A band that takes its name from a French children’s television series about a boy and his dog would almost have to be precious, and to be certain, Belle & Sebastian are precious. But precious can be a damning word, and Belle & Sebastian don’t have the negative qualities that the word connotes — they are private but not insular, pretty but not wimpy; they make gorgeous, delicate melodies sound full-bodied.

The Boulez you posted is totally the second movement, not the last…very understandable mistake.

–Jordan

btw, thanks for the intro to CocoRosie. I’m checking out their 1st album.

Wish GB was coming to New Orleans!
-J

Editors are as much to blame for this as the writers, if not more. I’ve had editors go back into articles I’ve written and add words and thoughts that I’d never normally use, resulting in some truly awful misquotes and gross over-simplifications that I wish I could withdraw my name from.

I’ve really enjoyed the back and forth here about the words “precious” and “twee”. Regardless of how precise or imprecise they may be, they’re now just buzzwords and shouldn’t be used in any serious review without elaborate justification. The irony of this reviewer using the word “precious” to describe Grizzly Bear’s music is too delicious, considering his use of phrases like “rhythm is a frozen concern.”

I’m intrigued by your ability to offer a thoughtful critique on this whole matter instead of a defensive rebuttal, Nico.

I came across your site through Expression of Joy project. I noticed that you used the Arabic character و in this post. Do you speak Arabic? I’m always happy to hear of people who have picked it up. How did you learn it?

God the Internet is so strange.

Regarding this post: thank you. I don’t know many people willing to put up so many examples in the course of discussion, and I find your examples well organized. I don’t have time to read much else on your site tonight, but I’ll bookmark and return. Sorry that this post didn’t do much more than celebrate unexpected Arabic references.

إلى اللقاء،
يعقوب بوتييت\ Jacob P.

Also, caught an earful of a piece from Speaks Volumes, I think it was Pillaging Music (?), on that BMW commercial in movie theaters. Good on ya.

Also, I enjoy your ability to effectively juxtapose Wagner and CocoRosie. It gives me warm fuzzies.

As to this sliding scale of precious sloppy… I’m not sure I subscribe to it. I think words like those are a bit too loaded, and almost thought-terminating, and altogether ineffective. So to set them as opposites of each other would just be false semantics. Take the denotation of precious, for example, just something near and dear to you. Your sloppy, adolescent, dirt-in-the-knees romance could be absolutely precious to you, as easily as a china doll in a glass case can be precious to anyone else.

God, I hate analysis. All it does is open up a can of worms.