Late Developers

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Return In Time With Jaunty Pop Tune ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU, SON?’

Posted on by JL

Daily noise that works faster than any stimulant

17 April 2024


Photo by Turn Up The Volume

Scottish dream pop veterans BELLE AND SEBASTIAN released
their lauded 12th LP Late Developers last year, in January.

The band just shared a vintage brisk pop tune that somehow didn’t
end up on the album. It’s called WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU, SON? ,

Stuart Murdoch (singer/songwriter): “The song is about my youth, and the funny hole
I fell into in my late teens. I was failing at my university course, failing in almost everything I tried around then. I was obsessed with the music of the time, I used to hang so much on the lyrics and message and feeling of certain bands of the 80s era – it probably wasn’t healthy.

So although the theme of this song is a little accusatory, the fault is with the beholder.
I could have switched off at any time. Instead I let the singers become my penpals and my deities. The song tries to address what happens when the pop stars grow up, and change, and go a different way, and seem to betray the stance they held when you loved them the most.”

B&S at their jaunty pop best.


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Instagram

Scottish Pop Dream Tunesmiths BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Shine Brightly On New Surprise Album ‘LATE DEVELOPERS’

Posted on by JL

Standout longplayers

14 January 2023

Scottish dream pop tunesmiths BELLE AND SEBASTIAN teased, out of the blue,
a new album – their 12th – with a single a couple of days ago (see below). The LP
is named LATE DEVELOPERS and landed yesterday.

Press info: “Arriving almost back-to-back with their acclaimed 2022 album A Bit of
Previous, Belle and Sebastian return with Late Developers a surprise new album arriving
Jan 13th. Recorded during the sessions for A Bit of Previous, the new album is a full-hearted embrace of the band’s brightest tendencies that is not only fresh and immediate but possessing of the groups tuneful ability to be there for you with the perfect word or melody for the moment.”

Pitchfork: “On the quick follow-up to last year’s A Bit of Previous, the Glasgow indie-pop
band’s on-the-fly energy and head-in-the-clouds musings collide in memorable and surprising ways.Late Developers, announced less than a week before its release, underlines Belle and Sebastian’s uncanny ability to keep coming out on top.” Score: 7.5/10.


(photo by Turn Up The Volume)

TUTV: Tune after after tune after tune. Very familiar but most of the time very
irresistible too (Will I Tell You A Secret / The Evening Star / I Don’t Know What You See
In Me / Do You Follow / When The Cinycs Stare Back From The Wall). Even after all these
years maestro Stuart Murdoch‘s pop songwriting expertise seems to be inexhaustible. Hats off. 8/10.

Single: I Don’t Know What You See In Me

Full Album

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BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: Facebook – Instagram