My First Listen Through of Dear Catastrophe Waitress
The first Belle & Sebastian I ever heard was Your Cover's Blown, possibly their greatest song (possibly the greatest song ever).
So later that week I picked up the Dog on Wheels EP from a used CD store. It had The State That I Am In on it which is the other contender for the title of Belle & Sebastian's greatest song (and possibly the greatest song ever). After listening to that for a month I got If You're Feeling Sinister and listened to that for the rest of the summer. It was amazing.
But everything I've bought after that has been slightly more and more disapointing, unable to live up to the unbearable expectations set by these songs and albums. Tigermilk is wonderful, but I like Sinister more, The Boy with the Arab Strap isn't nearly as bad as Pitchfork makes it out to be, but it's not as good as either Sinister or Tigermilk. I bought the 1995-2001 collection of EPs the other day Push Barman to Open Old Wounds, and it's better than Arab Strap, and contends with Tigermilk, but most of it isn't as good as that first EP I bought, Dog on Wheels.
Finally I bought Dear Catastrophe Waitress after holding out for an entire year because I don't like paying more than nineteen dollars for a CD. My expectations were so high that I didn't want my first listen to just be me putting it on while I read or wrote or stenciled or computered or something, I wanted to sit and listen to it. So I had it for more than a week until today when I finally said screw it, I'll put it on while I play computer games. The first track was so ubearably good that I rolled off my bed in amaze when it started playing. The second song as also incapacitatingly good and lay on the floor for the rest of the album, leafing through the liner notes and looking at the cover art. I'm listening to it for my second time while I write this and it's still awesome. 10/10