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Track Listings
| 1. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career |
| 2. Sleep The Clock Around |
| 3. Is It Wicked Not To Care? |
| 4. Ease Your Feet In The Sea |
| 5. A Summer Wasting |
| 6. Seymour Stein |
| 7. A Space Boy Dream |
| 8. Dirty Dream Number Two |
| 9. The Boy With The Arab Strap |
| 10. Chickfactor |
| 11. Simple Things |
| 12. The Rollercoaster Ride |
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This highly anticipated album from Belle and Sebastian arrives with every hope satisfied. Each song is a cunning short story that wraps itself around you like a cozy couch throw. The loose theme running through this 12-song reverie is seduction. It plays out in both the drowsy sexual hopes of principal songwriter Stuart Murdoch's idle protagonists and the giddiness of bandmate Stevie Jackson's "Seymour Stein" and "Chickfactor," which document his bewitchment by the city of New York and its beautiful girls and florid pitchmen. The complex arrangements favor a whimsical diversity best experienced in "Sleep the Clock Around," which features synthesizer bloops, trumpets, and bagpipes! If you haven't figured out that this Scottish eight-piece deserves every iota of hype it's receiving, it's time to have your ears checked and your record collection gone over by a certified professional. --Lois Maffeo
Review
Arab Strap is a more mature album that 1997's If You're Feeling Sinister, less concerned with just-postadolescent torment, which is to say it's concerned with more mature torment. What comes out of all this self-restraint is a pastoral album whose minor accomplishments add up to tremendous power when heard as a whole. -- Spin
Redolent of the Velvet Underground's cutest moments, this stuff is almost closer to sense memory than to music ... this album's got brilliant Spector-sound sunsets. -- Rolling Stone
The quiet power of this nuanced, restrained pop foray derives from a sly contradiction: An exterior of breezy pop melodies, tidy arrangements and fragile vocals belies the darkness within. -- USA Today
There is a care and craftsmanship at work on The Boy with the Arab Strap, their third album, that leaves almost all their contemporaries for dead. Music which locates an emotional chord largely neglected by the British mainstream since the demise of The Smiths, but is presented with an air of aloofness and/or shyness more suitable to a tiny side project of The Pastels. -- New Musical Express
[Singer-songwriter Stuart] Murdoch can apparently make a witty yet heartfelt song out of anything that crosses his mind... -- Entertainment Weekly
Redolent of the Velvet Underground's cutest moments, this stuff is almost closer to sense memory than to music ... this album's got brilliant Spector-sound sunsets. -- Rolling Stone
The quiet power of this nuanced, restrained pop foray derives from a sly contradiction: An exterior of breezy pop melodies, tidy arrangements and fragile vocals belies the darkness within. -- USA Today
There is a care and craftsmanship at work on The Boy with the Arab Strap, their third album, that leaves almost all their contemporaries for dead. Music which locates an emotional chord largely neglected by the British mainstream since the demise of The Smiths, but is presented with an air of aloofness and/or shyness more suitable to a tiny side project of The Pastels. -- New Musical Express
[Singer-songwriter Stuart] Murdoch can apparently make a witty yet heartfelt song out of anything that crosses his mind... -- Entertainment Weekly
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I first heard about Belle and Sebastian from a friend of mine who had also turned me on to Kings of Convenience. I went out and bought this CD as soon as I could. I didn't really get into it at first and I didn't really understand what some of the songs were about. But the album grew on me. The songs are timeless, they conjure up the ghosts of late 60s pioneers like Love and Nick Drake, while always sounding modern and in touch with today's alienated youth. But now that I have listened to these twelve songs thousands of times, the thing that draws me back the Boy with the Arab Strap is the MOOD. Autumnal, like leaves falling but with a hint of summer still lingering and winter waiting at the door. Like "The Graduate" or a Wes Anderson movie, graceful and beautiful, with equal measures of humor, sorrow and tenderness.
If you haven't already, buy this CD and prepare yourself for the most subtle and gorgeous forty-five minutes of your life.
