Belle and Sebastian help organize a near-flawless music festival (to smashing success), inspire legions of devoted fans, and still find time to write heart-wrenching songs of delicate beauty.  But that’s not enough. Oh no.

You see B&S are no longer Everyone’s Little Secret.  The Brit award.  The side projects.  The cutesy (non)image.  Those hopelessly devoted fans!  Yes, now that they’re...*gasp!*...“popular” it’s officially open season on The Cult of Belle and Sebastian.

The naysayers say the band may be a lot of things but “important” isn’t one of them. No, to them B&S’s music is simply retreading the well worn paths of earlier fey indie troubadours like Felt, The Field Mice, The Go-Betweens, and the Smiths. What does Belle and Sebastian have to offer?

I’m writing this to say that Belle and Sebastian are important.  They’re important to me.  Although the last time I checked the world didn’t exactly follow my advice (pity).

Yet Belle and Sebastian, whether the band likes it or not, are something special.  I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the Smiths in their heyday but from my time spent on the net among those Mozaholics who truly believe in a light that never goes out I get the feeling that’s kind of what B&S are managing to do.

It’s the same devotion stemming from a band who have managed to articulate feelings so many of us have thought or felt but were unable to express.  It’s the way the music makes you feel. The way you want to make homemade T-shirts and buttons to declare your love of this band to the world.  The way the band makes you believe in Truth with a capital “T” again.
And when was the last time you felt that?

Of course the naysayers will still grumble.  “Well if that’s the case then Phish or Dave Matthews Band are important,” they sniff.

Now, as much as I despise those two bands I won’t deny they are important.  They’re important in only a late late 20th Century pop music phenomenon can be.  Legions of middle-class faux hippies brought together by their love of pot and musical masturbation.  It’s horrifying  but so was China’s Cultural Revolution.  And no one’s saying that wasn’t important.

It’s the same with Woodstock 99.  The organizers probably never dreamt it would turn into a testosterone-crazed riot but the fact remains that it did.  And it means something.  (Note to Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello: it wasn’t cuz the kids were united in some Marxist statement against the outrageous ticket and food prices [which, by the way, wasn’t Morello getting a cut of?]  It was cuz they wanted to break stuff. Huh  Huh. Fire! Cool!).

Every social group has their own icons and catalysts.  For the lonely bookish middle class white indie kids of the world it looks like it’s Belle and Sebastian.

Some people (see the NME’s praising but dismissive review of the Bowlie Weekender) are quick to mock this.  Lonely bookish middle class white indie kids, eh?  Pah.  Who cares?  They have no soul. Just too much time and education.

Well I’m afraid I'm one of those lonely bookish middle class white indie kids and there’s not much I can do to change that.  I like to think that I do have a soul and that the followers of Belle and Sebastian do as well.

Belle and Sebastian have already achieved more in their short time together than anyone could have guessed or dreamed of.  I don’t need any über-hipster to tell me if a band is “important”.  I already know.

Do something pretty while you can.
 

Kathleen Gallagher
Oct. 20/99

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