Recipe for Belle & Sebastian

merlin:

Being a non-scientific exploration of the musical sub-strata on which one of my favorite bands has stood.

Thusly:

Read More

Love this. So much.

For a few years my friends and I have been doing something similar when describing new bands to one another. One of us would play a song, and upon listening one would remark something to the effect of “Oh man, these guys sound like the lovechild of band x and band y!” With vigorous debate (and, more often than not, alcohol), we’ll scour someone’s iTunes library for another related band. “Dude, if you like this, you’ll love these guys.”

With a few common denominators in your band vocabulary (U2, Ben Folds, etc.), you can break down just about any musical act. It’s sort of like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for hipsters rather than for movie trivia buffs. It’s a lot of fun.

And then I got to thinking: I bet a list of these formulas could prove useful to Internet Travelers as a breadcrumb-trail for finding new music. Sometimes Amazon’s music recommendations are more miss than hit, and other times iTunes’ Genius just isn’t up to snuff.

And so, I give to you musicmath. Every day I’ll attempt to post at least one formula that describes a band that I like. If you have suggestions of your own, send them to musicmathblog@gmail.com. If your formula uses bands that I’m familiar enough with to verify as being an accurate description, I’ll post yours too.

Let’s see if we can’t brighten other people’s days with awesome new stuff to fill their earholes with.

You know that scene from Rent where that batshit woman gives her anti-corporate speech in the middle of a junkyard?
Remember how her nonsensicality was borderline maniacal, but in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way remained coherent enough to not be complete utter gibberish?



The Fiery Furnaces is that woman.

And don’t forget the imaginary map
Of the Manifestations of Murder-Making
Owned by the undertaker’s office
(Otherwise known as the Cadaverous Cosmeticians)
Local # DEAD-AS-A-DOORNAIL in a church mouse’s chin.
Or so said the birth-chart I sent away to New Mexico for.
It was made by a special commission of Navajo basketball coaches and blonde ladies

If you imagine the Dirty Projectors’ complete disregard of musical coherence were combined with the enthusiasm and chemistry of The New Pornographers, you get a pretty good idea of what Widow City sounds like.