8. Belle and SebastianTigermilk
This is another record that really represents my teenage years, and I guess it’s a time when you’re so open to records and they get their hooks into you in a slightly different way than when you’re in your 20s. My best friend’s brother gave it to me and at the time I was listening to OK Computer and all that sort of stuff, and the first time I heard it I was a little bit embarrassed, or I didn’t think it was cool enough. And then I realised it was actually such a brilliant antidote to all the posturing and machismo of the Britpop thing – which I loved – but it kind of came at it from such a different angle. The storytelling about the mundane and the innocence of it all.
And it was before twee became a word that everyone rejects. I don’t think it is actually that twee, it just has a real sense of melody, and it’s made in a slightly crap way; the violin solos are always a little bit shit, but there’s a real sense of a group of people who are together. And ‘The State I Am In’ is still one of my favourite songs. The subject matter is so unusual. I would never be able to write songs the way he does, but they still feel like pop songs. They – or that record in particular – was a big influence.
It’s a real teenager thing – that you belong to this group of outsiders – but it really worked. It also felt so fresh at the time being from Glasgow. What’s Glasgow all about? And it felt so other, even if now it just feels like part of the furniture.
