Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister (33 1/3)
by Scott Plagenhoef
published
September 15th 2007
by Continuum International Publishing Group
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binding
Paperback, 144 pages
isbn
0826428185
(isbn13: 9780826428189)
description
At the time of its release in 1996, If You're Feeling Sinister was a romantic and defiantly independent artifact - a fully formed, pristine sea...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 68)
Read in August, 2008
Normally I don't go in for rock music journalism, since it tends to be an exclusive boys club that aims to make you feel like you're the most un-hip of the un-hip since you don't understand all the cock-slapping double entendres of the latest band full of phenoms... or maybe it seeks to stroke the critic's ego with the number of times they state how they were into metal back when metal was more than metal and the current state of metal just makes their teeth curl with the lack of purity and righ...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
music snobs
After reading this book, I want desperately to go out and buy a copy of Just a Modern Rock Story so I'd get to read a bit about the actual album.
The 33 1/3 series are meant to be about single albums, but this book mentions the album only as a backdrop to Plagenhoef's finely wove tale of How Music and It's Fans Were Better Before the iPod.
As someone who was a member of the Sinister list - an event Plagenhoef seems to equ...more
The 33 1/3 series are meant to be about single albums, but this book mentions the album only as a backdrop to Plagenhoef's finely wove tale of How Music and It's Fans Were Better Before the iPod.
As someone who was a member of the Sinister list - an event Plagenhoef seems to equ...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
Belle and Sebastian completists, indie rock snobs
I used to obsess over Belle and Sebastian and this used to be my favorite album of all time--it might still be, actually--so I was a little bit disappointed that Plagenhoef gives about 107 pages of background to his 110-page book. He acknowledges the cult following of the band, particularly the Sinister List (which I was on years and years ago--woot!!) but then dismisses a bunch of their songs as bad (including some of my favorites, like Chickfactor and Family Tree) with no explanation. At the...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
stars of track and field
One of the better books in the series that i've read so far. The author explained early on in its scant 110ish pages that since B & S declined to do interviews for the book due to its extensive involvement in the biography "Just a Modern Rock Band," he takes a different approach instead focusing on the different aspects of Belle and Sebastian's 'early' period roughly dated from between 1996-2000. Taking something of a sociological approach works with a band like Belle because of th...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
B & S fans
I quite like Continuum's 33 1/3 series, from which this is drawn: brief books on a single key album, and obvious editorial license to go down whatever path the author feels like. Some are track-by-track analysis, some are cultural meta-histories, some are even fiction.
This one posits Belle & Sebastian (Scottish pop band, operating from the mid 90s to the present, for the uninitiated) as the last true (read: before the internet made the task of finding even the most obscure musical outpu...more
This one posits Belle & Sebastian (Scottish pop band, operating from the mid 90s to the present, for the uninitiated) as the last true (read: before the internet made the task of finding even the most obscure musical outpu...more
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1 comments
Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
EVERYONE
ok - so the company i work for put out this book - but it doesn't mean it didn't rock! right? if you're a belle and sebastian fan - or even just a music fan! - you'll love Scott Plagenhoef's take on b&s, outlining they're growth with the advent of the internet. very informing! read all the 33 1/3s...i'm not just saying that!
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Too technical, too obsessed with factoids about other 90's Brit bands. Its no suprise that this guy writes for Pitchfork. It's like Pitchfork without the occasionally entertaining snark
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Stars of Track and Field
I really like the insight into some of the early history behind this band, but my complaint is that the author never really comes close to discussing the album at hand. It is a great reminder of what its like to be a fan of great pop music.
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Read in May, 2008
It was interesting to read up on the history of Belle & Sebastian, and the state of independent music in 1996/97, but nothing much was said at all about "If You're Feeling Sinister," and that's what I wanted to read about.
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Good stuff! It's a lot about their first album, "Tigermilk" and not as much about "Sinister," but for someone who started the book knowing very little about the band, I gained a lot from this little book.
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
twee poppers and sad bastards
this book/extended essay really contextualized the record musically, socially, and politically, and made me love belle & sebastian even more.
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