Spoon (2022)

One Liner: Austin's finest rock and roll band

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, art rock, post-punk revival, experimental rock

Home: Austin!

Poster Position: 2
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2017, and before that they were here in 2014.  Strangely, I completely forgot to review them in 2017.  Just marked them off of the list and forgot about them.  Weird.

Spoon are excellent.  I may have an Austin bias – radio here has been playing them for years and so I’m pretty well versed in what they do, but I think their hits are all validly fine songs, and their more recent string of discs are generally solid front-to-back albums of pretty, relaxed rock.  Nothing too shiny or overproduced, rarely loud and intense, just timeless rock. 

Transferrence, their 2010 album, is a little darker sounding, but still has some rockin' moments.  2001's Girls Can Tell is more raw, but still a good indication of what is coming along down the pike.  Is that right?  Pike sounds funny.  But I don’t think it’s pipe.  According to the internets, it is pike, as in short for turnpike.  Weird, sorry, back to Spoon.  2005's Gimme Fiction is also a solid album – "I Turn my Camera On" is their most listened to song from that disc, and for good reason.  36.9 million streams:

Just a good groove that bops along and builds as it goes.  After pulling them up on Spotify, I actually just spent the last two days listening to their catalog front to back.  Very good, and hard to turn off in order to listen to anything else.  I should probably go see these dudes jam.

They got started in Austin in 1993 - which sure sounds like a million damn years ago.  Formed by Britt Daniel (vocals and guitar) and Jim Emo (drums), after they met in another band.  Since then they have fired out ten albums of rock and roll action.  They claim that the name Spoon was chosen to honor the 1970s German band Can, who had a song named "Spoon."  Daniel himself was born in Galveston in 1971, and grew up in Temple.  HIs father was a neurologist, which is exciting.  He came to Austin like many, to attend UT.  He was in a handful of other bands before Spoon, and since then has done some production work for other artists as well as making many more Spoon discs.

That first album - 1996's Telephono - is a much more raw rock blast.  You don't get the swagger and groove of the later sounds, just loud aggression.  I'm not surprised that it has significantly less streams than the later stuff.  2001's Girls Can Tell feels like when they start to sound like real Spoon - groove and nuance is on the menu.  But Kill the Moonlight, from 2002, is where they nailed their first hit.  "The Way We Get By," with 38.4 million streams.

Sounds like a Brit, like some cross between Blur and Pulp.  I had never thought of that before, but it definitely does not sound like a guy who was raised in Temple.  I like the people just trying to walk on that sidewalk, who are like "WTF, man.  I just need to get by."

Gimme Fiction was next, and then 2007's terribly titled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga popped up with another great tune.  Actually two of them.  "Don't You Evah" is a jam, all slinky bass and angular guitars.  But "The Underdog" was the hit, with 63.5 million streams.

Sunny handclap perfection.  "Black Like Me" sounds like a Beatles tune.  After that album there was another released in 2007 called Get Nice! but it seems to have been completely under the radar.  Very few streams in comparison to the other discs.  And Wikipedia doesn't even talk about it - maybe it was like a b-sides collection?

A fascinating factoid: "In 2009, the review aggregator Metacritic ranked Spoon as its "Top overall artist of the decade", based on the band's consistently high review scores between 2000 and 2009, among other factors."  Even Metacritic's article about it linked above seems surprised.  But that is kinda cool!

2015's They Want My Soul is another great album.  Solid from front to back and one of my top ten from that year.  I think the thing that I most enjoy on here is that you have classic Spoon rockers like "Rent I Pay" or "Do You," but then they shift it up a little bit with the more pensive "Knock Knock Knock," and then they just throw all that out the window with the super awesome Asian-influenced "Inside Out."  81.3 million streams.

Reminds me of Coldplay going all in on the EDM movement - this is outside of the Spoon playbook, but it works and is a great, relaxed groove waterfall of a song.  "Outlier" is a feisty rock jam as well. Excellente.

Then 2017 brought another curveball with the Hot Thoughts.  Love that we have another legit local rock and roll band that gets national attention.  The opening single off of this album, which has been getting radio play and opens the disc, is a sexy, slinky little nugget of danceable rock groove.  "Hot Thoughts" has 29.1 million streams.

If that one doesn't make you bob your head a little and want to shake the caboose, then its time to get out of your chair and try again.  And loosen up a little.  AND QUIT BEING SUCH A DAMN JERKFACE!!!  <breathing exercises>  Literally, back when I was at my first job out of college, a big Internet company, they made us take breathing exercise classes one day. Something about centering yourself when times got stressful.  This was while working at a company with a well used foosball table, ping pong tables, unlimited cokes and beers in coolers, and frequent leave-work-early happy hours.  Wish I remembered that breathing stuff now.
ANYWAY, the whole album is funky and fun rock that I like a lot.  Well, other than the 5 minutes of saxophone meandering that is "Us," at the end of the album.  I could have done without whatever that is supposed to be.  

And then finally, you get the top notch Lucifer on the Sofa - probably my favorite album of 2022 so far.  No clue what is going on with the title of this album, but I fuckin' love it.  Just a perfect slice of yummy rock and roll goodness.  Got some groove to it, got some lyricism to it, got some pure guitar solo action.  Just a super solid bite of rock with every instrument feeling like its been perfectly placed.  The drums are crispy and match right up with the bass.  Guitar slashes and jangles.  I have been up and down with Spoon over time.  Overall, I like them, but a few of their albums have missed the cut in my mind.  Like, Hot Thoughts was good, but a little too electronic for my taste. This one is the triumphant return to their best form.  "The Devil and Mr. Jones" has a slinky groove that jams.  "Wild" has a build to it that feels exciting every time.  But the top streamer is the one that is the most perfect of the guitar-focused rock tunes on here - "The Hardest Cut."  With only 5.9 million streams, this is criminally under-listened.

Gimme groove-based rock and roll all day.  Not sure why those people are having to run/dance in place in the video though.  What do we have going on there?  I thought that bald guy with the knife was Billy Corgan at first.  Right about the time that hot guitar solo kicks in, Billy loses it all.  Weird, but actually an engaging video that has nothing to do with the song at all.  I dig it!  I know at least one of my regular readers thinks Spoon is dumb, but I also think he is dumb, so we're square.  Just give this album a shot and I think you'll be into it.