Belle & Sebastian - Push Barman to Open Old Wounds
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Belle & SebastianEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-05-24
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Dog On Wheels
- The State I Am In
- String Bean Jean
- Belle and Sebastian
- Lazy Line Painter Jane
- You Made Me Forget My Dreams
- A Century of Elvis
- Photo Jenny
- A Century Of Fakers
- Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie
- Beautiful
- Put The Book Back On The Shelf
- This Is Just a Modern Rock Song
- I Know Where The Summer Goes
- The Gate
- Slow Graffiti
- Legal Man
- Judy Is A Dick Slap
- Winter Wooskie
- Jonathan David
- Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It
- The Loneliness Of a Middle Distance Runner
- I'm Waking Up To Us
- I Love My Car
- Marx and Engels
Free Music Notes for Push Barman to Open Old Wounds
Free Music Review: Music as good as it gets
Hit: 5 Stars
For the past decade, Belle and Sebastian has been one of the greatest bands in the world, and while well known to a dedicated core of fans, they remain alarmingly unknown to the populace as a whole. Knowing about Belle and Sebastian is one of those musical badges that marks you as belonging to the more discerning of musical fans and can be used in movies and television as a quick way of validating someone as being especially savvy about great music. For instance, in an episode of THE GILMORE GIRLS, Rory's best friend Lane, who is a music junkie despite more or less being imprisoned in her house by her overbearing Korean Seventh Day Adventist mother, yells from her window asking Rory to pick up for her the latest Belle and Sebastian album. Though we've had numerous hints before that Lane really knows her music, this stands as further proof.
Many music consumers possess an album-only mentality. EPs are considered too short, too inconsequential, too, well, odd, to be desirable. With most bands, this is probably a valid attitude, since many use EPs to hold leftover numbers from album sessions (for instance, although Sam Beam is one of my favorite performers, Iron and Wine's THE SEA AND THE RHYTHM merely collects cuts left off THE CREEK DRANK THE CRADLE, though his subsequent EPs are gems) or as a place to collect what in an earlier period would have been B-sides. Not so with Belle and Sebastian. The songs on their EPs are not merely good, but frequently among the very best songs that they ever wrote. Some of the songs were later rerecorded for albums, but even factoring that in the quality of these songs is absolutely amazing. One could even ask the question: Is Belle and Sebastian the premiere EP band in rock history? The evidence here suggests that they are indeed. PUSH BARMAN TO OPEN OLD WOUNDS collects all of the EPs that they have released from 1997's DOG ON WHEELS to 2004's BOOKS. So far from being of a lower quality than their album work, the EPs have probably been more consistently excellent. The songs are so good that if someone asked me what single album by Belle and Sebastian they should get, if they could only get one, I would recommend this one. IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER is widely regarded as the band's finest album, but this collection is, I believe even better. At the very least, it contains more outstanding songs.
This collection also serves as further confirmation of the genius of Stuart Murdoch, the band's songwriter/guitarist/singer. Murdoch has relentlessly pushed the idea that Belle and Sebastian is a genuine group and has been hesitant to take upon himself the mantle of resident superstar. But the fact is that what drives Belle and Sebastian is the plethora of marvelously melodic songs. Murdoch joins the ranks of the great melodists in the history of rock. This is not hyperbole. Murdoch has written literally dozens of songs with melodies that can only be described as irresistibly beautifully. He is also a fine lyricist, but the melodies are what one thinks of with a great B&S song. So, if Belle and Sebastian is a great band-and it is-most of the credit has to go to Stuart Murdoch. Without Murdoch, this is a band no one would ever have heard of. He is as central to the success of the band as Billy Corgan in Smashing Pumpkins or Lou Reed in Velvet Underground or Paul Westerberg in the Replacements.
Newcomers to the band are going to be amazed by the quality of the songs. The songs are arranged chronologically, but the great songs kick in almost immediately. "Dog on Wheels" is a strong song to open the album, but the second is the glorious "The State I Am In," one of their great early songs, instantly shows what a superb writer Murdoch is, how strong his melodies are, and how funny his lyrics can be ("I gave myself to God/There was a pregnant pause before he said `OK'). This gives way to the irresistible "String Bean Jean." All the way through the 25 songs on the two discs we get a relentless barrage of great songs. "Lazy Line Painter Jane" with its rollicking organ, the wonderful "A Century of Fakers" (which shares the same intro as "A Century of Elvis" but not the same lyrics), the wistful "Beautiful," and so on through "Put the Book Back on the Shelf" and "This is Just a Modern Rock Song" and "Jonathan David" and "I'm Waking Up to Us" and "I Love My Car." These guys are relentless! There are greatest hits albums by very good bands with fewer great songs than this.
This album is, in short, a must-own album. It represents some of the finest work by one of the greatest bands in the world. If you have their albums but are not familiar with their EPs, this will delight you beyond measure. If you don't know the band at all and are looking for a great entry place, you won't find a better place than here. For a host of reasons, this is an album you absolutely must own.
Now if I can only find a ticket to their sold out show here in Chicago next month . . .
Push Barman to Open Old Wounds Poster
At long last, all seven of Belle And Sebastian's "Jeepster" EPs have been collected into a convenient 2-CD set. Often considered their best work, and previously only available as hard-to-find imports or in a box set, the EPs, consisting of 25 songs recorded from 1996-2001, are now available for the price of a single frontline CD. The four tracks from the EP "This Is Just A Modern Rock Song" have never been released in the US before. Also available in a deluxe 3-LP gatefold vinyl set and a deluxe double CD hardbound book.In many ways this collection, which compiles each of the band's out of print EPs from 1997-2001, is all the "greatest hits" you'll need by the Scottish combo. It's easy to take Belle and Sebastian for granted these days--they don't sound as good as they used to, and certainly it?s difficult to imagine them ever becoming as culturally/musically relevant as they were once upon a precious, fey little time. But this collection brings the listener back to a time when it was crucially important to find their import EPs, when no one else in the world seemed to be making indie-pop that was so full of sincerity and irony at the same time, nor as gorgeously crammed with orchestral elements and naughty-smart lyrics. "The State I Am In" has never sounded better, while "Lazy Line Painter Jane," which expanded their sound to include C&W-ish elements, is clearly one of the band?s best tunes ever (and perhaps a more interesting direction than the vaguely soulful one they took later on). The almost-rolliciking, smartypants "Le Pastie De La Bourgeoise" is brutal and elegant. ?Mike McGonigal
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