Belle & Sebastian – Sleep the Clock Around

In the summer, during its accompanying lockdown, I revisited all the early Belle & Sebastian albums up to and including the compilation Push Barman to Open Wounds and The Life Pursuit. That was the point, back in 2006, my attentions turned away from the band; and so, having the time now, I also caught up with the albums they made after then.

So this would explain why, when I opened my Spotify Unwrapped, they were my Top Artist of the year, but it still came as a bit of a surprise. Even more of a surprise was that ‘Is it Wicked Not to Care?’ was my favourite song of theirs; I’m putting this down to some quirk of the algorithm because that’s not the song I would have said, and why I’ve chosen ‘Sleep the Clock Around’ this week.

My Top Song was ‘Clay Pigeons’ by Blaze Foyley, who I included for GFAS in 2016. His re-emergence was down to me watching the Ken Burn’s Country Music miniseries where he was featured. The rest of my Top Artists were The Magnetic Fields, Damien Jurado, Sam Baker, and Big Thief.

I was full of praise for last year’s Spotify Unwrapped, but I don’t feel this year it is as representative of my listening habits, because a significant part of my listening in 2020 was done away from Spotify due to the availability, in my flat, of a decent record player.