One of Calvin Harris‘ greatest hits — “Feel So Close” — just turned 10!
The production first released on August 19, 2011 and quickly gained momentum, charting around the world and achieving Platinum status on July 13, 2012. However, its real successes have nothing to do with these stats.
The story of how the track came to be is a transformative, inspiring story. One that Calvin Harris reflects on and explains in-depth via social media here, but let’s get into it.
He shares:
Feel so close is 10 years old today! I like remembering how it came about, cos at the time I was well confused about what to do with my life / career.
At the end of summer 2010 I had played my last gig (Creamfields) with my ‘band’ and had done enough ‘DJ set’ gigs to know that I wanted to change the way my music was presented. I needed to stop singing every song as I had all these ideas for female singers and my falsetto just wasn’t going to cut it.
So I began producing with a new purpose, excited I could give my songs to real singers and finally move closer to the role I had always dreamt of in music (weird dude in background who never speaks).
Following that realization, something amazing happened:
After about 3 months of studio, I visited my record label Columbia and played them Awooga, Bounce and another ok song with a feature that ended up not coming out. The response from the label was overwhelmingly lukewarm; I came out of the meeting wondering if I had made the right decision in changing my path. That’s putting it lightly actually I was gutted and my head was spinning, I thought I’d absolutely fucked it. So immediately I headed back to my studio room feeling properly sad but also enough ‘fuck it I’ll show em I’ll sing on one then, and it’ll be class’ and made Feel So Close in a few hours.
“Feel So Close” marked the dawn of a new era and Calvin Harris has certainly mastered the art of feel-good dance music since then. This gem of a production remains as refreshing and exciting to hear a decade later, and rings true to the heart of the project.
Listen here!
Calvin Harris – Feel So Close
Photo via Rukes.com
