Or How I Learnt To Stop Worrying And Love Procrastination

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Top 10 of 2006: 10. The Feeling - Twelve Stops Then Home

10. The Feeling - Twelve Stops Then Home

This record comes and goes for me. Sometimes I think this is the greatest pop record mankind has ever created. Sometimes it's unbearabe cheese. But it's such a crazy attempt. So much so that it booted other, more consistent records off this list.



So they toured Australia and played to a less than full room apparently. And I got offered tickets and turned it down. A "the" band from the UK? No thanks. No one told me that they were fronted by a gay man who loves Supertramp.


So what we have here is an 80s teen pop record. It's Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller etc...set to music. Lots of 'baby', geeky backing vocals, unrequited love and all manner of fun. Just like good classic teen pop, it's musically complex...making it even funnier.



Just listen to Love It When You Call, the third, great single which has more chords and more catchy bits than Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart. Which is what sets this record apart; the sense of going for something, and pretty much nailing it.


The questions is, how long that something is going to last? Pop music isn't supposed to have legs - it's supposed to last one summer, one relationship, one moment. Which is why pop music continues to rule...no other type of music takes photos like pop music. So a handful of songs will live on - the stunning off kilter opener I Want You Now (so Cheap Trick) and Fill My Little World. And listening to a lot of XFM, they sometimes play it over the air and as tunes played occasionally on the radio, they sound great.


So I highly recommend this record still. Pop music at it's sweet, unhealthy best.

Danny Yau
London

No comments: