I Could Be Dreaming: the Belle and Sebastian song-by-song, album-by-album thread

Ever Had A Little Faith 4/5

 

Ever Had a Little Faith: 3

Of course, it's not a bad song. But it's not a GREAT song (like, say, Lord Anthony) either, and it's so out of place on Girls in Peacetime..., like it's just there to please the old crowd. Well, not enough to please me, sorry.

 

I had to put "Tigermilk" on pause to listen to this. Far more like it. Definitely an old one 4/5

Right, back to the past . . .

 

"Ever Had A Little Faith" is not one of Stuart's very best, so I can see why he hasn't used it before now, but it's still pretty good and certainly better than many of the other songs on this album. Yes, it may sound a bit out of place next to the synth pop dance beat stuff, but I would argue that this style is more timeless whereas the dance beats will sound dated much sooner.

4/5

 

Definitely a lovely song -- not the best of Stuart's songs, of course, but certainly a good Lou Reed-ish songg with a very nice baroque string arrangement. 3.8/5

It's retro style perhaps doesn't fit on the album; on the other hand it's a double (vinyl) record so some stylistic tangents should be expected, I suppose.

 

Our votes for "Ever Had a Little Faith"

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Average: 3.73

 

Today's song is "Play For Today", written by Belle and Sebastian and produced by Ben H Allen III.

Lyric.

Dee Dee Penny: co-lead vocals
Dave McGowan: bass
Ben H. Allen III: additional synth, programming, percussion
Alfreda Gerald, Charles Antonio HIghtower, Natasha D Evans, Tanya Smith: backing vocals

 

An interesting mix of what sounds to me like an older song but with this newer sound. One of my favourites on the album, I really like the vocal melodies. 5.

 

As usual, Stuart does really well when a guest female vocalist is involved - 4.5/5.

 

The first one on the album I dislike. The riff is very irritating, and there's another unwelcome, overly professional sounding guest singer.
Aside from the riff, the tune is OK. I will try to be positive and accentuate the positive and give it a generous 3/5

 

It seems whenever they find a good idea for a song, they just have to drag it to exhaustion. 7:30 minutes is again toooo long

Still has a vicious melody and the Dee delivers a great performance.

4/5 point deducted for length

 

Play For Today - I don't mind it. 3.5/5

Agree with the comments about it being perhaps an older song touched up with the newer sound.

 

Play For Today 4/5, this one goes on too long for my liking, but it's a great song

 

Play for Today: 5

Splendid tune, great atmosphere, fantastic duet. The 7:30 minutes go by fast.

 

Late to the party again (blame work)

This would be such a great song if it was slowed down a bit, divorced from its 1980s synth-pop arrangement and, basically, done properly. I think B&S made a massive mistake employing Ben H. Allen as producer for this album, as his production has basically ruined it. Except, of course, that it's not entirely his fault, as the band (or, at least, Stuart) are complicit. I would so like to hear this done as B&S would have done it in 1995/96.

I wanted to give it 2/5; but it's a good song regardless of being so badly presented, so I'll give it 3/5. I hope they do an 'unplugged' version of this album one day.

On a happier note, I'm starting a new job in three weeks time. No more driving hundreds of miles a day in every weather. No more commute (working from home). More money. I might pay B&S to re-record this album . . .

 

agreed, but it didn't had to take the 90's route at all. their previous album was on point production-wise.

 

I tend to agree, it was definitely an improvement on The Life Pursuit, which I find almost impossible to listen to in one sitting.

Ironically (although I've only listened in the context of the film) "God Help The Girl" is the most B&S sounding B&S project in years

 

Couldn't disagree more with rating the insipid production on Write About Love higher than the production on this album (or any other B & S album we've covered so far).

 

Well, peace time has a ear-bleeding Dynamic Range of 7 : Album details - Dynamic Range Database
Write About Love fare a bit better with an 8 : Album details - Dynamic Range Database

but I was not even think about loudness war, its a war we already lost

but the producer choices to allow so many tracks going over the 5 minute mark, the instruments used and so on.

I think both albums are fairly good and on similar level, but production did not help make it better as it did back with Catastrophe Waitress

 

"Play For Today" is so long that I almost always turn it off part way through even though I've enjoyed the first part; it should have an intermission so I can go and get an ice cream.

I don't like Dee Dee Penny's voice as much as any of the other guest vocalists over the years. I read somewhere (Songfacts maybe) that she auditioned for the God Help The Girl film and Stuart liked her voice so much he wrote this song specifically for her.

Difficult to rate because I like the basic melodies but really dislike the synth-pop sound and the length, so middle score 3/5

 

I'm completely the other way: this album is elevated by it's production, which elevates it from a(nother) good B&S album to a great B&S album.

 

Backtracking a bit to "God Help The Girl" again. Because, obviously, I have a major piece of work that needs to be completed by noon tomorrow; so what do I do? Work, or drink gin and watch God Help The Girl? So, things I missed: Sarah and Richard both have cameos that I missed originally. It is Bob playing guitar and bass in the band (I want whatever he's taking to stay young). Catherine Ireton isn't the other backing vocalist, it's Celia (can't remember the surname). If you don't have the DVD get the DVD because there's a good 30 minute live show in the extras.

And I stand by my comments above. "Girls In peacetime" is a potentially good album ruined by arrangement and production.

Now I have work to do . . .

 

"Play For Today is pure Euro-pop; it sounds like the kind of thing I'd hear at discos constantly when I first moved here and brings this weird nostalgic feeling to me. I've always thought there was something so innocent and fun about Euro-pop: it's music that seems designed for pure fun and nothing else.

The lyric of course on this is almost counter to the usual pop lyric: it's quite dark and deep, in fact I think that this is one of Stuart's best lyrics: it's amazingly mature, written with sympathy and wit and seems to capture the feeling of having somehow broken through the sense of midlife crisis that dominated Write About Love.

Musically, the big, bold keyboard riff and backing vocals ("Author! Author" -- Stuart knew he had a masterpiece, huh?) make this seem far shorter than the 7 and half minutes it is. WEll, to me, anyway.

This does not sound like the Belle and Sebastian of old, far from it-- as far from "The State That I Am In" as you can get. But it's a masterpiece, in my opinion.

5/5

 

Our votes for "Play For Today"

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Average: 4

 

The recent reissue of the Sign o' the Times album has good dynamics, as well as a few others reissues. There is some hope that at least with legacy acts they might go the other way.

I'm afraid Belle and SEbastian's 2000s work will always be locked into a pretty brickwalled sense of dynamics, no matter what(and I suspect that the vinyl versions are just a trifle better).

Though it doesn't sound nearly as bad on this album (or Write About Love) as it did on The Life Pursuit, whose cluttered and clear arrangements really collide with that sound. You can't try to do Phil Spector-style arrangements, and have everything crystal clear and dry and brickwall it all at the same time and expect a listenable result.