The Feelies
Crazy Rhythms/The Good Earth
Rating: 4.5/5.0, 4.0/5.0
Label: Bar/None
College rock legends The Feelies came to life in the late 1970s, the collaboration of a couple New Jersey high school kids who liked the Stooges and didn't care about their peers' tastes in popular music. Glen Mercer (guitar) and Bill Million (bass) are the minds behind the Feelies, responsible for writing, singing and occasionally drumming out the rhythms to their songs due to their revolving door of percussion talent. As the band never liked practicing much and weren't big on self-promotion or touring, an album never appeared until 1980, when Stiff records released Crazy Rhythms.
Crazy Rhythms was and is a great, original record, although at the time of its release it didn't elicit much attention from casual music fans. Critics and musicians around New York City sung its praises, but it never caught fire the way the editors of the Village Voice thought it should. Almost 30 years after the original release of Crazy Rhythms, it turns out that what this band's unwillingness to cooperate with pop-minded producers was exactly what made them age so well. Listening to Crazy Rhythms today, it's impossible to tell that it was made in 1980, or any particular decade for that matter; it is as unique and original now as it was then.
The songs are played with a heightened, almost panicked level of energy. They are heavy on percussion, built of simple two or three-chord melodies, repeated constantly and layered with multiple drums, two guitars, bass and two voices harmonizing. The Velvet Underground were an obvious influence- the stacking of basic chord formations to create complex sounds, as much as the Pixies were obviously influenced by them; the fast release of tension and bursting repetitive lyrics call to mind Come on Pilgrim. Although, five seconds spent listening to any track on Crazy Rhythms makes it clear that you could not be listening to any band but the Feelies.
The energetic, yelpy "Fa Cé-La" is one of the great achievements of Crazy Rhythms; it's the sound of The Feelies giving birth to the Pixies in the span of the first guitar solo. Most surprising is "Everyone's Got Something to Hide (Except Me & My Monkey)," which manages to transcend the realm of "perfunctory Beatles cover" into something that stands on its own.
"Moscow Nights" starts off silent before drums arrive quickly, beating out two different rhythms for the next minute. Eventually, vocals and guitars come in and build up the song, and the result is powerful and worth the wait. Still, the time it takes this song to get into full swing is indicative of Glen Mercer's comment in a 1980 interview with New York Rocker: "We don't want the listener to listen passively. They should be prepared to sit down and listen to things. It shouldn't be all worked out for them, so that it's something they put on while they wash their dishes."
In 1985, after several hirings and firings, the Feelies reemerged with a different lineup, a different label and a new record called The Good Earth. A softer departure from the manic Crazy Rhythms, The Good Earth perhaps reflects Mercer and Million growing up and mellowing out. Perhaps they were just in a better mood; here, they worked with friends in the studio, instead of bickering with label executives as they had during Crazy Rhythms.
While it's no The Second Coming in terms of long-awaited disappointment, The Good Earth was able to retain the inescapable Feelies flavor first introduced on Crazy Rhythms along with a tendency toward simple repetitive chord structures. Some of the tracks here sound jam-band-y, with long guitar and drum solos between verses. The songs are less aggressive and, for the most part, have simpler layering than the tracks on Crazy Rhythms. All together, this second album is more accessible than their earlier material, meaning that it also sounds, at times, like an R.E.M. record, which is not surprising as Feelies admirer Peter Buck co-produced the album with Mercer and Million.
The reissuing of these two Feelies classics is a welcome occasion--it reminds listeners of an innovative sound in rock history, and may even spur some of today's ubiquitous indie bands to leave be the moment's fads and take their songwriting in new directions. As for the recently reunited Feelies themselves: how about some new stuff, guys?
by Eva Gordon & Danny Djeljosevic
