Belle and Sebastian: Just a Modern Rock Story

Scottish twee pop darlings Belle & Sebastian have spent the better part of their career enforcing a strict policy of “we don’t do press, ever!” As a result, the group remained shrouded in pastel mystery that bated dramatic and obsessive fans for the long haul.

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But when the grip of dwindling sales took hold, the group quickly switched gears and granted interviews to everyone from NME to The Onion. Naturally, Belle and Sebastian’s devoted fans were none too pleased. For Scottish journalist Paul Whitelaw, the group’s lift of the media kibosh presented an opportunity to offer insight into the group’s fey and precious legacy with his book Belle and Sebastian: Just a Modern Rock Story.

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The precious cat was out of the bag and those fans who held the group’s secrets so close to their hearts were forced to share the band with the rest of the world. Making matters worse, it became known that the group had signed to work with dance-pop producer Trevor Horn, who had previously sculpted the sounds of Seal, t.A.T.u., Celine Dion and so on. Whitelaw describes the fans’ perception of the group’s activities as being on par with “horse molestation.” The puritanical fans were fed up with B&S’s BS and were making their revulsion known. Whitelaw, however, was not one of those fans. Just a Modern Rock Story is a band-approved documentary that hangs on the band’s every move with a clear belief that B&S is incapable of churning out anything less than gold.

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In a move of method acting via journalism, Whitelaw adopts the group’s ironic and whimsical voice to tell his story. The book reads like a commercial for Belle & Sebastian, glossing over less enviable episodes, like frontman Stuart Murdoch’s doomed relationship with Isobel Campbell. Whitelaw instead focuses on the life stories of the seven or so individual members of the group, tracing their first childhood encounters with music all the way to achieving indie success. The resulting book is indeed just a modern rock story crafted for the group’s starry-eyed fans, but that’s about it.