So I’m cruising up 20th Street, accelerating in my Saabaru, since that’s the only thing it’s good for, to get ahead of the car in the left lane before it holds me up waiting to turn.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I sit at the light, noticing the cop in my rearview mirror, the idiotic deejay on Sirius’ Spectrum starts reciting all the records we just heard, which I didn’t, because I hadn’t left my house that long ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Then she says she believes the intro of this Duffy song sounds just like "Stand By Me" and that’s got me paying attention as the song starts to play.<\/p>\n
Utterly ridiculous.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I can understand where she’s coming from, the deejay that is, but I would never have come up with that.<\/p>\n
And the song is playing, it’s so simple, I’m not addicted, but it’s not so bad that I’ve got to switch the station.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, just shy of two minutes in, there’s this change and I look down at the radio, I’m hooked!\u00c2\u00a0 I remind myself to steal this when I get home.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got to steal it, because you can’t buy it on iTunes, it hasn’t been released in the U.S.<\/p>\n
But I forget, and it’s only when I’m cruising through the e-mail, reading "Record Of The Day", do I see that this very song is set to remain at number one in the U.K., and that the Feeling is headed for number one on the album chart.<\/p>\n
The Feeling, I love those tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 The band can be a bit cheeky and jive live, they’re too British for American audiences, but that doesn’t come across on record, the music is pure pop!\u00c2\u00a0 But none of the singles had an impact.\u00c2\u00a0 The album stiffed over here.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Top Forty radio, the only format that counts in the U.S., is an urban ghetto.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, of course there’s pop there too.\u00c2\u00a0 But not this kind of pop.\u00c2\u00a0 Pop on U.S. Top Forty is plastic, overdone, evanescent crap by TV contest winners or Clive Davis prodigies.\u00c2\u00a0 If 10cc’s "I’m Not In Love" was released today, it would have no chance, never mind "The Things We Do For Love".\u00c2\u00a0 Both classics.\u00c2\u00a0 The Feeling’s tracks are not quite that good, but they’re very good!<\/p>\n
But Duffy is something completely different.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like it was cut in America in the midsixties, before the country had become completely infatuated with the U.K., before FM took over from AM.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like a 45 you spun in the basement with the lights low as you inched your spiked shoes and sweater-encased chest up to the opposite sex, copping a cheap feel.\u00c2\u00a0 "Mercy" sounds like the fourth side of the "Quadrophenia" movie soundtrack.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, "Mercy" would have fit in quite well in that flick.<\/p>\n
I don’t know the backstory.\u00c2\u00a0 I know in Britain everybody knows every detail.\u00c2\u00a0 They probably already hate Duffy.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe she’s a fake.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe she didn’t write the song.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe people believe it sounds too similar in places to "Chain Of Fools".\u00c2\u00a0 All I know is that it impacted me.\u00c2\u00a0 I heard it and wanted to hear it again!<\/p>\n
And now I’ve got the video on endless repeat on YouTube.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s infectious.<\/p>\n
You only get an excerpt on MySpace, as a result of the Universal war on the social network.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can get a free track (not the single) on Duffy’s Website, but you’ve got to register.\u00c2\u00a0 You can use a fake name, but when you’re done, you end up with a WMA file.\u00c2\u00a0 WMA is HD DVD to MP3’s Blu-Ray.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody wants a WMA.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably encrypted to boot.\u00c2\u00a0 To prevent further trading.\u00c2\u00a0 And, the way it works is you don’t cull e-mail addresses up front, those are worthless.\u00c2\u00a0 You ask people for their e-mail addresses, you want permission, you want to grow the relationship!\u00c2\u00a0 People are savvy, they know you want to spam them in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t they get the choice?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s Universal Music for you.\u00c2\u00a0 Mafia men with a hint of Gestapo added in.<\/p>\n
Even without airplay this record would spread over here.\u00c2\u00a0 But, will it get that Top Forty airplay?\u00c2\u00a0 When I first heard "Mercy", I thought no.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like nothing else on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s so damn good, I believe stations will spin it.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Amy Winehouse has paved the way, opened the door.<\/p>\n
"Mercy" might not be fresh to denizens of the sixties, but to a young ‘un, it sounds like nothing else on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s exciting!\u00c2\u00a0 This is the old AM radio hit, the hypodermic to the heart.\u00c2\u00a0 This is how we revitalize the business.\u00c2\u00a0 With shit like this, which isn’t a clone of what came before.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, by time the label is done ramming this down our throats, hyping Duffy ad infinitum, we’ll want nothing to do with her anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 There won’t be a career, just a single.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, check this out.\u00c2\u00a0 E-mail your buddies.\u00c2\u00a0 You can be cool for a week or two.<\/p>\n
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