I don't hate The Feelers

Before hitting the road to come home from Taupo we had lunch in a park on the lakefront.
To the surprise musical accompaniment of The Feelers (well half of them anyway: The Feel?) playing an acoustic set. That in itself was slightly surreal, but it got even weirder when they started playing covers ("Save Tonight" and "Where do the children play" were the ones we heard).
Now apparently if you are a "Real (NZ) Music Fan"TM you are supposed to hate them. Pouring scorn on them and everything they do is de-rigeur in certain circles. And to be honest, moving in some of those circles, it gets boring.

I don't hate The Feelers (heresy I know). I don't love them either, and will happily damn them with faint praise, but they are what they are, which is harmless. They produce to my ears bland, somewhat calculatedly mainstream cookie cutter rock (which I think they admitted once might have always been the plan: their first big single initially sounded to me like a simple Bush rip-off, who themselves had been busy ripping off Nirvana but I digress), sold their musical soul to both the National Party and the RWC, and somehow still qualify for NZonAir funding thus depriving more deserving artists (more a problem with the funding model than the band though), so there are reasons to hate on them but I just can't be arsed. There are more important things to worry about.

The Feelers are successful, do what they do, do it well, and that suits the fans. I don't get why this is such a problem for the sneerers. There is this elitist aspect to criticism of this band and others that really pisses me off. The Feelers might be your favourite band ever. They aren't mine. Such is life.

I have the first album from 1998 (and no interest in any others: they have spent the last 14 years remaking it, so you only really need one of their albums), and even got it signed way back when it was new (screw whatever street cred I may have acquired...). I still listen to it from time to time and still like most of it, this track in particular. Screw the haters.