![]() Lead track "Step Into My Office, Baby" is a catchy and wry take on placing a romantic come-on in a business-world setting. On the band's funniest, most poignant releases, the production proves the perfect handmaiden to a set of songs in which Murdoch both reasserts creative control and also says goodbye to now-former member and love interest Isobel Campbell. Whatever the calculation, the answer proved absolutely correct. But what manner of change, and how to achieve it? Probably no one other than Murdoch himself thought the answer was to hire the largely mothballed founder of the Buggles, Trevor Horn (best known for his production work with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, and Seal). Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003): Following the dismal Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant, change was clearly in order if Belle & Sebastian had any future at all. It's not all great but the highlights are dizzying.ΔΆ. Still, Murdoch broods on hometown rivalries such as on the brilliant title track, in which he reveals himself to be hilariously and obsessively consumed with the behaviors of fellow Glaswegian ascendants Arab Strap. Emerging from a small scene, global success now feels likely if not inevitable. Meanwhile, Stevie Jackson relays the minutes of being courted by industry legend and Sire Records chief Seymour Stein, who once signed B&S's heroes the Smiths. Murdoch begins the album wryly, with a couplet about the grim fate of an upcoming artist: "She had a stroke at the age of 24 / It could have been a brilliant career." Gender aside, he may as well have been describing himself. On their follow-up, Belle & Sebastian seemed stunned as anyone else at the enormity of their success and dedicated nearly a full album to ruminating on its implications. The Boy With The Arab Strap (1998): Expectations could not have possibly been higher following the triumph of 1996's If You're Feeling Sinister.
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