I’m not a U2 fanatic by any means, but I completely understand why they’ve been dubbed the world’s greatest rock band. They exude unparalleled star power and their music is grand and powerful in a way that belongs totally to them. You always hear about other bands mimicking U2 but you never catch them being anything but themselves.
They are also the masters of the song intro. The best example is ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,’ which kicks off The Joshua Tree so effectively that the rest of the album seems almost like an afterthought. ‘Zooropa,’ the opening track of the underrated album of the same name, is another great one.
I’m capping off Belle and Sebastian week with another song from one of their EPs — this one an extra track on the ‘Books’ EP.
So far this week I’ve concentrated on Belle and Sebastian’s early work, but now I jump ahead to their last studio album, 2006’s The Life Pursuit. This is their least twee effort to date, with a more muscular, fleshed-out sound and more complicated production.
One great thing about Belle and Sebastian is that for their first ten or so years they released, between albums, EPs that contained three of four completely new songs. Rather than releasing a CD single with an album song and a couple of bonus tracks, they reserved those singles for brand new material. This meant fans had new songs to look forward to almost every year.
I really like the word ‘twee.’ It’s one of those words (and I think there’s a name for this) that sounds like what it means. Sort of like ‘guttural’ or ‘effervescent.’ I mean, can you think of a more twee word than ‘twee?’
Meet Me In Montauk 