The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms LP

The Good Thing Selection for March 2023

I’ve been trying to track down enough of this here record for years. Every time I see it’s been repressed I make my move and I am always a hair too late. The available stack always gets gobbled up by record dealers with a faster trigger finger than I. But here it is. We have it! And just about exactly 43 years to the day since its release. My friend Dan first played this record for me while driving around in his big old blue Volvo. Damn. Where the heck were me and Dan going? Anyway, being a Talking Heads and New Order fan, I was primed to like what I heard right away. By the time we arrived at the chromatic guitar runs at the end of “Loveless Love” I knew that I loved this record. It just continues to peak over and over again with not all that much going on. Most songs only have 2 chords and there is nary a cymbal crash on the whole album. The first 4 minutes of “Forces at Work” are the best advertisement for the E Major Chord ever recorded and I think Parquet Courts would agree. For a long time I thought that The Beatles cover mid-record was a low point of the album but after years of close listening it turns out to be a perfect cover - one that shows respect for the original but is done fully in the style of the band covering the tune. Near the end, “Raised Eyebrows” lays out a perfect line that is repeated over and over like a mantra - “Some will make it and some won't make it oh-oh”. Jeez, ain’t that the truth. Welp, enjoy!

- Will Pratt