Feelin' Me is the title of the debut album by British pop duo . Anna and Hollie are an ambitious pair from Essex, determined to make their mark on the British music scene. While their record company labels their sound as ‘Hip Rock', a nebulous term at best , Hollie and Anna cite , ‘ Soul, RnB, Hip Hop, Rock and Classical' as influences. All very well, but how does this ‘mix' translate on the album?
There's a danger in trying to create a sound that ‘anyone can listen to.'
If it happens, then all well and good, but manufacturing such a sound has pitfalls.
In interviews, the group has said "there's a variety of sounds that run throughout the album but one isn't more prominent then the other. " This unfortunately also proves to be the case within the individual tracks, it's almost as if we get ‘universal' versions of all the musical styles.
And this turns out to be one of the biggest problems with Feelin' Me. In attempting to be ‘Jack of all Genres', the pair for the most part, have ended up being ‘Masters of None'.
And it's a shame, as the girls have good voices, not as strong as say, Destiny's child, the group with the style they're most often compared with, but good enough to carry a strong tune.
And that is what ‘Feelin' Me' is missing. Really strong tunes and music.
Presumably in an attempt to make the girls vocals stand out, the music in their backing has a subdued quality that just makes some tracks sound bland and washed out. We get the feeling that we're listening to arrangements played through cellophane. It's such a ‘catch all style', that it loses the ‘force' behind the styles that inspired it. The ‘Rocky' tracks seem flat with not enough ‘rock' to them, the RnB tracks don't have enough bounce and so on. Part of the problem seems to be the music is over produced. They have a good session group behind them and some interesting ideas in the mix, but the sound is muted. It has no ‘bite', no musical hook with which to draw listeners in and more importantly, make tunes memorable. The ‘takes' on various sounds lack conviction.
This is a major problem, particularly on the first half of the album. The words, no matter how well sung, get lost in the bland arrangement of the songs.
Songs like ‘Feelin' Me', the title track, and a prime example of the Hip Rock style, never really seem to get going, The idea is there but something is missing. A signature sound to raise and identify the group, to get them off ‘middle of the road'.
To their credit they handle ballads like, ‘Nowhere is too far' and ‘Falling Star', quite well.
Their voices seem very suited to this type of song, with the range between the two of them making things interesting.
In ballads the music complements their voices quite well without making wallpaper of itself. Later in the album things musically pick up with soulful tunes like the excellent ‘More than love' and ‘No Betta than me' -songs in which the ‘Hip Rock' idea works but it's too little too late. One gets the feeling that are better live than on this album, where they can bring added emotion to their performance and live instruments to boost the impact of their numbers.
For the most part however, due to the music, the ‘Hip Rock' on ‘Feelin' Me' is too average to make it memorable.
are pair with the right ‘look' and the voices to get over. They just need a stronger musical backing to their songs to prevent them sounding ‘just average.'
2 ½ Stars
Label : BMG Music
Release date : May 10th 2004
Words By Sam Bandah
