Track Listing

1. All I Want To Do Is Rock
2. U16 Girls
3. Line Is Fine
4. Good Day To Die
5. Good Feeling
6. Midsummer Nights Dreamin'
7. Tied To The 90's
8. I Love You Anyways
9. Happy
10. More Than Us
11. Falling Down
12. Funny Thing

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34099 in Music
• Released on: 2004-12-13
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Debut albums are curious things: they can either be the frenzied spunking of every idea the band's ever had, leaving them spent by the time of their second album; or they can be a romp in the dressing-up box, trying on different musical personas with an eye to the future. Travis's Good Feeling falls into the second category: still working out a Teenage Fanclub and a Radiohead fixation, the simple, still beauty of The Man Who seems a long way off. Instead, Travis crank up the bounceometer: "U16 Girls" and "Tied To The 90's" are obviously forged in the heat of the toilet-circuit moshpits; and the awesome "All I Want To Do Is Rock" the sound of teeth ground down to powder in frustration. Presumably exhausted, the stripped-down "I Love You Anyways", "Falling Down" and "Funny Thing" come right at the very end, harbingers of Travis's future austere classicism. --Caitlin Moran

Customer Reviews

I have a good feeling

Travis is best known for being one of the most downbeat Britpop bands in existance, and they've certainly earned that reputation.

But don't expect quite the same melancholic pop sound in their debut "Good Feeling." It's Brit-pop, all right -- happy rock, depressed rock, evenly divided between melancholy and joy. It doesn't have the musical polish of their later efforts, but it does have the infectious exuberance of a young band.

"Hey/I would really like to talk to you/girl/all I want to do is rock!" Fran Healy announces happily at the start of the album. That sentiment carries through the first half of the album, full of uptempo powerpop that ranges from the fuzzy "Good Day To Die" to the swirling melody of the title track. What they lack in experience, they make up in gung-hoety.

When it hits the midway mark, "Good Feeling" changes in tone -- it becomes less about wanting to rock, and more poignant and plaintive. Despite the bouncy poppiness of "Happy," the second half is overwhelmingly melancholy ballads, usually about the fragility of love. While not as much fun as the powerpop, these piano-led ballads are extremely beautiful.

Most bands sound awkward when they're still figuring out what kind of music they want to do. Travis wasn't one of those bands -- they sound equally good when they do sad ballads, and upbeat catchy pop. And though Travis later decided to do the melancholy music, if you listen to "Good Feeling" it's hard not to wish that they could include a few uptempo numbers too.

For a beginner band they were remarkably polished -- the piano melodies are exquisite, and they do some remarkable things with crunchy guitar riffs and some reverbing basslines. The songwriting is one of the few stumbling blocks -- the downtempo numbers are prettily written ("I think you should be framed/in some fine art gallery/I know you'd disagree with me/but I love you anyways"), but the pop numbers contain some real groaners ("I'm a foot without a sock").

Those groaners are admittedly hard to notice, though -- Fran Healy sings these as if he's been doing it all his life, and he adds some extra life to an already solid album. One minute he's purring along and happily yelling along to the riffs, then he's softly murmuring along to the piano.

The style of "Good Feeling" got left behind by Travis, but their debut remains a solid Britpop album that mixes solid powerpop with exquisite ballads. Definitely worth checking out.

In my humble (but correct) opinion..
There are two reasons why I've always argued that this is the greatest debut album ever made. Firstly, there are a lot of debut albums that I've not yet heard, so I'm open to the possibility that one day my opinion may just be subject to change. Secondly, and probably more importantly, it's stupendous. It does everything a debut should do; buzzing with the kind of joyous euphoria that only a bunch of scamps enjoying their first crack at the whole rock 'n' roll thing can convincingly pull off, whilst being undercut with just enough melancholia to ensure that (if you'll pardon the mangled metaphor), once the pop fizz has dispersed, there's still plenty here to get your teeth into.

For a neat summary of the Travis gameplan, look no further than opening track 'All I Want To Do Is Rock' - the teenage dream summed up in seven words, and we're not even past the first song title. And then there's 'U16 Girls', a cautionary tale of the dangers of underage seduction, but wrapped up in a pop melody so shiny you can see your face in it. Another key moment comes at the end of 'Midsummer Nights Dreamin'', a tumultuous ode to youthful excess. As the song shudders to a joyously noisy climax, accompanied by crunching guitars and Fran Healy's increasingly yelped vocal, you can't help but wish they'd let themselves go like this on their later albums; when they do, the results are spectacular.

To finish things (Travis not being ones to do things by halves), instead of one traditional end of album slowie, we get four. The last four songs on the album (not counting 'Happy' - a more self-explanatory title of a song there has never been, except perhaps for Radiohead's 'I'm Unhappy, But In An Opaque And Slightly Arty Way') are given over to a quartet of slow numbers so gosh darn lovely that they could legitimately have put all future balladeers out of work forever. In fact, by the time the impeccably restrained 'Funny Thing' drifts off into the ether, it's difficult to reconcile it with the gleeful bounce and energy that grabbed your attention forty nine minutes ago at the start of this remarkable slab of Scottish songsmithery, leaving the only realistic option being to return back to the start and listen to the whole thing again.

Great Feeling
Just got this album was was very pleasantly surprised. I got it coz of the fantistic new singles album and it did not disapoint.
Better than the man who which is saying something.
i like travis