What could be more foolish than giving a poor review to a record that is clearly perfect? Perhaps doing so, ten years after it’s released.
Before Gino Macaluso attempted to pen such an absurd disapproval of Belle & Sebastian’s 1996 LP “If You're Feeling Sinister,” it might have been wise to first consider that everyone who gives a tinker’s damn about music has already fallen in love with this masterpiece.
Malcaluso says that Stuart Murdoch’s voice is the hang-up, steadfastly refusing the act of “dealing with that guy’s voice.” Are these not the very words forever on the lips of every douchebag who rejects Bob Dylan, Radiohead and the Violent Femmes?
To be “quite blunt,” Gino, those kinds of people (you) shouldn’t be writing about music. In fact, as you say, your article is not a review at all, but rather “a biased opinion.” If this bias was too much for you to overcome, perhaps you should have written a piece on the 2004 US re-release of Camera Obscura’s “Underachievers Please Try Harder.” It’s a bit more recent, and as a fellow CO fan, I’m sure that you could give them all the respect they deserve, while expanding their already excellent fan base: Me.
Jesse Bo Widmark
Architectural engineering senior