The Feelies Will Grope You: Retro-Review of The Feelies' "Only Life

The Feelies

It was 1988.  It was just after new wave and just before grunge.  There was a sound.  Mainly, it dominated college and alternative radio.  R.E.M. was at the forefront of that.  Dramarama.  They Might Be Giants.  The Connells.  The Silencers.  Dead Milkmen.  Camper Van Beethoven.  The Reivers.  The Bolshoi.  And The Feelies.  Jangle pop, dream pop, Americana.  This was the driving music of my teen years.

Honestly, this band from New Jersey had a history long since I ever heard them - 1976.  The Feelies had two albums before "Only Life".  But I never heard them.  I still haven't.  The nerdy punk of "Away" was frenetically pulsing on MTV's "120 Minutes" every Sunday, and I had to get that album.  So I went to Zia's in Tempe and bought the cassette (that I still have).  This album was one of the many anthems of my senior year in high school.

To review this album, I downloaded a digital copy.  First of all, it sounds really dated.  It has that "sound" that I was talking about - right at the tail end of the "Me Decade".  But isn't that the sound that is kind of hip now?  This album, even rooted in its time period, is as catchy as hell.

Both "Away" and "For Awhile" have their signature sound - songs that start as mellow pop songs and then slowly build in tempo until they feverishly having you shake your mop of hair and are starting to pogo in your living room.  This record is definitely guitar-rock, but it is also a dance album.  You can dance to every single tune on this selection.  This is especially true with the opener, "It's Only Life", as well as "Deep Fascination", "The Final Word", and "Too Far Gone".

My favorite selections are the R.E.M.-ish piano and guitar ballad, "Higher Ground", and the haunting "The Undertow", driven by bongos and a desperately strummed acoustic guitar.  These two songs are highly nostalgic for me.  The album ends nicely with a Velvet Underground cover, "What Goes On".

This is music that I tell me family, "This is my music."  I'm proud to own it.  I'm proud that I was there, not listening to what the mainstream was listening to, and I am glad that I still have this music with me.