Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Then Mika happened, and the Fratellis happened, and suddenly battle lines were drawn between 'real' music, which is made from the heart (or, and this is really important, SOUNDS like it is), and this new kind of showbizzy, camp, commercial music, which is clearly aimed at the CD racks of your local Tesco (or so the cynics claim).

(The puts the case against the band rather well, saying "the Feeling will continue to delight those who settle for bland and average".)

So, when the Feeling's second album came out, it was to a musically divided nation, for whom they were either a total irrelevance or a welcome addition to this new pop-rockin' landscape.

But, leaving this daftness to one side a second, what's not to love about a song like this? It's loud, brash, silly, fun...and it effortlessly steamrollers flat every half-cocked indie theoretician and rubbish tellypop won'tbe (the grammatically correct opposite to 'wannabe' would have to be 'isn't', but that doesn't read too well, I find).

And look, the band has even put stuff in there to help anyone who can't help liking their music deal with the social stigma from their cool mates.

Dan Gillespie Sell's unerring ability to pepper his musical very-goodery with total cheese can be very helpful at times. A line like "seen in the papers that you read on escalators" seems to exist as a kind of deliberate let-out for any cred-obsessed music snoot who wants to hate the band, but finds their musical confectionry totally irresistable.

It's a bit like the whole blue Smarties debate. Never let it be said that ANY Smarties are actually empirically good for you. They are just sugar, chocolate and colouring after all, no omega 3, no pentapeptides, no bifidus regularis, no boswellox, nada. But apparently the blue ones used to contain additives which were extra bad, or something. This allowed people who were previously unable to leave those lovely little choc-buttons alone the chance to bail out, to admit that Smarties are fallable, and therefore resistable.

I mean yes, it's a very Radio 2 kind of pop music, it's clearly not aimed just at the hearts, minds and wallets of teenagers, and this is probably because most teenagers still get the bulk of their money from their parents, so why not go straight to the source? It also fails entirely to take the Feeling anywhere new, musically, and singing it out loud in the street won't win you any new friends.

But then, stuff it...it's ace. And it does rather seem to be a dig from the band at snooty bloggers/reviewers who don't like 'em. Which is a much more elegant way to hit back at your critics than, say, the Perez Hilton/Lily Allen muckfling...

Download: Out now
CD Released: July 14th

(Fraser McAlpine)