This is my first album review. This will be an older album. Crazy Rhythms by The Feelies was released April 1st, 1980. I read out of a chapter of (for what it's worth, self-published) cultural historian Piero Scaruffi's A History of Rock and Dance Music Volume 1 while listening to this album. If I hadn't read this book, I might not have found this album at all. He connects this band to a group of writers and musicians that were part of an artistic movement called the Blank Generation (think of this as being similar in some ways to the lost generation of the 20s). Technology was changing in what was becoming post-industrial society in such a way as to alienate the then emergent post-industrial blue collar worker. They were cut off from the factory jobs that sustained them, by economic circumstances. It was also changing how long the human (usually the wealthier human) could could now live past what Scaruffi calls the "natural limit". Scaruffi is also someone who talks about the subjectivity of the human during that time. He discusses "the silence of the I, in the noise of the metropolis" and "the noise of the I in the silence of the metropolis" with regards to the human's relationship to post-industrial reality at that time.
The Feelies (who are named after a fictional technology from Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World) channel this idea in their music by what Scaruffi describes as "...translating the emotional tension of the 'blank generation' into a new song format". I agree with Piero Scaruffi's judgment here. You can listen to this song, and hear the emotional tension that more or less results from the paradigm shift in the way of life of people in the developed world at this time. One this album there is frenetic and sloppy speed of the playing (that is typical in punk and new wave), the sometimes minor and sometimes major or dominant (which is more or less bluesy major) guitar playing. The vocals are likewise ambivalent, sometimes happy and sometimes sad. They are hard to make out at times. One example, in the song "Crazy Rhythms", the lyric is "Said it's time to go, well all right, I said I don't want to go, well all right" but does not sound like that, and does not sound like any set of words in particular. Punk and alternative rock both are admittedly not known for having vocalists with clear diction.
That being said, the aforementioned title track of this album is a strong one. It has much to offer. Happy sounding major chords, a lively tempo, dominant 7ths, (which are a sort of bluesy take on the major scale), and lively hand percussion. In this track there admittedly is a sound like a banshee wail reverberating, but overall this sound is brief, and is followed by some lively percussion and the tune is overall both energetic and happy. In some ways they sound like a more cheery version of the more gothic post punk of Joy Division.
Three out of the four musicians on this album do hand-percussion. Those are Bill Million, Glenn Mercer, and drummer Anton Fier. The two guitarists and vocalists are Bill Million and Glenn Mercer. There is a great instrumental call and response between the lead and rhythm guitars on the track Crazy Rhythms, as well as some great interplay between the rhythm guitar part and a crash symbol played by the drummer on the same track.
Other standout tracks are "Fa Ce-La" (which is an everyday French term that seems to be lost in translation), The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness, and the only cover on this album "Everybody's got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)" which was originally played by the Beatles on their White Album. The Feelies rendition of this song is fun and lively, and is well worth the price of the album.
We will now look at the other standout track is "Fa Ce-La". There is a little bit of guitar intro, then the track dives head first into the frenetic drums, guitars and hand percussion. Here we see the blank generation tension. The lyrics say "send a message out to Mary-Anne, everything is alright. Send a message out to mom and dad, everything is alright..." when the guitar work would signal this is not the case, rather there is an anxiety underlying the music.
The band The Feelies is said to (and I believe this is so) have "...rarely behaved like a rock band, thus predating the snobby attitude of college pop." Scaruffi's words in his History of Rock and Dance music were never truer. The pretentious and snobby attitude that predates "college rock" or "college pop" by about 9 or 10 years is evident on the song "Fa Ce-La" is apparent by the refrain "You live your life like a TV show, that's all right, I'll watch it anyway". Who are you to condescend to me or judge my life like this?! Are you trying to say my life is cliched like a TV sit-com? Does this offer some entertainment value to you?! Forget this. Forget your fancy French phrases that I can't even make out (Ce La Fa is something like you got it, or he makes it, but that is not the phrase we are translating is it). This lyricist clearly thinks he is better than me (and by implication the vocalist does too). He's lucky his friends make such catchy, and fun music. He's luckier another writer (yes Scaruffi) found the scene he was in to be part of a historical and cultural zeitgeist (and therefore intellectually weighty).
I spent a good paragraph criticizing this band but really, this album is a good one. I tend to be discriminating and possibly over-fussy when it comes to the albums I put time into. If you want something a little different to listen to or dance to, I recommend this album. I give it a solid 7/10.
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