Early Spoon

My first exposure to the band Spoon came with the single “I Turn My Camera On” off of Gimme Fiction (2005).  My wife had downloaded this random song I believe when it was the Song of the Week on the iTunes page.  The video was a bit of a riot, too.  Anyway, she liked the song, played it for me, and I thought it was an interesting song.  Different than what we normally hear, so I tucked that memory away.  Then I heard “The Underdog” from their album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007) and was hooked.  Britt Daniel (lead singer/guitarist/songwriter) had a cool voice and had written a song I felt compared favorably with some of Billy Joel’s best rocking stuff in the late 1970’s.

I listened to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga at a time of transition in my life—I was changing jobs in order to help my family due to a tragic loss that had occurred, and I was just out of sorts with where life was going.  That fall and winter I was listening to this and Sound of Silver and some Ben Harper music, and this one was somewhat different from the other two since it seemed more upbeat.  I checked out Gimme Fiction shortly thereafter and wasn’t quite sure how to place Spoon.  What were they exactly?  They were rock, but they weren’t really like other rock music.  They weren’t LCD Soundsystem.  They weren’t the Foo Fighters.  They weren’t Fleet Foxes or Arcade Fire.  They were Spoon.  Transference (2010) has been a great record…better with each listen in my opinion.

None of the albums above made my list, but two Spoon albums did make the list.  Today’s entry is about Girls Can Tell.

# 162 – Spoon, Girls Can Tell (Metascore = 85)

Before diving into the album, I should briefly talk about Spoon itself.  Spoon began as the offshoot of a band that Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno had been members in Austin, Texas, the Alien Beats.  Initially their sound was compared to the likes of alt rock pioneers the Pixies and Wire.  Over time, the band started honing their sound, adopting a more minimalist approach.  After briefly joining Elektra Records to release their ill-fated second LP A Series of Sneaks, they signed with Merge Records, whom they have been with since.

Girls Can Tell has soul, much like their later records.  It also sounds primal, deeply entrenched in the minimalist approach started with A Series of Sneaks.  Each song has a unique riff or drum beat that pulls the listener in.  The grooves work so well throughout, and Daniel’s sometimes choppy but always interesting guitar approach makes for eleven solid tracks.  For the longest time I have sought to try to describe what I hear when I listen to Spoon’s music.  I think now I see that Spoon meshes Booker T & the MG’s soul music with the Talking Heads’ and Elvis Costello’s New Wave.  This is rock music at its most basic yet most intriguing.

Lyrically this record feels more concise than any of the others I have heard.  I love how Daniel writes, how stream-of-conscience the lyrics seem, yet they’re often filled with metaphors and other tricks that you don’t get enough of.  Daniel makes many allusions to love, though during this record he also responded to being dropped by Elektra and the band’s fall-out with their Elektra representative who had promised to stick with them to the end.  Daniel’s sense of urgency in his singing gives the songs added weight, whether or not he’s being serious or not.  Apparently the label drop did nothing but harden their resolve.

I really enjoyed Girls Can Tell.  This is a great record from top to bottom and is definitely my favorite of theirs I have heard.  I would be interested to hear their first two records because their sound obviously has evolved to where it is now.   They are a great rock band.