Now, I am not a hardcore fan of Belle And Sebastian by any means, but I’m as familiar with their discography as can be while still completely sane and with a healthy objective distance too. I’m sure a hardcore fan’s list would be a little more personal and feature less of their more well known songs, but I love Belle And Sebastian for their incredible pop craftsmanship taken as a whole rather than Murdoch’s lyricism. There are incredible melodies and fantastic hooks to be found and moreso than any other twee indie pop band, Belle And Sebastian write songs that truth be told are far more catchy and accessible than a lot of the chart material you can find. It’s just more easygoing, not so aggressively in-your face catchy, but still delivers all the more sheer joy and pop bliss. I love this band with all of their flaws and their triumphant strengths.

10. Your Cover’s Blown
From the greatly underappreciated Books EP that often finds itself forgotten way back in 2004 in their catalogue by the casual listeners, Your Cover’s Blown has a very simple production but all the more interesting and fun parts and details that seem just thrown together for the heck of it but still work as a perfectly imperfect whole. The surprisingly out-of-character funky strut with the bass and the guitar and the rhodes piano licks in the verse, the cheesy synth sounds, the uplifting chorus, the cliché dramatic gallop break before the last relieving chorus. Who’s getting more fun and joy out of this track? The listener or the band? Hard to tell.

9. Step Into My Office, Baby
Another one of quite few songs where the band take all their wit, intelligence and charm and churn out a pop song where the overly elegant twists and turns of their songwriting refers back to days of old when bands could play dittys that were easy to follow but sure as hell extremely few people could write.

8. I Want The World To Stop
This song also has the simplistic pop values of a brilliant ditty but coloured in a shade of dark blue with a modern gentleman melancholy. The production is exquisite, an elegant costume for song with a simple but universal sentiment.

7. Funny Little Frog
What really is funny is how the more poppier and more accessible a Belle And Sebastian song is, the simpler the lyrics tend to be. Great fun for the listeners because a catchy lyric fits good with a catchy song. Murdoch’s lyrical style is sophisticated enough as it is on the band’s non-hits so Funny Little Frog is a nice example of the reward of a good appropriation of the lyrics in relation to the song’s characteristics. As good a longing love song as any.

6. The State I Am In
Quite the other way around, The State I Am In is probably the finest example of a soft Belle & Sebastian song with lyrics that are of the more personal and faux-diary style. This first track on the first album brilliantly sums up the tone of all of the band’s work, both lyrically and instrumentally. The melodies are bittersweet and thin like silk, the humour dry (the lines in the beginning about his brother) and Murdoch’s singing always fitting the instrumental setting and tone.

5. Another Sunny Day
Another quite simple but beautiful pop song about love. The Life Pursuit has plenty, Another Sunny Day with its jangly The Smiths-y pop orchestration and world-weary melody being its glistening crown jewel.

4. Piazza, New York Catcher
Unequalled melodically, this is as good as an acoustic pop song with only voice and guitar can get. The lyrics are hard to make sense of, slightly stilty but it’s nonetheless strangely compelling to sing along with an adopted Scottish accent. Apparently it’s about San Francisco.

3. I’m A Cuckoo
The melody… Murdoch’s singing… One of the best darn pop songs I’ve heard. Hit-material. But kinda glad it didn’t become one. It’s just one of those songs when you melt a little when the first verse kicks in.

2. Come On Sister
Douglas Wolk wrote for Pitchfork of Come On Sister as ”a magnificent piece of construction”. I couldn’t agree more. It’s one of the band’s most produced songs with lots of synths buzzing up and down here and there. The first verse wants me to sing along and get my moves on, but as the song comes to the bridge with the perfectly placed guitar riffing and the synths rising to a merry melody I should dance even more frenetically but chances are I just melt down because it’s so damn good-sounding. ”And it’s fun! Thinking of you like a moviestar! And it’s dumb! Thinking of you like the way that you were…” Either Murdoch is addressing a pretty ”sistah” for a charmingly disillusioned come-on or a real genetic sister to have her sit at the bar, have a drink and tell him all about her men and the hopes and the hours (?) of her life. I really do like the idea of a song this fun to dance to being about the latter, about reconnecting familial relations and the joy that can bring.

1. The Boy With The Arab Strap
Insistent and constant in its handclapped rhythm but the arrangement oh so subtly and beautifully increasing and decreasing in intensity just to towards the end reach its very humble top, The Boy With The Arab Strap is like a gorgeous ballad you can and love dancing to. The production is lowkey but it somehow strikes me incredibly hard. The harmoniums and/or strings in the background are nothing less than magnificent in all of their glorious state of dejection, and not only as part of an incredibly strong songcraft, but on their own as well. The piano, or more accurately, the placing of the piano is crystal clear knowledge of how to make a song come alive as a unified entity. The melody is pure melancholy. The lyrics are open for interpretation, there’s no real theme except the two references to the boy from the band Arab Strap. Or is it just a boy with an arab strap? Murdoch is clever as ever. Best ever conclusion of a section of pop song? Might just be the part where the lines ”You were laid on your back with the boy with the arab strap / With the boy from the arab strap” give way for the flute part. The flute is not cute, it’s euphoric. Euphoria and melancholy have never looked so good next to each other. Neither did they sing in such harmony as on The Boy With The Arab Strap.

UPDATE: I forgot to post my Spotify playlist consisting of these 10 tracks. Here you go:
http://open.spotify.com/user/thelemurblog/playlist/4MZiiccj5UFBbX2oVtKnUv