First Look: Stuart Murdoch -

5.5.2009

First Look: Stuart Murdoch – “God Help The Girl”

god_help_the_girl For those put off, even a bit, by Belle & Sebastian’s late-period reinvention as disco-popsters, frontman Stuart Murdoch’s God Help The Girl should assuage your worries. A set of vintage Bacharach pop, it plays once again to Stuart’s strengths even as he lets other singers take the lead vocals. Such is the album’s loose concept, as it soundtracks the imaginary lives of a collection of girls in need of, well, assistance. Stuart’s feelings have always run more sympathetic to femine trevails anyway, and thanks to previously unknown singer Catherine Ireton (who graces the cover, too), they’re strongly, wryly sung, both authentic and tongue-in-cheek.

The album’s best song is first single “Come Monday Night,” an instant Murdoch classic with his trademark ambling bass walking under optimistic strings. “Come Monday night, we’re in a state of grace,” Ireton sings, transcendent after another ruined weekend. Sounds like the girl has all the help she needs.

Stuart Murdoch – “Come Monday Night”: mp3

(God Help The Girl is due June 23 on Matador, click here to pre-order)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 11:28 am and is filed under 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Dave Rawkblog

Man, "Funny Little Frog" is totally great, it grooves so hard
Phil

Some miserable vocals here. And the Funny Little Frog Redux is abominable!
Trent

This album is like an indie-pop Rent, and it is kind of terrible.
Brett

beautiful song. i dig it

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Gold Soundz
Can’t argue with that. Strong finish, dudes.
09/03/10
More P4k list commentary
Bummed that on a list of a lot of only semi-obvious picks from artists with bigger, even better songs, Elliott Smith got stuck with “Needle in the Hay,” the song that most plays into the Elliott Smith Was Sad And Took Drugs And Sang About Himself Narrative, when, like Joni Mitchell or Neil Young or his heroes in Big Star and the Beatles, his “confessionalism” was as much storytelling and character study as it ever was diary-page.

Despite “Miss Misery,” it is admittedly the song I think he’s best known for; it is a great and powerful song, but he was and remains so much more than that.

Also, this: “Posthumously parsing Elliott Smith songs— for foreshadowing, for anything— feels like something of a fool’s errand in 2010.”

I don’t know, Amanda, does that mean David Foster Wallace’s books have no meaning now? Or the poems of, like, Samuel Coleridge? What an awfully slippery slope to look for an angle on.

Also really glad “1979” charted so high, song rules, the Pumpkins rule(d), suck it, cred.
09/03/10
The guitars on the No Age album
They sound like volcanoes erupting or meteors killing dinosaurs

It’s amazing that there are songs here at all
09/03/10

First Look: Stuart Murdoch – “God Help The Girl”

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Gold Soundz

More P4k list commentary

The guitars on the No Age album