“It was a pretty important record for us,” says Glenn Mercer, singer and guitarist of New Jersey-based indie rock giants the Feelies, of the band’s 1986 album, The Good Earth. “Our first record, Crazy Rhythms, got a lot of favorable reviews, so it wasn’t set in stone that a follow-up would do well. Plus, we took a lot of time between records. We pursued offshoot bands. I guess we didn’t really have long-range goals at the time.”
They might not have been career strategists (the band are legendary for their extended hiatuses), but the Feelies nonetheless made an impact on emerging post-punk and “college rock” bands like R.E.M. and Yo La Tengo, who were greatly influenced by the group’s minimalist, edgy rhythms and the hypnotic guitar interplay between Mercer and co-six-stringer Bill Million.
