The Feelies albums
There are some bands you get into after years and years of listening to music, that really don’t make much sense upon first listens. This New Jersey band is like that, as their influences at first seem to be obvious but once you really listen there are layers and layers of subtlety to dig out. Do all their songs sound the same or is it just that they have that distinctive of a sound? The Feelies have been around for forty years now, and their music still works because it is timeless and simple. Beyond that, it feels simultaneously daring and effortless as well. For The Feelies, patience is a virtue as they move at their own pace and make you wait for the big payoff. Every record they have made since the 1980s has depicted stillness as a mood. They will never get into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, but they are always waiting for discovery to the true fans of music.
Band Members:
Bill Million (guitar, vocals), Glenn Mercer (guitar, vocals), Vinny DeNunzio (drums, 1976-78), John Papesca (bass, 1976-79), Anton Fier (drums, 1978-80), Keith Clayton (bass, 1979-82), Stanley Demeski (percussion, drums, 1983-present), Brenda Sauter (bass, vocals, 1983-present), Dave Weckerman (percussion, drums, 1984-present)
Biggest Influences:
The Velvet Underground, CCR, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Richard Hell
Best Album:
The Good Earth
1980
Crazy Rhythms - 81%
I’ve always thought of this album as a very misleading title, for one the drumming is also pushed way back into the mix, so I wouldn’t call these rhythms crazy at all at least first. Coming as a post-punk answer to so many great bands of the 1970s (Devo, Talking Heads, Modern Lovers), there is a very complex nature to this. The first three songs for example, are all first-rate Television-esque guitar work outs with Mercer and Million singing all emotionally vacant over them, but it DOES have a certain charm to it. “The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness” tries to equate all the outcasts of the world under one umbrella; “Fa Ce La” is full of goofy percussion and a fun little homage to Talking Heads “Psychokiller”; “Loveless Love” is an amazing build up and crescendo into a more mysterious kind of music, stuck between dance music and existential wondering.
The song "Original Love" is my favorite, with a chorus that repeats three times: one time doing ominous vocals, the second time ominous vocals + echoey background vocals, the third time just the echoey stuff. Genius structured single! Some longer tracks on the album they have not really mastered yet, as “forces At Work” has moments that stand out and Crazy Rhythms has an amazing finale, but the longer tracks are usually only longer because they start off with a minute of silence at the beginning. “Moscow Nights” and “Raised Eyebrows” come off as filler a bit to pad out the album length. The cover of "Paint it black", counted as a bonus track is a million times better than "Everybody's got something to hide except me and my Monkey" that is on the original album. In all, this is an album of a group still finding their sound and latter albums improve ont his template greatly. However this is still work seeking out for the great songs on it, and it was the only album to feature Aton Fier, one of the greatest percussionists who ever lived.
Best songs: original love, loveless love, fa ce la , the boy with perpetual nervousness
1986
The Good Earth - 92%
There are some records that evoke a place and a mood, and The Good Earth is one of them and one of my personal favorites. The mood would be ‘pastoral’ or somewhere in the Midwest with some amazing breeze blowing through. There is also something channeled here from folk music of the 1960’s, whether it’s the moodiness of Creedence Clearwater Revival or a newer kind of stoic mindset about life pioneered by the Velvet Underground. The songs don’t differentiate much on the album, you have slightly more upbeat ravers full of many chord changes like “The High Road” (almost a Caribbean instrumentation applied) or more pondering prospects with a laid back vibe like “On the Roof” or “Slow Down, or songs that incorporate blistering guitar solos like the martial tempo of “Tomorrow Today” or the shifting patterns in “Slipping.” A lot of this doesn’t change from the basic major chord sequences most basic guitar players use, but it is made with such conviction and such a strong plucking pattern that folk music here is transformed in a way and updated to the nervous energy of punk rock.
The Good Earth doesn’t have an angry bone in its body though, produced expertly by REM’s Peter Buck it has a very good unity and flow to it. “The Good Earth” stands as the manifesto the band’s take on a tired world view, but still a world view worth mumbling about- it has a pounding bassline, jangly rhythm guitar chords, and a kind of sway about it that stands out as timeless now. Honestly, the record is just one of the most simple and laid back masterworks in existence, the band has dropped the long fade ins and outs of the previous record in favor of a unified front, and it’s all the better for it. Even the short “When Company Comes” is charming, and “Two Rooms” stands as a nice song that feels a little bit of a Crazy Rhythms left over. There is nothing 1980s production standard at all or anything dated about this album’s timeless style, and it is rather amazing how perfect it all sounds many years later.
Best Songs: The Good Earth, The High Road, Slow Down, Tomorrow Today
1988
Only Life - 85%
On their third album the band seems much more streamlined and under a spell of optimism. “Too Much” has the openness of a group with a very unified sound and lyrics about life being overwhelming, but it’s presented in a way that it makes it out like this band has a solution for life and its problems. “Too Far Gone” mixes the verve of Lou Reed, the lyrical complexity of Dylan, and the musical drive of the B52s (see also the closing cover of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”). Only “Away” and “Undertow” try this old style and end up failing slightly (nothing on the album is un-listenable).
But most of the album glides like a dream, the bass playing of Brenda Suter helps a lot and the underrated drumming of Stanley Demesky keep things moving. “For a While” is as delicate as a cloud, ditto for opener “It’s Only Life” which brings the listener in slowly. “Deep Fascination” is a song spoke in a dreams state, asking us to find inspiration but also providing it. “Higher Ground” is like that but less successful. For a band that debuted with ‘crazy rhythms’, the group has progressed with class into a sound that is all about controlled complexity, what The Feelies pull off here seems easy but is in fact very difficult. The guitar playing this time around is less wild and much more restrained, but it fits in with the songs that are very peaceful and catchy. Each song is still a compact little time bomb with shifting tempos, but its easier to listen before; for all of The Good Earth’s gentile ideas there was still a restlessness there, but it’s getting less and less noticeable. The Feelies approach commercial music sounds here, but they do It in their own way and style, and it’s a joy to listen to.
Best Songs: Too Far Gone, Too Much, For A While, Deep Fascination
2017
IN BETWEEN – 88%
There are some bands you get into after years and years of listening to music, that really don’t make much sense upon first listens. This band is like that, as their influences at first seem to be obvious but once you really listen there are layers and layers of subtlety to dig out. Do all their songs sound the same or is it just that they have that distinctive of a sound? The Feelies have been around for forty years now, and their music still works because it is timeless and simple. Beyond that, it feels simultaneously daring and effortless as well, and songs like “Stay the Course” or “Pass the Time” prove by sounding exactly like something that could have come off of 1986’s The Good Earth. “Time Will Tell”, creeping in toward the end of the album, is one of the greatest folk/rock jangles to ever come along by any group.
For The Feelies, patience is a virtue as they move at their own pace and make you wait for the big payoff. Every record they have made since the 1980s has depicted stillness as a mood, whether is it being up mellow and remaining on the same three chords on the peaceful “When to Go”, or playing it ferociously busy and distorted such as album closer “In Between(reprise).” They make it seem so easy to make great music and every time they release an album it is a blessing.
Best Songs: Time Will Tell, In Between Reprise, Stay the Course, When To Go