Just One Near-Perfect Thing

Belle & Sebastian “If She Wants Me” – I suppose that the one thing that Belle & Sebastian does really, really well is sounding cozy. They are the musical manifestation of sweater-weather, and so it isn’t surprising that the majority of their fans are students – on some level, I think most everyone associates them with school, or at least the time of year when one would be in school. Of course, all of the references to teenage sexuality, books, and athletics throughout their catalog surely helps to drive home the “B&S = school” thing. Anyway, I know that it is easy to dislike the band for their preciousness, but I still find it hard to imagine why some people would hate them so much since I associate them with coziness. In my mind, it seems like having a strong negative reaction to Belle & Sebastian is like hating comfortable clothing and preferring swelteringly hot weather to crisp, temperate autumn/fall days – I just can’t relate. Who doesn’t want to be cozy?

The problem with the new Belle & Sebastian album Dear Catastrophe Waitress is that it doesn’t feel cozy often enough. This is not the fault of the Trevor Horn’s production (it’s fine – the songs sound clean but not too ‘produced’, he gets it exactly right for the most part), and it’s not because of the lackluster songwriting talents of the non-Stuart Murdoch members of the group (Isobel Campbell left the band, so we don’t have to deal with her amateurish songs and thin singing voice anymore, and the other girl only sings half of one song). Most of the songs are pretty good, actually, and even the weakest songs have likeable qualities. This record isn’t much like the previous proper B&S album, on which one third of it was among the best work they’d ever recorded, another third was boring, and the remaining songs were so awful that they were nearly unlistenable.* Consistency surely counts for something, right?

Either way, this album just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s missing something, and for want of a better term, I’ll call it the Cozy Effect. All of the early Belle & Sebastian records have Cozy Effect, especially the best songs. The Cozy Effect makes me want to put on a sweater, rake some leaves, read books in the park on an overcast day, and want to have a crush on some stranger just for the fun of it. One of my best musical memories is essentially the Cozy Effect at full blast – I’m riding home on a Metro North train after a day of school, staring out at the rain while listening to “The Rollercoaster Ride” and pining for a girl that I had no chance with. I have no idea why I remember that so vividly – it’s so insignificant, but I suppose that it was just so right that it’ll always remember it, at least when I think of that song or of the band in general. I suspect that maybe it’s just me, and that perhaps all of these new songs are fully capable of having the Cozy Effect on other people, especially people who are still teenagers. I hope they do, anyway. I don’t mind being more or less over them and deriving most of my joy from their music from nostalgia. It’d be sadder if they just lost their spark.

However, “If She Wants Me” is the major exception on Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I love this song. It’s definitely got the Cozy Effect, no question about it. Like most of the best B&S tunes, it’s a fey approximation of Motown/Northern Soul. Stuart Murdoch’s voice sounds beautiful on this, the melody flatters the character of his voice rather well, especially when he reaches for those high notes. Basically, if this isn’t the single for the album, the label is out of their minds.

* If you were curious, I’d sort it out like this. The best: “Women’s Realm,” “Don’t Leave The Light On, Baby,” “The Chalet Lines,” and “The Wrong Girl.” The unlistenable: “Beyond The Sunrise,” “Waiting For The Moon To Rise,” and “Family Tree.” The rest is all boring or middling. I should say that I like “Women’s Realm” significantly more than the other three good songs I mentioned.