Comfort in Sound was the fourth album by the British Rock band Feeder. It was released on October 21, 2002 on The Echo Label,[1] and was the first album to be released after Jon Lee's death.[2]
The album received many high scoring reviews, and a year later helped them win "Best British Band" at the Kerrang! awards.[3]
In terms of record sales, Comfort in Sound is a popular album. It produced four hit singles – "Come Back Around", "Just the Way I'm Feeling", "Forget About Tomorrow" and "Find the Colour" – that earned Feeder their heaviest national radio airplay to date. Comfort in Sound charted at #6 in the UK Album Charts on release,[4] and in June 2003, was certified platinum by the BPI.[5] The album was re-issued a week after the "Find The Colour" single with a bonus DVD of the albums videos and various live footage including the "Just a Day" video.[6]
Release
The album was given a low-key promotional build up due to the death of their late drummer Jon Lee. Before the albums release the band played a small number of festivals at Reading/Leeds, and Gig on the Green. The Reading and Leeds shows seen one of the most talked-about events of that year's festival, in which the tent was overcrowded beyond its allowed capacity, and seen many people having to watch from outside as a result. Kerrang! magazine gave a rating of 5/5 (KKKKK), for the band's performance. Before these three were played, a warm-up show at the Portsmouth Wedgewood rooms, took place two days before Reading. All of the festival shows were played on the second stage, to maintain the low-key status of the shows and albums build-up. Before being invited to the Reading/Leeds festival, the bands original plan was to release the album and not play any shows during the year, with the airplay of the albums first single "Come Back Around", to promote the album on pre-release. The single got its first airplay on BBC Radio 1's "The Evening Session" show, and was A-listed by the station. The song was originally recorded as an instrumental demo in 2001, with the lyrics shortly written afterwards. After the death of Jon Lee, Grant Nicholas re-wrote the lyrics to relate to their friend and colleague's death, when the final version was recorded with Mark Richardson on drums. A completely instrumental version of the album was issued to TV & Radio media.
Reception
While being well received by critics, it also had a similar response commercially. The album charted at #66 in the 2003 end of year charts, and also peaked at #6 on the weekly listing spending 36 weeks on the top 75. It also became the band's first platinum album the same week the band were due to make their main stage debut at the Glastonbury Festival, and also spawned a major radio and TV play hit in which "Just the Way I'm Feeling" gained over 15,000 UK radio plays. Their Glastonbury appearance was very well received by the press, and given coverage on BBC Three and BBC Radio 1 later in the year. Despite infamous negative comments from Lauren Laverne on BBC Three's late-night coverage regarding the band and age range of the bands fanbase (both views strongly disagreed on by the fans), many critics and attendees to the festival gave their performance a positive response.
The bands reputation was highly risen, and turned them in to an act who were playlisted on the radio due to their public response, rather than the playlist departments of the respective stations opinions of the songs. This seen the album's 5th single, being the title track only available to a limited quantity of 3,000 copies on the arena tour, (and a limited download) playlisted on Radio 1's B-list despite its non-commercial availability. The album itself made enough grossings from sales alone, which enabled it to be profitable after the costs spent on the album were recouped. The album also sold more than expected by their record label Echo, after previous albums at the time sold in the region of 150,000 copies on average per release, with Echo originally pressing 100,000 units for the first week of release, due to not expecting the album to sell in platinum numbers. As a result, despite not winning their Brit Award nomination for "Best British Rock", Feeder seen their then latest album become a commercial success, helping the occurrence of the first ever profit-making year in the Echo label's then 9 year history of 6.3 million pounds, although the label intended to be a non-profit company with financial support from their owners Chrysalis. This as a result influenced Echo to run as a profit-making business instead, and upstreamed the value of the company.
Many critics of the BPI's award qualification figures, often claim that the platinum qualification of 300,000 is too high and should be 200,000 as in Japan a platinum album is 250,000 and is the second biggest music market in the world, with the United Kingdom in 3rd. Also, the US music market is five times bigger than the UK, strengthening the reason that a UK platinum album should be 200,000 as a US platinum album is 1 million. If this was the case, then the album would have been certified double platinum making this Feeder's most successful studio album based on certifications- the equivalent of selling two million in the US, as the album sold just over a reported 436,000 units in February 2005, meaning that every 138th person in the country bought a copy of the album in a population of 60,000,000 people.
Touring was also a then peak for the band, in which they played a UK sell-out 21 date tour in March-April 2003 in front of 60,000 people, which also aided the albums platinum sales success. The success of the tour followed by their main stage debut at Glastonbury (they were third on the final day's bill), influenced them to play an arena tour at the end of the year. Although the tour was not a sell-out, they sold out their Bournemouth International Centre gig, sold a wide majority of the tickets for the Birmingham National Indoor Arena gig and got mostly positive reviews by the music press for the shows that were covered.
Accolades
- #32 in Kerrang! magazines "Top 100 British Rock Albums of All Time" list.[9]
- Rock Sound- "Album of The Month".[10]
- Kerrang!- "Album of The Week".[10]
- Metal Hammer- "Album of The Month".[10]
- The Times- "Album of The Week".[10]
Award Nomination
- "Best Album" at the 2003 Q Magazine awards.[11]
Track listing
Japanese / Korean / Hong Kong version
- "Just the Way I'm Feeling"
- "Come Back Around"
- "Helium"
- "Child in You"
- "Comfort in Sound"
- "Forget About Tomorrow"
- "Summer's Gone"
- "Godzilla"
- "Quick Fade"
- "Find the Colour"
- "Love Pollution"
- "Moonshine"
- "Opaque"
- "Emily"
|
Original version
This was an original track listing for the album, songs with a * after them were dropped from the final track listing, and have never since been released but some might have been working titles for songs that did make the album.
- "All In All"*
- "Walk"*
- "Just the Way I'm Feeling"
- "Come Back Around"
- "Find the Colour"
- "Helium"
- "Child in You"
- "Ascend"*
- "Godzilla"
- "Before We Find Out"*
- "Crystal"*
- "Late"*
- "Forget About Tomorrow"
|
Chart performance
| Chart (2005) |
Peak
position |
| UK album chart |
6 |
| Irish album chart |
27 |
| Japanese album chart |
98 |
| UK Album Chart |
| Week |
01 |
02 |
03 |
04 |
05 |
06 |
07 |
08 |
09 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33 |
34 |
35 |
36 |
| Position |
6
|
25
|
55
|
74
|
(RE)72
|
35
|
16
|
14
|
13
|
21
|
27
|
31
|
39
|
49
|
57
|
61
|
(RE)66
|
49
|
38
|
31
|
21
|
26
|
28
|
40
|
55
|
58
|
(RE)74
|
(RE)45
|
52
|
67
|
(RE)73
|
(RE)51
|
42
|
43
|
41
|
55
|
| Top 75 IRMA Irish album chart |
| Week |
01 |
02 |
03 |
04 |
05 |
06 |
07 |
08 |
| Position |
27
|
42
|
57(RE)
|
28
|
58
|
36
|
48
|
62(RE)
|
| Top 100 Japanese Oricon Chart |
| Week |
01 |
| Position |
98
|
| Sales |
2630
|
References
