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Winning formula: The Feeling are crossing Fleetwood Mac with The Eagles and The Beatles

Abba-solutely fabulous tribute band Bjorn Again

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No one quite knew what to make of The Feeling when they emerged last year with their tidy haircuts, neckerchiefs and a sound that harked back to the soft rock of the early Seventies. They had come straight from a season as a covers band in an Alpine ski resort and seemed to have no concept of what was fashionable.

But they were perversely in tune with the times. Helped along by the Guilty Pleasures phenomenon - the hugely successful club night and CD compilation series that worships the delightfully naff likes of ELO and 10cc - The Feeling's debut album, Twelve Stops and Home, became one of the best-selling British albums of 2006. The five-piece from Sussex also became the most-played act on UK radio last year as the public thrilled to the idea that they were officially allowed to like soft rock again.

The band can afford to release a brash, confident follow-up - and after sitting in on an exclusive play-through in a Notting Hill recording studio I can reveal that Join With Us is a high-gloss, bombastic treat that can only strengthen The Feeling's position as one of our biggest pop bands.

Thought It Was Over, which will be the first single from the album, has a huge, Donna Summer bassline. There are hints of Queen in the multi-layered complexity of Turn It Up. The title track is a blatant Beatles homage, complete with Drive My Car-style "beep beep" vocals at the climax.

"There's no way there's not going to be a bit of The Beatles in what we do, because I think Paul McCartney is the greatest living songwriter," dapper frontman Dan Gillespie Sells tells me.

"As for the rest of it - over the top, fun, theatrical - that's the sound we wanted. I've been quoted as saying we're an ambitious band, and I think people took that to mean we wanted to live in big flashy houses, but I always meant musically ambitious."

Once more, the fashions of the day can take a running jump. "We did have some record company pressure at the start to be a kind of faux indie band and rough up our music but we're looking to that classic Eagles, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac sound. It's preposterous that for something to be credible it needs to sound a bit crap."

The late February album launch will be surprisingly low-key for such a big-selling band, with a tour of small theatre venues planned for spring, followed by a jaunt around the summer festivals, but I reckon they'll be entertaining arenas before the end of 2008. This is a big sound - how can it fail to reach the biggest possible audience?

Christmas is one great singalong

AS 25 December approaches, it's time for a different kind of gig. A few bands seem to make most of their money for the next year in this single month, with no new album to promote and no hopes of getting to number one. With crowd-pleasing hits delivered to crowds desperate to dance, think of them as office Christmas parties in concert form - just without the stationery cupboard.

Where to take your department for festive fun? How about UB40 at Wembley Arena tonight, Madness at the O2 Arena on Friday 14 December, or Status Quo at Wembley Arena on Friday 15th? The Pogues present their regular Christmas singalong at Brixton Academy on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th, Billy Ocean takes over the Hackney Ocean on Sunday 16th, and the Blockheads perform with new vocalist Phill Jupitus at Shepherd's Bush Empire on Sunday 23rd.

Then there are the most tinselly shows - the long-running ABBA tribute by Bjorn Again, left, at Shepherds Bush Empire on Tuesday 11 December, and the Spice Girls' stint at O2 Arena, Saturday 15 December to 22 January. If they don't get you in the mood for attaching baubles to your person and embarrassing colleagues, nothing will.

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