The Boy With The Arab Strap
by Belle And Sebastian
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Belle And Sebastian bestography
The Boy With The Arab Strap is ranked 3rd best out of 21 albums by Belle And Sebastian on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Belle And Sebastian is If You're Feeling Sinister which is ranked number 142 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 9,369.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to The Boy With The Arab Strap on YouTube
The Boy With The Arab Strap track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 82 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
The Boy With The Arab Strap rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 5 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | amirmishali | Top 32 Music Albums of 1998 | 23/32 | 2 |
| 2026 |  Tamthebam | Best of The 90s Pt.2 (101-200) | 35/100 | - |
| 2026 |  AAL2014 | Top 60 Music Albums of 1998 | 18/60 | 4 |
| 2026 |  dihansse | Top 63 Music Albums of 1998 | 19/63 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Sandrof1969 | Top 10 Music Albums of 1998 | 2/10 | 5 |
| 2026 | stangetzaway | Top 21 Music Albums of 1998 | 13/21 | 2 |
| 2026 | Skerns | Top 92 Music Albums of 1998 | 78/92 | 1 |
| 2026 | matterhornrider | Top 45 Music Albums of 1998 | 20/45 | 3 |
| 2026 | Untitled | Top 18 Music Albums of 1998 | 17/18 | 1 |
| 2026 | AledJames | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 59/100 | 8 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 356 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 1,725 | |||
The Boy With The Arab Strap collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 233 members
The Boy With The Arab Strap ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 450 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 33 hours ago | jr_uk_1234 | 199 | 82/100 |
| ! | 10/16/2026 10:19 | Sonoffatboy | 533 | 79/100 |
| ! | 09/18/2026 15:41 | Devilwoac | 1,562 | 97/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 78.8/100, a mean average of 78.3/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 78.9/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.1.
The Boy With The Arab Strap favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 60 members
The Boy With The Arab Strap forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 5 days ago in Monthly Overall Chart Movements - October 2026View latest topic →
Repo 01/10/2023 23:37 in What album are you listening to right now?View all forum mentions
The Boy With The Arab Strap comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Showing comments with any number of votes. Manage Profile)
johnner TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/05/2012 14:13 | #47861 | TOP COMMENT
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September 1998, just after my father died, it was a good friend.
The best Belle and Sebastian album ever. The boy with the Arab strap, is a superb record of incredible songs of a band totally on top of their game. This is without doubt one of the greatest British albums of the nineties. Beautiful songs, beautiful melodies, especially on, is it wicked not to care?, chickfactor, and the title track. Brilliant album from a brilliant band.
Only getting round to this band in 2019 - pity I missed them at the time. Sinister brought me in and I slightly prefer that at the moment but this is also a superb album. I love the feel and sound of the simple title song which I rate as their best over these two albums.
junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/08/2013 00:24 | #60661 | TOP COMMENT
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Along with If You're Feeling Sinister, this is indispensable Belle and Sebastian. Tugs at the emotions, without being mushy.
A decent album with a few highlights but it is let down by a large amount of filler and a few weaker tracks. The positives of this record are the Title Track and the album opener both of them are classic Belle And Sebastian and they capture their style perfectly. The moody vocals and the interesting lyrics are what makes the few songs on here so good along with the diverse instrumentation. However, the slower songs just feel a bit repetitive to me and I feel like they could be a bit more experimental with the instruments. The album does get a bit dry by the end and it does drag as well. Overall, the lyrics on this album are great but the music is weaker than their other releases in my opinion.
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