Sinister: Merritt vs. Murdoch in a Battle of the Poppest

[Brian Pennington]

Hello,
	So *that* was the article about B&S. I read through the first 
paragraph and after realizing it was some sort of dissertation on why 
Mr. Fitchett is far too obsessed with 69 Love Songs, I stopped 
reading. Now having skimmed over the bits where he goes on and on 
about creating mobiles of pictures of Stephin Merritt to put over his 
bed, I find that there is actually some mention of Belle & Sebastian 
in there.
	This sort of thing infuriates me to no end. Critics. People 
who seem to think that they are illuminating us about our own 
opinions. Most people realize there cannot be objective standards for 
music. Since I do, here's mine, but keep in mind I am guessing that a 
lot of other people liked 69 Love Songs more than FISHYCLAP by the 
looks of things. And that's fine if that's the way they feel.
	However I seem to have taken the opposite tack. In love with 
Fold Your Hands and disappointed by 69 Love Songs. I respect that 69 
Love Songs is very interesting conceptually. But the bare fact is 
that no one is capable of writing 69 quality songs in that short a 
span of time. So as a result we get joke songs as filler, moments of 
brilliance and lots of mediocrity in between. It's all very 
interesting as a concept but piss-poor as an album if you ask me. 
Like if in the VU boxed set they would have mixed the album tracks in 
with the unreleased demos. I don't fault the Magnetic Fields for 
releasing this record but I find it difficult to imagine anyone 
liking this record enough to tout it above their heads, comparing 
contemporary albums spuriously.
	In the article Mr. Fitchett asks the reader how many times he 
or she has actually listened to FISHYCLAP and how many all the way 
through. For my part I could probably answer more than any other 
album which came out in the year 2000, whereas I only managed to 
listen to the entirety of 69 Love Songs once, the first time I 
brought it back from the store, and subsequent discs found their way 
onto my CD player quite sparsely. I see it as a great shame that such 
great songs as "Ferdinand de Saussure" are featured on the same album 
as "Punk Love."
	And as for the Magnetic Fields being driven by Merritt and 
B&S being a collective due to Struan's seeming reluctance to be a 
frontman. This is very true, but if Belle & Sebastian were to release 
69 of Struan's songs I think I would feel the same way. I would 
really like to see Stuart Murdoch be more of a focus in Belle & 
Sebastian, and I don't think I am alone in that. But to see Belle & 
Sebastian become a vehicle for his whims of fancy would be far too 
much of a good thing. If we have to endure the Ringo-like musings of 
other B&S members' songs, so be it. Take it part & parcel. I always 
did like Octopus' Garden anyway.
-- 
Brian Pennington, aka Mick McMick | cellophanesky at mac.com | ICQ# 39021436
Sandcastle Records: <http://www.indiepages.com/sandcastle/>
the Cellophane Sky:<http://home.earthlink.net/~cellophanesky/the/index.html>
"Better a tear of truth than smiling lies." - Duncan Browne
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