If you haven't already, buy this CD and prepare yourself for the most subtle and gorgeous forty-five minutes of your life.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Adam Richman
Format:Audio CD
Every so often, you buy a CD that is a "press play, leave on" CD - one that has enough enjoyability and variety to be listened to the whole way through...I found that here. Some people have a hard time considering music with vocals of such softness - rock; but the simple fact here is that this is an album where most of the power comes in the lyrics - which could stand alone as poetry, and in the subtle and clean instrumentation - which is nothing less than perfect. I know that it is already hard to imagine an alnum so good through all of my flowery, fawning words, but - one listen straight through and you too will be sold. This album has out and out, impossible-not-to-dance-to songs (Dirty Dream #2 and the title track), breathy atmospheric gems (Ease Your Feet in the sea, Chickfactor, Seymour Stein- a brilliant song) as well as grinding, undefinable, songs with no genre or label (the amazing "Simple Things," and the equally great "A Spaceboy Dream"). This is one to buy, because there really is nothing quite like it available anywhere from anyone - and as the band shy away from public acclaim (turned down several major-label deals to sign with small Scottish label "Jeepster") they strengthen the unique nature of their sound which has only gotten better with each flawlessly produced album. Maybe not pure mosh, pyrotechnic, guitar smash rock, and maybe not pure troubador ballads - but a great piece of arranged music nonetheless and an entirely enjoyable addition to any collection.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
A Kid's Review
Format:Audio CD
I've had this CD for about a year and I just found out what an
Arab Strap is a few days ago.
An Arab Strap is a contraption that is designed to fit over a man's genitals and is usually made of leather.
I think I have gone into enough detail for most people. Just wanted to tell you.
Arab Strap is a few days ago.
An Arab Strap is a contraption that is designed to fit over a man's genitals and is usually made of leather.
I think I have gone into enough detail for most people. Just wanted to tell you.
(By the way, get the CD. It's really really good.)
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a fan of B&S
It's a very good album of B&S. I love the songs, the sound, the realisation of this album and vinyl give depth.
Published 1 month ago by DOMINIQUE BABY
4.0 out of 5 stars
Continues the band's excellent run, but the inclusion of tracks...
Released in 1998, THE BOY WITH THE ARAB STRAP was the third album by Scottish group Belle and Sebastian. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Christopher Culver
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic
Just as I think it can't get any better, when I wore my copy of If You're Feeling Sinister it got better. Read more
Published on November 9, 2009 by Bill Your 'Free Form FM Print DJ
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent album - still listening to it
This is an excellent album. I've been listening to it for the past 6 months and I still can't get enough of it. Read more
Published on August 11, 2009 by Trim Kabashi
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts strong, ends weak
3 1/2
The album begins like a classic, displaying Belle's signature mellow folk-pop orchestrations at their best- where beautiful intertwined melodies and a hushed... Read more
The album begins like a classic, displaying Belle's signature mellow folk-pop orchestrations at their best- where beautiful intertwined melodies and a hushed... Read more
Published on August 26, 2008 by IRate
5.0 out of 5 stars
the best band at their best.
not believing they could top their 2nd record, they did and made an album that changed me in so many ways i still havent figured them all out yet 10 years later.
Published on June 8, 2008 by Pat Kolodziej
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite B&S album
Boy with the Arab Strap isn't a perfect album -- Sinister is more consistent, but it's definitely a lot more varied instrumentally than its predecessor. Read more
Published on April 17, 2008 by Grace
5.0 out of 5 stars
Their Best Album
As the title mentions, this is their best album in my opinion. It is mellow and catchy the whole way through. Good if you like that kind of thing. Has good replay value as well.
Published on January 21, 2008 by Rick A. Isaacs
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic & Must-Have Belle & Sebastian Album
I completely disagree with the review below. "The Boy With the Arab Strap" is one of my favorite Belle & Sebastian albums. Read more
Published on January 6, 2008 by E. Plambeck
5.0 out of 5 stars
i spent the summer wasting
i LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this album. so many amazing songs on it. of course its not belle and sebastians best work, but that doesnt make it any less amazing! Read more
Published on October 18, 2007 by Daniel Linton
Listmania!
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