Before you read any further, please be aware that I believe you lot rather than the newspaper, but the Telegraph says:
'Yet Gillespie Sells is insistent that the Feeling have nothing to feel guilty about. "I don't think my generation really understands what is supposed to be so uncool about it," he says, pointing out that he was born in 1979, by which time soft rock had been all but rendered extinct by punk.'
from an interview with the band. 