Crazy Rhythms

Have never heard of The Feelies. This is terrific… the beats are mesmerizing, sort of the sound on a lot of songs of something more electronic like Stereolab or something even though they are very different genres. Kind of mesmerizing and great!

Somehow additional post punk new wave albums are still out there

The original "Four incredibly white nerdy guys staring at you on a blue background" album. Hypnotizing, chugging sound. Almost like a poppier Wipers at times. Listening to a life-changing masterpiece like "Moscow Nights", then opening my eyes to see these four bozos staring at me - god damn, music truly is the greatest art form. Five outta five.

This record was on the short-list for my user submission, so I’m extremely glad you’ve added it here. I’ve written about being from New Jersey in a couple reviews on this site, perhaps to the point of being annoying about it, so I’ve got a special place in my heart for the Feelies and their brand of indie rock. New Jersey (and maybe the occasional date in New York or Philly) is just about the only place you can catch The Feelies live these days and I had the pleasure of seeing them perform this record and its follow up, “The Good Earth” at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City a few years ago. They are still a fantastic live band, some 50 years (!) from their formation. (Just as an aside and speaking of NJ, the band I did choose to add to the user list would arguably not exist without the Feelies, as Ira and Georgia from Yo La Tengo met at a Feelies show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken). You can call Crazy Rhythms post-punk or early indie or whatever, but really it’s a fantastic guitar record, with interesting interplay, energy and excitement in the playing. I’d rank it in a similar space to Television’s “Marquee Moon” or The Soft Boys’ “Underwater Moonlight” in terms of being an inventive and great late 70’s/early 80’s guitar record. Couple those guitars with propulsive drumming that often recalls NEU!, an affinity for the Velvet Underground and, man, you’ve got a winner of an album. The Feelies would go on to influence bands like REM (Peter Buck produced their follow up to Crazy Rhythms), Sonic Youth (just listen to that ending of Moscow Nights!), and have a somewhat under appreciated, but substantial impact on the early American indie rock scene of the 80’s and 90’s.

Crazy Rhythms is the debut album by American rock band The Feelies. This record is a reaction to punk and early post-punk, so it uses a very clean sound with undistorted, jangly guitars. It reminds me the most of the third album of The Velvet Underground. It's a highly influential album (f.e. often mentioned by R.E.M.) and a great listen. Also the usage of additional percussion (temple block, shaker, claves, maracas, castanets, reverbed sticks, shoes, drums, coat rack, sandpaper, claves, can, tom-tom, snare, cowbell, shaker, tambourine; boxes and bells) is nice. "The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness", "Loveless Love" and "Crazy Rhythms" are classics.

Well, I'd not heard of them which was a real suprise but they are REALLY good! This really took me back to the time when bands could experiment with all sorts of things and they sound so fresh (which they would have been I guess). A great find and thank you to whoever put this forward.

A Beales cover AND a Rolling Stones cover? Are these guys mad?!! :) The Feelies sounds like a kids TV show from the 1990s, but the album is actually really good. Wild that I never heard of them before. It's pretty likeable. I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this - contemporary enough to Talking Heads that you'd have to call it convergent evolution rather than derivative. And showing even more clearly than Heads the bridge between rock and punk to 80s new wave. Nothing to complain of, this deserves to be better known.

Mycket trevligt album. Den ska vi ge åtminstone en chans till. Kanske kan ge gruppen en chans till också.

What an awful band name, the music is actually quite good mind

Ehh it's fine. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

1980, Art punk, post-punk, jangle pop, avant-pop, new wave I really liked the first track, "The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness". Long and strange title, but it set the album off on a good note and left me wanting to hear more. Standouts: The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness, Forces at Work, Beatle's Cover: Everybody's Got Something to Hide, Rating: 3.5

Quite nice

At first I thought it was a modern throwback, but it's just more 80s English new wave. They insist upon themselves. And while part of it is merited, but becomes overbearing.

Not the absolute worst 2

There are bits and pieces on this LP that remind me of a tighter, cleaner Wire at points, which is a big plus in my book. However, there's too much meandering and unjustifiable dead space (see: Forces at Work with nearly a minute and half of near silence up front) that kill any momentum the band tries to build. Feels like there are fragments of a complete LP swimming around in filler on this one, which is frustrating given how well the band executes when they're locked in.