I don’t really know what people think of Belle and Sebastian these days. A quick look at their website – news of a side project, readable diary entries, t-shirts for sale modelled by people from other Glasgow bands – suggests that their “place” hasn’t much changed: they’re still the band people listen to mostly, probably in private, whilst they go and see whatever’s hip. I honestly know bugger all about what’s going on in Glasgow right now: what's in seems to be No Wave pastiche (Nae Wave? But wasn’t that the Fire Engines?) with some Black Metal song titles/myspace descriptives thrown in. Anyway, most likely, B&S occupy the same position they always have since their albums started getting lukewarm reviews. Even writing about B&S seems decidedly unhip now, and the fact that I’m doing so – in a pretty sympathetic tone – is a bit of a harbinger for the sort-of-apology I sort-of-owe them. In my head. The position I’ve held towards them for a while was pretty remarkably summed up here. Particularly:
For instance I used to deliberately avoid certain records because I knew I would like them, but that it was all just too easy. So when I was 19 or 20 I would try not to listen to, say, Hefner or Belle & Sebastian, despite enjoying the lyrics, the self-contained world they would seem to inhabit, etc - because, like most indie pop, it seemed to constitute a slightly smug little outpost away from the technologies and attendant dubious moralities of contemporary society. So eg listening to Jay-Z was an experiment with not being tied to an identity as a pale, thin socially inept indie boy (although the music made it's own case, I never had to force myself to like it). Which is of course an identity-formation all of its own, and as an irksomely argumentative student I would end up making a moral case for Ginuwine over the Gentle Waves (i.e, if you listen to the latter you are a luddite/nostalgic/racist etc). Not an especially noble position, but at least proving that fidelity to whatever one was first moved by as a teenager isn't the only way of maintaining an obsession and an identity...
Owen’s position seems a bit like my own, and pretty typical of most white people who keep up with modern black music: from liking B&S/Felt/The Smiths, you go on to diverge away from ‘80’s indie pop, and towards ‘80s post-punk, then quickly realise the music it shares most in common with is the future-sounds of grime/dubstep/hip-hop, whatever. (Interestingly, lots seem to get stuck at the post-punk stage; they listen to lots of great music, but I can’t help feel they’re forever caught in a kind of retro-modernism.) I think the argument for disliking B&S holds a lot of currency; reading Paul Whitelaw’s biography, it’s pretty irritating to hear Stuart Murdoch get all reactionary (it’s all about the melody), whilst at the same time the band are painted as quiet rebels against a Britpop lazily, selectively defined.
The press crowed meaningfully about the whole thing being a refreshing antidote to years of stifling political correctness, but that was only so they could print pictures of oiled tits again, all under some spurious banner of postmodernism.
All this – the disdain for ‘postmodernism’ especially – seems ridiculous when you consider how reactionary the band’s music itself must have seemed. Murdoch’s fetishisation of ‘melody’ stands in direct contrast with the raw rhythms of Jungle, the music truly reflecting multicultural Britain, itself subject to a ‘feminine pressure’ which has been one of the most interesting aspects of any music of the ‘Hardcore Continuum’ since.
But rereading the press notes to If You’re Feeling Sinister the other week, I was struck by a certain phrase: Belle And Sebastian were the product of botched capitalism. It would be nice to say they were the children of socialism, but it would be a fib. They rolled together as loose change is bound to. Murdoch’s awareness of the cultural entity as product of capitalism sheds some light on the band’s lyrics, at least their earlier ones. No twee-haters are going to be appeased, but the spirit of listlessness, or rather the dispirit listlessness in songs like ‘String Bean Jean’ comes to be a blissed-out escape from mid ‘90s free-market consensus – and from its social, cultural, and economic realities.
More to come!
