The Feeling: dancin' through the decades
Published March 2, 2007
Twelve Stops and Home, the debut album from English pop group The Feeling, has already won over high-profile fans in the U.K., including Elton John and Kylie Minogue. VH1 even declared the group a "You Oughta Know" band, citing its "novel way of milking key elements of classic pop to make their emotions resound anew."
But the icon I am reminded most of when I hear the Feeling's album is neither musical nor British. Maybe it's because their name evokes the simpler, feel-good pop of decades past, but the band reminds me of perpetually happy, retro PBS icon Bob Ross. As the host of The Joy of Painting, Ross was the everyman artist, teaching viewers how to paint "happy little trees" with a relaxed optimism, but also with the speed and hunger for mass production of the '80s. Though excellent at his craft, Ross catered to the public and only painted landscapes, usually using the same general palate, each a little different but overall the same "happy little trees."
The Feeling is the Bob Ross of pop music. With a mellow but irrepressibly positive energy and a palate of pop influences that, when mixed, create formulaic blends. Dan Gillespie-Sells writes songs that seem different but are all too familiar, the same "happy little hooks" as done in the pop music of the past 40 years or so.
The album opens with its first single, "Sewn," laden with lush piano that both Billy Joel and The Fray would dig, and a catchy '70s AM radio "na na na" refrain. This is the kind of song made for filling both packed concert venues with sing-a-long voices and the small screen to compliment a bittersweet love montage on Grey's Anatomy.
"Never Be Lonely," one of the album's strongest tracks, is the perfect blend of past and present, and the contrast between the two hints at innovation on the part of the band. The flowery folk of the '70s rings strong in the introduction, with Cat Stevens-style strumming and lyrics that could very well be the Carpenters or early Simon & Garfunkel: "People in love get special treatment/ people in love get everything wrong."
The verse gives way to a bouncing synth chorus with harmonies that would make the Beach Boys and Mates of State equally proud, throwing in a poppy Van Halen guitar break in the middle as a throwback to the '80s. The diversity of influences is an innovation unto itself here. It's catchy, and it works.
The band continues to dance through the modern history of pop music throughout the album. "Love It When You Call" is delightfully bouncy, packed to the brim with synthesizer riffs, the illegitimate love child of the Cars and the New Pornographers. The no-frills piano and guitar on "Fill My Little World" is reminiscent of later Better Than Ezra, and while listening Gillespie-Sells's hushed vocals over haunting piano licks on "Kettle's On," I could have sworn for a split second that I was listening to Elliott Smith.
The album is not entirely without moments where the band supercedes its influences. Gillespie-Sells shines on the closing track, the anthemic "Blue Piccadilly," a nine-minute epic with a young earnestness in its sound and lyrics. It builds to an off-key "la la la" barroom sing-a-long in the middle, perhaps reminiscent of a lost track for Abbey Road, before ending once again, with Gillespie-Sells and the piano, left only to compliment the abilities of one another and bring the song home.
The Feeling, like a happy little sapling in a Bob Ross painting, has the brightness, energy and potential to grow into a towering musical phenomenon. "Twelve Stops and Home" draws from its roots in classic pop, and as a result creates maybe too much of a dependency on it. The lack of originality does not hinder the band currently. In fact, most of the tracks are lush and well crafted. But like any aspiring painter watching PBS, you can only learn so much from imitation.