Feel Good is very much a feel good song. American DJ maestros Gryffin and ILLENIUM, the latter of which has been a favourite of mine in recent years, teamed up alongside Daya to produce one of the best pop songs of 2017 (and my overall favourite release of the year!).
I adore how cheerful the sound of this song is. It's a very pristine electronic tone that they've managed to design, with a combination of reverbed guitars, lightweight synths and snappy drum beats. Paired up with the young, hopeful voice of Daya, the resulting soundscape simply oozes with tasteful euphoria. Feel Good manages to stand out as an electronic pop song, which is very hard to do, considering many electronic pop songs can end up being very generic and repetitive.
I have to commend the lyricism in this song, and how mature it feels. It never goes near the typical lines about looks or experiences they have together, but rather what they are to each other and what they do for each other as people. It's soulful and not shallow or superficial, and isn't performatively romantic. In fact, most of the time it doesn't even hint at romantic love, and I personally portray this song in a platonic light half the time.
I remember first hearing this song when it was used as the soundtrack for a montage. A couple of my friends and I were at another school for a 3-day, 2-night camp and we were put together in a group with students from that school, and over those three days we've warmed up really quickly and they were really great people to be around. Hearing this song while we saw pictures of our three days there, it really left a mark for me, this unique impression of happiness that it made. It felt like the anti-thesis of bittersweet, the metaphorical opposite flavour of nostalgia.
What else can I say? ILLENIUM figured it out with his personal recipe for banger electro-pop songs, it has catchy lyrics, a great chorus and an overall pleasing sound. On it's own, it probably wouldn't get an amazing rating, electronic music just doesn't get that good that often (sorry but it's kinda true), but like most songs and records that I review here, sentiment plays a big part in how I rate them. Deal with it :)
Rating: 5/5
