Comfort in Sound (song)

"Comfort in Sound", was the last single to be taken from Feeder's 2002 album of the same name. It was only available at first on the band's arena tour in December 2003, and was limited to 3,000 copies. A few weeks after the tour, the single was available for download from "Feederweb" with downloadable PDF artwork.

The inclusion of the original "Piece By Piece" video was the first time it was ever released in the UK.

It made the B-list of BBC Radio 1's playlist- the first time for a download only single in which the CD was not commercially available or not available at all.

1 Release
2 Style
3 Music video
4 Reception
5 Track listing
- 5.1 CD

[edit] Release

After the release of "Find the Colour" which was the bands last commercial single from the album, the band decided to release the title track as a limited edition single, only available on the bands tour. The original plan was to put this out as the fourth single.

It was originally only available on CD single during the 2003 Comfort in Sound tour, and were sold at the merchandise stalls on every gig date. After the tour, it was then available as a download for a limited time only on the bands official website Feederweb via 7 Digital, and also included a PDF download image of the singles artwork. It can now be found as a download on many sites like iTunes, but without the singles artwork, due to only being available on the singles compilation album.

[edit] Style

"Comfort in Sound" like "Find the Colour" once again showcases the upbeat parts of the album. While it is upbeat musically, it is dark in its mood lyrically, touching on the emotions the band were feeling, while also looking at how positively the band find comfort in their music, hence the title of the track. Musically, the track mixes in a few dark moods during the verses and middle eight, with a wholly upbeat chorus, with the dark emotions focused on in the lyrics. The version on the single is a new mix by popular producer Mike "Spike" Stent which is also available on the compilation of the band's greatest hits The Singles. The track is very different from the album track. The new mix doesn't have the extra ending with the words 'comfort in sound' sung by Grant at the end, and also contains 'higher' pitched vocals from Grant.

[edit] Music video

The music video features various montages in black and white from the bands shows over the years, it is the last time to date the bands late drummer Jon Lee appears in a music video, and the first time for touring guitarist Dean Tidey, who would later re-appear in the video for Pushing the Senses, which used a similar format.

The various montages are from the 2001 and 2002 Reading festivals, various dates on the March-April 2003 tour and rehearsal sessions. Each scene uses fade-in-out techniques, to follow onto the next one.

It only just missed out on becoming the first ever music video to support a download only single, to appear on a music channels playlist, due to the release of "Stockholm Syndrome" by Muse earlier in the year.

[edit] Reception

As the single was not commercially released, and only available physically to the bands fans if they attended at least one date on the arena tour, and could only be found as a commercially available download if one logged onto the official site, this meant that the single qualified as the very first download only single to appear on the BBC Radio 1 playlist. Only Nelly Furtado (when she scrapped the then forthcoming physical UK release of "Say it Right") and Oasis have done so since, but Feeder will always be the first act to achieve this.

The single sold all its 3,000 copies in early 2004, when Feederweb put the excess unsold stock from the tour on sale, via mail order. It is today hugely sought after, with the CD changing hands on eBay for 5-10 times its original price of 4.99 GBP, it also rarely appears on the site. The newest mix is the most popular from the 2 versions (other being the album version), with the fanbase.

The single reached #8 on the international artist airplay chart in the UAE, and also the top 10 of the weekly "X-List" voting chart on XFM. It was also at the time the highest charting download only single on the UK top 100 radio airplay charts, when it reached #57.