In so many ways, Belle and Sebastian feel like the band I've been waiting for for a decade, the fulfilment of all my pop dreams of the perfect fusion of songs and beauty and youth and so on and on. I might be being unfair but I have the highest hopes for them and I am desperate they don't blow it, blow this unique position they've found themselves in. They could be so important while taking a critical stance on the tainted music industry. Or they could be another brilliant band playing music that we love, by the rules.
Important in what way? No band is ever going to change the way the music industry works, and frankly I don't see why they should. The important thing about music, the ONLY important thing for me, is what it sounds like. Now I don't particularly like having to wade through hoards of Take That / Spice Girls bandwagon-jumpers every time I turn on the radio; but the fact is that that is what people want to hear. That's why I rarely listen to daytime radio. Personally I would rather hear more variety, but not just variety for the sake of it; I want variety so that I can find more music that I can love, music that moves me. B&S do that, and so now I'm on the lookout for similar music in the hope that it may have the same effect on me. If B&S "sell out" (spit spit) by actually achieving something in the music business, and get to the upper end of the charts, we'll get other bands trying to make similar (but probably not identical) music (maybe there are some already, they just haven't had the exposure yet which would surely come if B&S made it big); surely that has to be a good thing? After all, many bands have tries to copy the Smiths (Gene anyone?), but with various variations, and the result can't be all bad, can it? I want as many people as possible to hear B&S music; many of them won't like it, but if (and I'm sure there would be) some people get the same kind of kick out of it as we all have, the world will be a (marginally) better place. This doesn't mean having 2 different CDs for each single to artificially inflate the sales figures (and the marketing men's egos), because then people who only buy one of the CDs will not get the chance to hear all the material; but it does mean making things that are released as widely available as possible, and releasing as much as possible (including Tigermilk), and maybe even (shock horror) doing a decent number of gigs, including supporting other bands. Let us all go forth and spread the word - I'm sure most of us do already - about B&S, because then more and more people will get to hear these wonderful refrains, and we can spread a little happiness into the world. Let's make B&S popular. But then, that would be "selling out", wouldn't it? Stuart G (Not even using words like homogenising...) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------