I’ve read that the new Barenaked Ladies album (the first without Steven Page) contains several songs with references to Page’s departure… usually bitter references trashing him for letting down the band. That makes them the latest in a long line of band members who have used their music to take shots at each other.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney famously ripped each other in their first solo albums after The Beatles broke up (John’s ‘How Do You Sleep?’ was particularly brutal, including the lines “those freaks was right when they said you was dead… the sound you make is muzak to my ears, you must have learned something in all those years”).
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.
Meet Me In Montauk 