Dear Spoon, how I love you…let me count the ways:
1. All of Girls Can Tell
2. “Sister Jack”
3. “I Turn My Camera On” in a Jaguar commercial (I’m sorry, it was perfect)
4. Britt’s unabashed, awkward hipster dancing at the Pitchfork Music Festival after party 2006.
Spoon is one band that, like Wilco and the White Stripes at a more significant level, has virtually created its own indie rock subgenre. Very little else compares to a Spoon record, and thus we critics are usually left comparing each release to its predecessors instead of to the bulk of the chaff that passes for independent music in today’s landscape. It’s not unlike being the judge in the Best in Show round at a dog show – you’re not judging the dogs agaist each other, but against the standard for their individual breeds…So I’m left comparing this latest effort to the Spoon back catalog (which, unfortunately for Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, means one of my favorites of all time, Girls Can Tell). That said, Ga was my final realization that Britt Daniel could probably make armpit fart noises on a mic and I’d enjoy it. It’s not to say that Ga isn’t a fine record, but it is to say that I need a healthy dose of perspective to properly judge it.
“You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” is as solid a white-boy boogie as you’ll find this side of Mellow Gold and “Don’t Make Me A Target” is classic build-‘em-up-and-set-‘em-off Spoon, but there are a few holes in the Ga armor and that’s less excusable when your record is only 10 songs in total. “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case” is a serviceable but snoozy piece of blah pop that kills the momentum between two of the album’s strongest cuts, the horn-driven “The Underdog” and the rollicking “Finer Feelings.” Daniel is at his best when he pairs his snarky, wryly dark lyrics with the happy-pill hop of classic Spoon melodies. All in all, I’m at the same place with Ga as I was with Ryan Adams’ record last week – this is one of my favorite records of 2007, but I have to wonder if that was the case before I even heard it, given the general lack of excitement on the scene right now.
6 responses so far ↓
tankboy // Jul 11, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Spoon is one band that, like Wilco and the White Stripes at a more significant level, has virtually created its own indie rock subgenre.
Um, I lurve Spoon (seriously, LURVE them), but one of the reasons I love ‘em so much is because they so shamelessly rip off Bowie … so I’m not so sure you can credit them as creating their own subgenre.
However, they are easily one of the best working bands out there today.
LK // Jul 11, 2007 at 12:40 pm
That’s why I said “indie rock subgenre” and not “rock subgenre,” comparing them solely to their peers…and yes, absolutely one of the best working bands out there.
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