Sinister: Expensive bathos

[Youn J. Noh]

Hi Sinister,

Nick referred us to a piece by Tom Ewing at
> http://www.freakytrigger.com/belleseb.html. 

In case you didn't get quite to the end, but I highly doubt that given the
frequency with which he's quoted these days, Nick, not Tom, expensive
bathos was for the Eminem psychologist, cheap for us.
  
I could agree with many things that Tom Ewing wrote (about the actual
songs) but arrive at a different conclusion.  

B & S fanbase
'They've less in common with British outsider idols than with indie rock
in America, a feedback loop of incestuous bands, intimate fans, and gigs,
labels and zines which piggy back on one another constantly to create the
energy and fervency of the scene.'
'With Belle And Sebastian, the fans are the music: what made the band
famous were their pen-portraits of bruised young romantics, and a lot of
their best songs feel like character studies of the people who love them.
Its as if, having sold the 1000 copies of their first record, B & S
dedicated the rest of their career to writing songs about the buyers out
of gratitude.'

I don't get the sense that B & S fans are part of some scene.  The first
quote seems inconsistent in light of what he writes later about B & S
being a scene unto themselves.  For example, take the "typical" B & S
fan and Paula Cullen Booze Explosion, the phenomenon, not the person, then
what have you got?  In any case, it has no bearing on the music.
The second quote suggests that the lyrical concerns from Tigermilk to
IYFS shifted dramatically, but that's really inaccurate.  In fact, on
FYHCYWLAP, SM seems to have moved away from 'pen-portraits', which are
good for certain types of characterization, that, incidentally, aim
at effects other than bathos, to writing songs that are more personal
and immediate.  And it is evidence of Stuart's skill as a songwriter that
he is able to achieve this transition without 'melodramatic flounce,
apathetic self-disgust, or withdrawal into an apalled ironic paralysis',
which is supposed to characterize bands like Nirvana & Radiohead.  I mean,
first person writing is supposed to be more difficult because you're
trying to give inside and outside perspectives at the same time.  (Here I
can sense the expository stucture of my rebuttal - with subtitled sections
- breaking down.  Must get it all down at once.)  A point of comparison
between SM and the other SM might be just in the way they handled this
transition.  Personally, I don't like Rollercoaster Ride because the
details seem too glittery and surfacy as opposed to Judy and the Dream of
Horses.  SM could have written that way on his "personal" songs on this
album, which I consider to be The Model and There's Too Much Love.  He
could have carried diffidence to an extreme the way people say the other
SM did with ____.  (I won't put in the words cos it would just be on
hearsay.)  What I meant to write when I started this paragraph was stuff
about fanbases and scenes.  It was typical of TE, as a music journalist,
to write 'everybodys shutting their doors on Belle And Sebastian now, Ive
got to think about why they mattered in the first place'.  But he's still
a better critic than most.  (It was nice of Nick to point out the
article.)  The things he writes about the new album confirm some doubts
I've had about some songs.  His criticism of I Fought In A War is based on
the music, but I get a general sense that something is missing.  It's not
affecting in the way, say, Love Vigilantes is, or a story called Pale Anna
by Heinrich Boll.  And soul vocals don't really suit Stuart.  It seems
like a test of his range, as TE suggests.  Tackling "issues" and trying
different vocal styles might be a stage of experimentation that results in
some mistakes, but, personally, I think the other songs on this album and
previous songs make it worth it.  His criticism of The Chalet Lines is
STRANGE (rape as touching? that could hardly have been the goal). Most of
all, I don't think Stuart is too ambitious with the lyrics for The Model.
It's not just a mouthful of words, as with some of the Chills' lyrics.
(How does he do it?  Maybe it's got something to do with text-to-tune
alignment - I should pay more attention in intonation class.  Maybe it's
in knowing how to sketch a narrative.  Each episode stands well on its own
but reflects on the others.  I would really like to know what it's about,
but I wouldn't want to ask and to have it told to me.  It would have to be
discovered.)  Part 3 of the article is really great and puts into words
what I couldn't - the studio, it's a construction site.

Sorry for trying so hard.  A stray comment turned into a personal
challenge.  But I know, the effort is embarrassing.  Youn






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