Feeling good or Feeling bad?

The Feeling’s MySpace site categories them as Indie/Classic Rock/Pop. That cover most genres. Doesn’t that say it all? This is a band so bland and beige that they make both Stereophonics and Razorlight sound and look like barricade scaling revolutionaries. Of course, neither of them are, it’s just that The Feeling have managed to tap in to the British people’s love for nondescript and soft rock - the kind of music everyone could like; old or young, male or female, rich or poor, black or white.



You don’t agree? Who was the most played act on British radio 2006? It wasn’t Leona Lewis, Amy Winehouse, or even Razorlight. The Feelings were played 97,436 times that year. That’s 267 songs a day! Doesn’t that make them good then, you ask. Not necessarily. Music is naturally very subjective and just because I don’t like them, doesn’t mean they’re crap. But read their album reviews and you’ll see that no one could agree over these Sussex lads.



The Observer Review made them Album of the Week and the respectable Observer Music Monthly gave them four out of five stars. One the other hand, The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis called them “irritating” and “not good enough”. Time Out gave them one of six, Metro two of five. Yes, it questions the importance of record reviewing, or at least highlights its difficulty, but it also shows that no one knows exactly if The Feeling are any good, and if so, why?