24 Belly “Now They’ll Sleep”

Ah, Belly!

There are acts that share names, though it tends to be rare that one of them doesn’t adjust. The Charlatans are known as The Charlatans UK over here in the US because, well, there was already a The Charlatans dating back to the 60s. Yazoo is known as Yaz in the US. The Mission UK… The English Beat…

There are several more contemporary acts that have taken up the name Belly which makes the selections that show up on AI playlists and search engines unpleasant. I usually don’t mind, after all there was already a Tsunami heavy metal band before the indie band that I adore. But Belly was important and I worry that folks latching on to this name are missing that importance. 

Belly was founded by Tanya Donelly after co-founding Throwing Muses with Kristen Hersh, who continued on with that band, and The Breeders with Kim Deal, who continued on with that band as well as with the Pixies. The first album, Star, landed big, sold a ton, and was nominated for two Grammys. (Not that the Grammys are any indication of an act being good, but in this case the album was too good to ignore.)

Their second album, King, did not do as well. I believe I was working at a record store at the time and remember thinking that it was missing that something special the first album had. I think the missing bit was the odd, short, almost ambient songs that were placed sporadically throughout Star. King was just a straightforward alt rock album. Now, having said that, King is fantastic. But, the low sales led to the band breaking up and Donelly going solo. I’ll tell you about one of my greatest regrets when we cover one of her solo works. 

Something kept Belly in people’s minds, though, and sometime in the early 2000s a Best of album was released that included some unreleased tracks. Well, I think they were unreleased, I hadn’t heard them before. In 2016, the got back together and ran a crowdfunding for a new album, Dove. This makes three remarkable albums even if it works out to less than one a decade. 

I wanted to choose a track off of Dove for this playlist to show how good the music of Belly still is, but for some reason Spotify does not have Dove.

Sigh.

Instead, enjoy a track from King, “Now They’ll Sleep, ” and go out and track down Dove for “Stars Align.”