Most pop music today caters to Tweeners, whose $10 latte-sipping parents have no problem refinancing their mortgage to keep their over-medicated children occupied for longer that it takes to send a Twitter message. It has become a fast-food franchise that wants you to Super Size the original product with concert and movie tickets, school supplies, lip balm, video games, and condoms. Well, there are no High School Musical condoms… yet.
All the over saturation in the music scene makes it that much more refreshing when you come across a group such as FeelGood, as I did at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go last Friday. They’re a pop group that has some serious groove and feels more like an 80’s Michael Jackson throwback than a slyly sexified Jonas Brothers show. The lead singer, clad in an all-white suit and red tie, shied away from robotic dance steps and freely moved around the stage like a lark. They had blaring saxes, crisp vocals, and a sense of showmanship that felt authentic and personal.
They opened up with a song that sounded like a fuller, bouncier version of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and really set the mood. Their next couple songs were all out grooves and the crowd responded by getting out of middle school dance mode, and got down in the middle of the Whiskey. In the middle of the set they did two pretty solid covers, “Closer”, by Ne-Yo, I suppose they need to stay a little modern, and “Ready or Not” by The Delfonics (no, not the Fugees).
There were a couple subpar songs in the second half of the set that I felt were a little choppy and the audience seemed to lose its energy. The background singers didn’t seem to add much to the already clustered stage and I wanted to see more showcasing of the musical talent that was the backbone of the group. However, they ended with two strong songs and their sendoff had a lot of hype and yielded a healthy response from the audience.
With pop music in the state it is, I think now is the perfect time for a turn-back-the-clock movement that gets people away from the pre-packaged eye candy, and back into music that makes you want to dance. People are thirsty for it and FeelGood maybe that tall drink of water.
