Exciting News: Spoon
are coming out with their seventh LP,
Transference, due January 26th 2010! They dropped one of the songs off the album as a single a few months back called Got Nuffin'. (Fun fact: They enjoy misspellings - you can see them all over their song titles) Check out the song:
LINK (Also on the upper right in the lala playlist)
Background: Spoon is one of the defining bands of the 00s. They formed in Austin, Texas and are considered a huge influence on the bands coming out of that exciting music city. While technically, Britt Daniel and his right hand man, Jim Eno, started the band back in 1993 and had released two full LPs and a slew of EPs in the 90s, it was the 00s that saw their distinctive sound take full form. They have had some rotating backing members, but the current other players include Rob Pope on bass and Eric Harvey on keyboard.
The Sound: Their brilliance like so many of the great bands before them from the Beatles to Nirvana is quite simple. There is little technical wizardry - it is simple guitar, piano, drums and bass. The brilliance is in their interplay - the layering of the instrumentation, the classical music like movements and the continued variations always in touch with the song as a whole. They are like the Beta Band meets Gang of Four. They are punks working within the pop construct, but just barely.
Hipster Talking Point: Is Spoon referred to so often as underrated that they are in fact overrated? Obnoxious hipster response: "Once they started showing up in the Billboard Top 10 and playing SNL I was through." Correct answer: Either (a) bitch slap (b) rolling eyes and walking away or (c) "Each of their 4 albums released this decade is front to back loaded with hits of pop, rock and experimentalism gelling like late 60s Beatles or Stones. This is rock n' roll at its finest. Only when your mom knows about these guys are they overrated" (Sorry Mom).
Key Albums / Song Highlights / Cliff Notes Description:
Note: All of the songs mentioned can be listened to on the lala player in the upper right - check them out.A Series of Sneaks (1998) - "Car Radio" - More experimental, less polish. Missing that production sheen. Still ripping a bit from the Pixies.
Girls Can Tell (2001) - "The Fitted Shirt" - They begin to strip down their sound, beginning their minimalist approach, production is much tigher and refined.
Kill The Moonlight (2002) - "The Way We Get By", "Stay Don't Go", "Vittorio E", EVERY SONG - this is their magnum opus, no doubt. Stripped down rock n' roll perfection.
One of my favorite albums of all-time. Gimme Fiction (2005) - "I Turn My Camera On" (Personal favorite song of theirs - can't describe how utterly brilliant this song is. This is as if Prince and the Stones got together and put out a song better than anything either of those groups had ever done) - To follow-up Kill The Moonlight with this is incredibly impressive. This album is more sonically rich and diverse, but less focused. Other highlight is "My Mathematical Mind".
Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007) - "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb", "Finer Feelings" - This album sees Spoon more focused, back to more minimalist instrumentation, but more experimental than Kill The Moonlight. Some consider this to be on par with Kill The Moonlight (and it is damn close).
Transference (2010) - Can't wait!
Rarities & Covers: For those all ready attuned to Spoon's brilliance and looking for some more, here are a bunch of rarities and some videos of the new albums tunes played live.
LINK Enjoy,
MD
(Awesome new cover for equally awesome new single, "Cousins")
