In The Countryside finds quaint SoCal singer-songwriter Benjy Ferree in a happy, and decidedly clappy mood. A child-like, singsong track, with the fractured grammar of a nursery rhyme, In The Countryside is insanely catchy (and I suspect insanely annoying if it became a big radio hit and you heard it every couple of hours). It's the sort of song that comes over refreshing at first but of which you can soon tire.
With a record buying public willing to put someone like Mika on the top slot, and given the right publicity, Ferree could well score a summer hit with this. It's extremely jaunty, half way between Tommy Steele and Jonathan Richman, featuring cheerful whistling and a chorus you can see hoards of toddlers doing actions to at play group.
But we love a cute maverick with an interesting story who writes the sort of melodies you can whistle on the bus and Benjy Ferree certainly fits that bill. And good luck to him - childish pop is far better than the crappy technofication of decent disco songs currently clogging up the charts.
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