So, Credit to the Nation got played on the John Peel Show, a week ago, and promptly got signed to a large record label, which led to them achieving, if not quite fame and fortune, then at the very least, an opportunity to have their music put out to a much wider audience than Rugger Bugger Discs would have ever reached.
Why oh why, though could a similar benefactor not have been listening to the radio in order to lend a hand to the dance act, L-Dopa? I find it astonishing that not only did Feel Your Need not become a mainstream hit, but that none of their records ever managed to crossover into chart hits. To my ears, in the admittedly limited cross-section of their material that I’ve heard while prepping this blogpost, L-Dopa’s music landed in that perfect dance music sweet spot, in that you could enjoy them whether you were out clubbing, or had them on in the background while working. Not too frenetic, not ultra-chilled but catchy enough to avoid blandness. And Feel Your Need is the perfect embodiment of that dancefloor/shopfloor vibe.
In fairness to him, John Peel certainly tried to help push Feel Your Need over the line to mainstream success. He included it among the records he interspersed with Radio 1’s daytime playlist on his first day as cover for Jakki Brambles’s lunchtime show. He always seemed to prefer the Instrumental Mix, as that was the version he played both then and on this 7/5/93 show. It might have been a good idea for him to play the Song version of Feel Your Need to Brambles’s listeners, then we would be able to read that track’s refrain of Open up your mind as a subliminal message from Peel himself to anybody in the daytime audience whose musical tastes may have been more defensively conservative than his own.
As to why Feel Your Need wasn’t a hit, it’s possible that elements of the track may have been seen as passé in 1993, such as the shift to a mellower tempo between 2:07 and 2:32. Perhaps, those behind L-Dopa were offered the chance to put Feel Your Need out on a bigger label and turned it down. Or maybe I should stop grizzling about a hit that never was and just appreciate the fact that it exists and that it’s wonderful.
Video courtesy of SteveF.
