Matador
2009
God Help The Girl
About This Album
While touring with Belle & Sebastian the past few years, Stuart Murdoch began coming up with songs he thought of as a separate project. Soon, they became sort of a story revolving around the travails of a girl growing up in Scotland who ends up being hospitalized due to what seems like a mental breakdown. Realizing that the songs probably needed to be sung by a female vocalist, Murdoch held a series of auditions. Eventually, he found a few singers he felt were suitable, and after hiring the guys from B&S as a backing band, they began putting the music on tape. The result was released under the name God Help the Girl, but it could have easily come out under the Belle & Sebastian brand and nobody would have been too surprised. The album sounds exactly like a B&S album, only mostly sung by female vocalists. Therein lies a big problem with the record. While the vocalists Murdoch found are all fine (especially Catherine Ireton, who sings most of the leads) you can't help but wish he had taken the vocals himself. Something about his words makes them sound much better when he sings them. Case in point, the neo-soul take on The Life Pursuit's "Funny Little Frog." In Murdoch's hands, the song is a touching, oddly poignant love song, here Brittany Stallings irons out all the kinks and turns it into a competent Winehouse-lite ballad.
Track List (try tracks 2,6,9 and 10)

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