Make Me Dance, I Want To Surrender

Just a few days short of the biggest holiday of the year here at The Cuddle, and we find ourselves tremendously busy.  It's tough to juggle everything that needs to be done with what we want to do.  This tends to fall into both categories... The Ideological Cuddle Top 10 Albums of 2010 starts with this gem, released on October 12, 2010...

ALBUM #10 - Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love
We here at The Cuddle are big on the entire Belle and Sebastian catalogue (Mrs. Cuddle, not so much), and Write About Love fits beautifully among the band's best.  The word for this record is consistency.  May of B&S's records have had legendary tracks, but exist on albums that are weak as a whole.  I think that this release ranks right up there with 2003's Dear Catastrophe Waitress and 1996's If You're Feeling Sinister.  The album is chock-full of the sound of swinging 60s era London, and twee-indie beauty which B&S has become so famous for.  Album opener "I Didn't See It Coming" floats along on Sarah Martin's beautiful, whispery vocal (truth be told, very reminiscent of original B&S female chanteuse Isobel Campbell - too busy making records with Mark Lanegan to be back in the fold with her old band) and propelled by a jangly guitar line and insistent tambourine.  It's telling that the textural layering of the song is such that that Stuart Murdoch is only heard in the background until the 3 minute mark and, there's so much going on, he isn't missed.  "Calculating Bimbo" is classic Murdoch - on the surface, a "put down" song along the lines of Dylan or Costello, but in reality, a song that chronicles a couple keeping score of their shortcomings.  Murdoch manages to express some of the complex emotions present in long-term relationships over a deceptively simple and meandering tune.
Much has been written about the album's two "duets" - "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John" featuring Norah Jones, and "Write About Love" featuring Carey Mulligan (the excruciatingly cute lead actress in last year's wonderful An Education).  Some have criticised Murdoch's choice of both of these duet partners, but the band manages to pull each one off.  Jones seems an unlikely, yet refreshingly smart foil to Murdoch, as her jazzy delivery offsets Murdoch's laconic 60s pop crooning.  Mulligan is somewhat of an interesting choice for a singing partner, as she's an actress, but she sings her part beautifully.  In "Write About Love", she is the disgruntled employee to Murdoch's demanding boss, and the roles seem to fit.
We hope that Belle and Sebastian have many, many more albums ahead of them.  Unlike, say, The Hold Steady, they don't feel the need to reinvent themselves album after album.  They do what they do better than anyone else (although fellow Glaswegians Camera Obscura are pretty damn close) and they seem to know it.  Some extra tweaks here and there are fine, but with Belle and Sebastian, it's comforting to know that each album will transport the listener back in time to when sweet pop melodies were the norm, not the exception.
Here are a couple of "promotional videos" that the band released in the wake of the album's release - they're patterned after an idea that the band had to create a "Belle and Sebastian Talk Show" and the design is very much like the sets of The Mike Douglas Show of the 1970s.  Enjoy...

"I Didn't See It Coming"


"I Want The World To Stop"


Until next time, when we reveal our 9th favorite record of 2010, seek out some Belle and Sebastian, and listen...