Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003/Rough Trade)

Good pop music usually comes with this funny feeling. It's a happy, fun, bouncy feeling that puts a smile on your face and a skip in your step. Soon after the music stops, though, the feeling goes away, the smile fades, and you've got to keep walking on your way through your humdrum life. It's a bit different when dealing with great pop music. Great pop music leaves you with something to think about after the smile fades, distracting you from your humdrum life, making it a bit more bearable. That's almost what it's like listening to Dear Catastrophe Waitress.

What makes this album so fun to listen to is its revelry in the baroque. Strings! Horns! Other stuff that I can't make out! It brings the music to a hilarious level, which Belle & Sebastian are very aware of. On the title track, Stuart Murdoch sings “I'm sorry if he hit you with a full can of coke/ it's no joke” while the orchestra in the back makes sounds akin to something that would be heard on a Merrie Melodies cartoon or something. The music doesn't really take any of the lyrics seriously, which is a good thing for a pop record. There's really only one slow track on the album, and one's enough.

Steven Mudoch's vocal delivery makes listening to the entire album a bit aggravating. His whispering vocals distance himself from the music. As the one of the main songwriters, he should be owning these songs like they were his own testicles, but instead, it sounds like someone's got them in a vice-grip and are willing to crush them at the sound of a wrong note. His vocals fit some of the songs on the album, but a song like“If You Find Yourself Caught In Love” could use some chutzpah behind it.

The most disappointing thing about the album is that none of the band members seem to realize that it's not 1960 anymore. Yeah, it's all well and good to craft well executed pop songs that sound like they're from back in the day, but give me something that I haven't heard before, something refreshing. It's perfectly fine on its own merits, but “fine” isn't good enough to progress the genre. “Fine” isn't good enough to mean anything. Now, does every band have to try to do something new with music? No, not really. But then again, not every band has to matter. I'm not sure if Belle & Sebastian does.