Stuart Gardiner wrote:
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.
no, but you might see why they should WANT to, yes? From a Political point of view...
The important thing about music, the ONLY important thing for me, is what it sounds like.
well see my post about 'selling out to majors' for part of my views on this one. It's just i think in amazingly different terms to you, and i think that when you talk about art, you're NOT talking about just the way it sounds, or looks, you're inevitably going to be thinking about a host of different factors, simply by the fact that your life is not amazingly simplistic. I agree that for a moment you might be just thinking and feeling 'it sounds fucking great', but after that.. what? If you just let it go, i dunno... i don't think you can, because there's always the moment, the fact of hearing it and feeling. There's the scent of the sea, or the sunlight on the autumn leaves, or the distant sound of fireworks. Anything. Everything else in life is intrinsically tied to your moment of that music, and it's no longer 'just' the sounds of music. And am i being pretentious? I hope so :-)
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.
arguable one this. because are we hearing what 'we' want to hear or are we hearing what media and business want us to hear, or in other words what they want us to buy?
That's why I rarely listen to daytime radio.
well i just don't listen because i don't have the time and frankly i'd rather listen to the sounds of birds and traffic passing, or overheard conversations :-)
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.
but you won't be moved by it so much if you hear it on the 'populist' radio because it's no longer difficult to find. I maintain that part of the beauty of the musics that 'we' like is the relative obscurity, the fact that actually we probably have to work pretty hard to get it, find it, whatever. If it's easy we often just don't bother. I don't mean this to sound snobbish or whatever, it's just more to do with the thrill of the expedition than the discovery itself. (and i'm generalising of course!)
I'm on the lookout for similar music in the hope that it may have the same effect on me.
ah, but this is what i found so special about B&S, the very fact that i'd kind of given up hoping that such music WOULD affect me in this way. I maintain that although the sonic qualities have a lot to do with it, the thing that makes me feel this way is actually indefinable. I don't want to be spiritual, but Harry Smith said, 'something was directing it, it wasn't arbitrary, and there was some kind of what you might call God'. Well i think maybe Stuart would go along with that, but i dunno. All i know is that there's this mythical It that makes us each respond in some possibly spiritual way to different sounds, and images. And if we take it too literally we never find the same effect.
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?
or can it? how many bands trailed along on the coat-tails of the smiths? how many were even approaching any good? how many made you feel the way smiths did? And yet they 'sounded' similar. But they didn't have It. Go on, try and define what was different in very precise terms... (this is where someone goes all scientifically musical on me and lists thinsg like usage of minor chords and f sharps and all sorts, to which i then go 'blah')
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.
i like the idea of off-shoot things though, like the limited Nurse With Wound/Stereolab single for example. I think it's important that bands don't treat all their releases in the same way. As for 'supporting' other bands, well they did do the dates with Tindersticks.
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?
you're painting people's definitions of the phrase 'selling out'. Some people might see it like you suggest they do, but others don't. I'm out there proclaiming the greatness and magic of Belle & Sebastian as much as the next person, but i think that 'selling out' would be to start giving concessions to the media and record company bosses, not spreading the word and getting people to buy their records. I think Tim misunderstood about what i said about Tigermilk too, i was saying that i could SEE that happening, not that i wanted it to. I was kind of being cynical, assuming, unkindly perhaps, that b&s will end up like our other hopes, capitulating to the record company whims and wishes. And assuming unduly i hope...
(Not even using words like homogenising...)
i always had a problem with that word! it was only recently that i started to get a grip on what it meant. Same with 'juxtaposition', i remember when i was doing architecture at uni, just started as a fresh faced first year, and someone was saying 'the juxtaposition of forms' and i though hey that sounds cool, so i said it too and i didn't have a clue what it meant :-) The i found out and it all made sense. I think i used a what do you call it? A dictionary ;-) Sorry for the sarcasm there, it comes of too much teaching. again, sorry for the length of this one folks. Or the two folks that read it. Hi Tim. keep the faith, the duke -- Tangents On-Line http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/ Tangents On-Paper: PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK tangent@mail.zynet.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . 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 . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------