#4 – The Life Pursuit – Belle & Sebastian
The most-represented year in this little reconsideration of top ten lists past is 2006, with four albums. And the top-ranked among those four seven years ago remains the top-ranked today.
At the time, I made a case for Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit as the best album in the band’s catalog. Today I stand by that assessment with even more confidence.
More than 1,300 songs into this Song of the Day project, I’m still occasionally surprised to discover something I haven’t posted on the blog.
Recently, today’s SOTD — a standout track from Belle & Sebastian’s 2006 album The Life Pursuit — popped up on my car stereo and brought the same smile to my face that it always does.
“This would make a good Song of the Day,” I thought to myself, then immediately assumed it had been one already.
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.
Some fans aren’t thrilled with the direction the band has taken on this album and its predecessor, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, but I feel the opposite. I consider this some of their strongest work and song-for-song The Life Pursuit might be their most consistently excellent album. All the usual touches are there but also a confidence and a taste for experimentation that suits them well.
Meet Me In Montauk 