Every Album I Love is a series where I write about albums I love until I run out of them (or lose the capacity to write – depending on which comes first). I’ll explain why I love them, tell the stories of how I fell in love with them, and hope that you love them too.

I wrote recently about listening to fewer albums (and more individual songs and playlists) than in the past. It was perhaps ironic that later the same week I went to Belle and Sebastian perform their album ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ in full. I don’t usually like these full album shows much. The first one I’d been to was Pixies performing Doolittle, during the time between their reformation and when Kim Deal left. They were the band I loved the most at the time, and I would see them at every chance I got, but this was perhaps my least favourite of the times I did. The only other was Love playing Forever Changes some time in the 2000s, when I thought that I would be unlikely to get the opportunity to see Love with Arthur Lee many more times (and was sadly proven right by his death in 2006)

I find the full album shows kind of stilted, and by their nature predictable, like when someone has over-practiced a speech and is accurate but robotic. Part of the excitement of being at a show is not knowing what songs you’re going to hear. There’s usually a good reason why not every song on a particular album is performed live. Some have arrangements or structures that make them very difficult to perform, or at least perform well. And honestly, most albums have at least one or two songs that no-one is at all excited about hearing live. Doolittle is one my favourite albums of all time, but I would quite happily never hear La La Love You again in any form, for example.

Despite my misgivings, I made an exception for ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’. It’s one of those rare albums with not a single song I don’t love, but I didn’t always feel that way about it. I bought the record (well, CD) back in 1996, having heard ‘The Stars of Track and Field’ on the John Peel show. This is something different I thought, melodic and lovely, literate and funny. Most of the Britpop and alt-rock bands I was listening to at the time were polished and loud, but Belle and Sebastian were quiet, hushed, a little shambolic even.

They were a sign of the way my taste in music would develop, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I enjoyed the album, but there were only two or three songs I particularly liked, and I can’t now remember what they were. I listened to it a handful times upon purchase, but rarely dug it out after the first few months.

Then one day, almost a decade later, I was walking home, and their song ‘The Fox In The Snow’ popped unbidden into my head. I had a sudden revelation about just how wonderful it was. It’s happened quite often that I’ve suddenly started to love a song I was previously indifferent to, but usually I had to at least hear the song again for that to happen. This came entirely out of nowhere.

I put the album on when I got home, and for the first time appreciated its greatness. From barely having thought about it in years, it became one of my most listened to albums, and one on which my favourite song changed regularly. ‘The Boy Done Wrong Again’ spoke to me during a particularly sad period of my life, and I’ve been through other phases where ‘Me and The Major’ and ‘Judy and the Dream of Horses were my B&S songs of choice (right now it’s probably ‘Dylan in the Movies’). This happens with very few of my other favourite records where I usually have very clearly defined favourites.

Despite how much I loved If You’re Feeling Sinister, I never got on as well with any of their other records. All had highlights (Sleep The Clock Around, The State I Am In, & Another Sunny Day for example), but none really stuck with me the way IYFS had. I saw the band live a couple of times and they were good, but not great, and I didn’t particularly expect to be going to see them again. However, when they announced a full album show for If You’re Feeling Sinister in nearby Halifax, they drew me back in. A rare opportunity to see an album performed live that is genuinely all killer, no filler.

Did the show live up to expectations? Yes and no. There was a large cast on stage, enabling the band to put every song on the record into an arrangment that worked live, and Stuart Murdoch made up in energy and gusto what he lacks in natural charisma (the horses head he wore during the climax of ‘Judy and the Dream of Horses’ was a particular highlight). They’ve certainly become a better live band since I saw them in their earlier days.

It did still feel a little like the songs of the album were being ticked off a list though, and the best part of the show was the half an hour of ‘greatest hits’ (a loose term for a band like Belle and Sebastian) that they played at the end. Even for this album, which I love deeply, I came away unconvinced that a regular show wouldn’t have been just as good or better.

I understand why bands do it of course. It’s a nostalgic hook that brings in the punters, with the comfort of knowing that that they’re going to hear some of their favourite. I don’t mean that disparagingly. I am very much one of those punters! And as most albums are 40 to 60 minutes long, there’s almost always time for another set, unless you’re The Magnetic Fields doing 69 Love Songs and need a second date to even finish the record. Some would argue that it’s the best of both worlds.

Not me though. Even when considering an album as good as this one, I think it’s best if albums remain albums, and shows remain shows. Even if there might be a few bands who could test my will. And if this is the end of my live journey with Belle and Sebastian, that won’t change the fact that they’ve had a big influence on my taste in music, and indirectly my lfe (their Bowlie Weekender was the inspiration of the All Tomorrow’s Parties series of festivals at which I met my wife). I’ve been listening to If You’re Feeling Sinister for thirty years. Should I still be around in 2056, I strongly suspect I’ll still be listening to it then, and there’s very few records about which I can say that.