So the first two number one singles of 2012 have been called 'Paradise' and 'Good Feeling'. That general theme of positivity aside, though, the two tracks have little in common; where Coldplay reached feebly and defeatedly for an elusive paradise, feeling good is Flo Rida's natural setting - he bounds about this bouncy, charged bit of house like an overexcited and irrepressible puppy. 'Good Feeling' is based closely upon the song 'Levels', a parallel hit single (it's currently at number 4 in the UK chart, while Flo Rida occupies the top spot) by Swedish house producer Avicii. Both songs revolve around a sample from Etta James' 1962 song 'Something's Got A Hold On Me'. It's hard to escape the sense that it's that sample - James' vocal transformed from a gospel-derived soul holler into an anonymous rave diva - that gives both tracks their force, 'Good Feeling' especially.
"Ohhhhh, sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah," declared Etta James back in 1962, a cappella, answered by a "yeah!" of backing vocals and a piano chord. "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh get a feeling that I never never never never had before, no noooo..." she elaborates. Of course, the feeling she was singing about was being in love, and the ecstatic vocal mannerisms she was using to sing about it were derived from the religious ecstasies of gospel. Pedants will note that singing "sometimes I get a good feeling" is somewhat in tension with claiming that it's a feeling one has "never had before"; this ambiguity, though, is actually kind of interesting given the ways the couplet has been sampled and re-contextualised. In James' original song, she's singing about a change that has come over her recently, so it makes sense to think that she's recently started having periodic "good feeling" episodes that feel quite unlike anything she felt before she started to fall in love. On 'Levels', though, that opening couplet is isolated as the track's only lyric, so it has no narrative context. On that track, the odd temporal ambiguity plays into the way the line evokes the druggy musical euphoria of rave music; it's a sheer, disembodied and de-contextualised emotionality, endlessly new but supposedly always repeatable.
Which brings me to 'Good Feeling', on which Flo Rida enters the picture, and - of course - spins the song so that the "good feeling" is, of course, the good feelings he experiences as a result of being Flo Rida, and being so totally amazing. When Flo Rida was last at number one (some time ago with 'Club Can't Handle Me') I noted how he seemed to be at odds with the spirit of the music surrounding him. It's true here, too, even if the sonics of 'Good Feeling' don't undermine and contradict him quite so obviously or emphatically. Flo Rida is all about "me, me, me" - he really does seem to be nothing but ego given human form - while the bounding house beats and soaring, sampled ecstasy of 'Good Feeling' scream inclusiveness and connectedness. There's actually something almost comical about the fact that Flo Rida is so determined to make this smiling, energetic and sunny music a celebration of his own particular self.
In fact, Flo Rida is on relatively good form here; he's a ridiculously limited and uninteresting rapper, with only one gear - reeling off absurd 'boasts' like a one-dimensional cartoon character. It's something he takes to characteristically absurd lengths on 'Good Feeling'. "I'll be the president one day," he declares; he can "walk on water"; he has "the heart of twenty men"; he closes his second and final verse with the incredible and hilarious claim "I'm Bill Gates - take a genius to understand me". 'Levels' is certainly better and more interesting to me than 'Good Feeling', which transforms the positivity and energy of rave into something far more shallow than it has to be; but I can't hate 'Good Feeling', which is throwaway and silly, but, at the end of the day, still pretty good fun.
(As an endnote - 'Good Feeling' also has the now-obligatory 'dubstep breakdown' towards the end of the track, which is not carried over from 'Levels'. It's a pretty fair representation of how dubstep is being used in a lot of pop at the moment - a go-to rhythm to break up the repetition of a four-to-the-floor house beat. It works pretty well here at keeping the track interesting, and the fact that it feels so incongruous and bolted-on kind of adds to the charm.)
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