New Albums: Paul Carrack – Good Feeling

Freddie Matthews writes from London: Sheffield born Paul Carrack returns with a surprisingly great album called Good Feeling. Maybe you’ll know the 1970s classic single Paul wrote while then with his band Ace, called How Long. At the time Paul says he and the band were excited about the song being a hit, let alone it still being played, paid for and remembered 40 years later. Over the years Paul has worked with a whole host of famous names including, Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music, Squeeze, Nick Lowe, The Pretenders, Mike Rutherford & Mike and The Mechanics and he even worked with The Smiths, although he’d tell you it was only for a couple of songs.

Good Feeling is all about getting back to Paul’s normal style of upbeat writing, playing and touring, whereas his previous album A Different Hat was recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. There are some original songs, written by Paul, as well as some covers of songs by Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and also The Drifters. I’m not normally much of a fan of cover versions but somehow Paul Carrack pulls them off with supreme ease – so much so that they almost sound original.

The new album Good Feeling pays tribute to classic 60s soul. It’s much more personable than most of his previous work and confirms that he is still one of the best and most versatile soul singers the UK has ever produced and is still going strong in 2012. This album is a quality piece of work from start to finish. There are a few stand out tracks such as, When My Little Girl Is Smiling and Good Feelin’ About It, but all in all it is a great listen as a whole splendid piece of work.

Not normally my cup of tea. It feels as if it showed up out of nowhere and stamped its mark firmly between my ears.

8/10

New Albums: Scouting For Girls – The Light Between Us

Oh my god, Scouting For Girls are back and trying to sound like The Script. This really isn’t a good idea lads, trust me on this. It’s always been harmless, mindless, poppy, happy go lucky and bouncy music, which couldn’t be more suitable for radio stations all over the UK and yes, they’re still singing about girls. I suppose all the talk about girls is just about ok while the three band members remain in their early 20s. Maybe they just feel older to us as they’ve been around for what seems like an eternity. I even surprised myself in finding out that their first single She’s So Lovely was only released back in 2007.

The thing is, Scouting For Girls are no longer cool and I’m not so sure they ever actually were in the first place. The music industry has changed so much in the five years since their debut album and with the eponymous album went triple platinum. I’m convinced they should have wound things up and not bothered releasing any more albums ever again. Their second album in 2010, Everybody Wants To Be On TV, did nothing to help their popularity, despite scoring a UK No.1 single with This Ain’t A Love Song. The album itself only sold just over 100,000 copies compared to the debut selling over 1 million.

As for the new album The Light Between Us, it’s never going to shatter sales records or spawn many – if any – huge singles but if you’re a fan of Scouting For Girls it’s another almost reasonable listen. What the band should do next is make a mature decision as to whether or not they want to continue releasing the crap, kid pop of the last 5 years or move on to something more challenging that just might sell more than a few thousand copies a month. Surely they can’t live on that forever.

2/10

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