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Salon.com: Belle and Sebastian

Belle and Sebastian - Salon.com Friday, Nov 14, 1997 8:00 PM UTC Sharps & Flats is a daily music review in Salon Magazine but Britain’s got loud all of a sudden. You can hardly hear yourself think at the moment, amidst the sounds of crashing and banging and weeping and wailing and self-proclamation and accusation and electric guitars. The noise started on May 1st, when Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister: Blair’s landslide victory changed the national mood literally overnight. The raucous celebrations lasted well into the summer, and even Britain’s notoriously conservative national press — somewhat perversely, given how much work they had put in to preserve John Major’s exhausted, deeply unpopular and increasingly sleazy party — started tapping its toes discreetly in the corner, like moms and dads at the end of rock’n'roll films. Blair’s approval rating shot through the roof, and Britain suddenly discovered that, contrary to all our suspicions, we were a young country, brimful of talent and vision and energy. Those of us who had got used to the idea that we were an awful, senile country, full of reactionary old farts who hadn’t read a novel in 30 years and who still disapproved of the length of Ringo’s hair, couldn’t take the pace. By July, I felt like I wanted to stop partying and go and have a sit-down.

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