "A" Sad song. Rainy day song. Beautiful.
10. Judy and the Dream of Horses - "A" Nice cheery song that starts off sounding sad. Great closing track.
EVERY SONG IS GREAT!
Free Music Review: You May Soon Grow to Covet and Adore This Beautiful Little Compact Disc
Hit: 5 Stars
Are you a lovelorn twenty-something with reams of poetry slowly mouldering in the drawers of your bedroom dresser? An idealistic humanist who prefers the charities listed on U2's latest album liner to the record packaged with them? An English professor? A cynic who still craves Romantic poetry? A decadent nihilist waking from the latest in a long line of hopeless one-night-stands? A fan of Wes Anderson movies? The Smiths? The Beatles (circa 1965-1969)? Or just someone who melts in the face of beautiful music, regardless of its style or source?
If you can answer yes to any of those questions, "If You're Feeling Sinister" might just hit you like the Revelation of St. John. These songs come from a gushing source of the internal commotion locked in the heads of young people. The subjects of these vignettes range from pre-suicidal portraits ("If You're Feeling Sinister") to the exploits of a social-climbing high-school lothario and the recipients of the serial sexual awakenings he offers ("Stars of Track and Field") to the tension resulting from everyday momentary encounters between a fey young man and his conservative neighbor ("Me and the Major"). Although the lyrics are not worthy of Baudelaire or Byron, they include rich imagery, realistic psychological portraits, strong narrative structures, and delicious non-sequiters such as "...your terry underwear;/ You feel the city air run past your body," and "She was into S&M and Bible studies,/ not everyone's cup of tea, she would admit to me." All of this is set to luxuriant and memorable melodies and stirring instrumentation whose richness redeems by far the album's low-cost production. Plus, "Judy and the Dream of Horses" is one of the catchiest, prettiest, most bouyant songs ever recorded.
This album has a history of being regarded by fans as a rare treasure that should be kept close and adulated; many have become obsessed or at least infatuated with Belle and Sebastian because of this record. It is such a treasure. Listen, and cherish away.
Free Music Review: Dont Listen to the Spotlight Reviews
Hit: 5 Stars
The spotlight reviewers above are nothing more than washed up self proclaimed indie hipsters who have lost sight of what good music is. They are too blindsided by the indie music they experienced for the first time as youths and their thinly veiled criticisms only serve to reveal just how old and out of touch with music they have become (pathetic!). They think that this album is not original because they read in some "trendy" magazine or heard from their "trendy" friends that it sounded like their classic 80's indie bands they cherish and were disappointed when they found it did not live up to the hype... all ranting aside, my point is that it doesn't matter whether Belle and Sebastian's sound is 100% original or not, it's the music that matters.
Considering that rock and roll has been around for such a long time, comparisons are inevitably going to be made to earlier bands - but that doesn't mean the music of Belle and Sebastian should be graded more harshly because it doesn't sound like the second coming of one band or another.
I am judging this by the music alone, not whether it stacked up to classic indie bands (of which I do not even care to hear anymore). I ENJOY the songs on this album. I like the album as a whole. In terms of specific tracks, I enjoy "Dylan in the movies", "Seeing other people", and "Get me away from here..." the most. Musically, I find it to be very relaxing and the lead singer's voice adds to this. Throwing all comparisons to other bands aside, I asked myself if I liked the music on this record, and I did, so I gave it five stars. Don't disregard this album because the top reviews were harsh. I enjoyed it.
Free Music Review: "Nobody writes 'em like they used to, so it may as well be me"
Hit: 5 Stars
Detached, emotive, quiet, energetic, wistful, playful, folksy, and spiked with punkish enthusiasm, If You're Feeling Sinister is a thing of delirious beauty and hypnotic power. Its songs are full of irresistible hooks and languid poetry, with sumptuous, dreamy melodies unfurling beneath smartly delicate (and snidely decadent, although that part isn't as pronounced) vocals. The whole thing sounds like an uncanny cross-pollination of the Smiths and Simon & Garfunkel, shot through with strains of the Beach Boys and the Velvet Underground (think "Pale Blue Eyes"). It's a smokey, gentle record full of nervous majesty and two-faced poetry, a half-awake dream that rings with humor and warmth.
The opener, "The Stars Of Track And Field," sets the pace: It builds from a delicate acoustic strum to a whispered, introverted symphony, full of swaying melodies and strange imagery, before erupting into a truly volcanic crescendo. After that comes the lush, paranoid bedroom rock of "Seeing Other People" and the quirky generational anthem "Me And The Major." "Get Me Away From Here" is a quiet pop gem, and the title track is a gorgeously rendered pseudo-epic with fantastic lyrics. There's also the muted exuberance of "Mayfly," the pubescent drone of "The Boy Done Wrong Again," and "Judy And The Dream Of Horses," which mingles a bouncing rhythm with lyrics that are both unrelentingly sarcastic and genuinely affectionate. And let's not forget that atmospheric build of "Like Dylan And The Movies" or the haunted desperation of "Fox In The Snow."
So, ten great songs from a very, very great band. Sounds like a great deal.
Free Music Review: Ooh, that isn't what I meant to say at all!
Hit: 5 Stars
If you're feeling sinister stands as one of the best albums of the nineties, perhaps best ever. The music has a timeless feel and the lyrics speak to universal truth and beauty that can readily be understood and appreciated by everyone. No surprise then that this was their "breakthrough" album, meaning that more than their friends heard it...This album is threaded through with an incredible joie de vivre- a group of young people playing any instrument they can get their grubby little hands on with an emphasis on spirit over perfection playing the songs written by one of their mates. When one of your mates is as talented as Stuart Murdoch though, you're going to go far.
Despite the needless attention given to the bands fear of the press and faceless nature, it doesn't really matter who the band are. The songs speak for themselves so clearly, creating their own little white middle class bubble of daydreams and poetry and crushes on unattainable boys and girls and an utter fascination with the world around them, interpreted through their own vision of course.
Each track on here strays fantastically close to perfection. The stand out tracks for me are "Get me away from here I'm dying" and "Seeing other people", but it would take a heart of steel not to melt in front of the beautiful melodies crammed into this short album.
To classify it as lo-fi, folk rock or twee pop really doesn't do it justice - this is some of the best music ever created and if you listen to it you'll love it.