Spoon - They Want My Soul (2014)

"I Just Don't Understand" is the only track that's actually bad, most of it just seems like generic late-period Spoon.

and that's the cover song, right?

They've fallen into this rut of midtempo tunes with a heavy plodding basic 4/4 beat which sometimes works but they could stand to try something different imo

"I Just Don't Understand" is the only track that's actually bad, most of it just seems like generic late-period Spoon.

― Immediate Follower (NA),

It was so bad on first listen that I was relieved to learn it was a cover.

They've fallen into this rut of midtempo tunes with a heavy plodding basic 4/4 beat which sometimes works but they could stand to try something different imo

― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, August 5, 2014 11:44 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is why I've always hated Beck.

But that doesn't seem like an accurate description of Beck? I mean, like him or not, his past handful of albums have all sounded pretty different from each other, even if they are all reheats of stuff he's done better before.

can I enjoy the national and spoon?

no

yikes "my bad" guys

I love the National and love Spoon, but I think the last National record was one of its best and this one is ... not bad at all, but sort of ... tentative? Both bands have their thing down, though.

But that doesn't seem like an accurate description of Beck? I mean, like him or not, his past handful of albums have all sounded pretty different from each other, even if they are all reheats of stuff he's done better before.

― Bus Sex Teen Busted After Queef Beef (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, August 5, 2014 12:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, there is a good chance that I'm being unfair and don't have enough info, but I just remember all the songs I've heard fitting that description.

Anyway... back to Spoon. Kill The Moonlight still the favorite for me.

A few listens through, I think I actually prefer Transference? I mean, that record was so weird, and though definitely a grower, I've come to consider it a pretty substantial entry in the catalog. This new one is good - I just don't love it.

I think Transference is my second favorite Spoon album, but my favorite is Series of Sneaks, so I feel well out of the mainstream of Spoon fans.

yeah i don't get this anymore

they've gone from fractured to just pointless. this band meant everything to me when i was younger and i don't think they've written anything that really turned over in about 15 years

lol automotive metaphor

ok i'm not done with this yet but outlier is the goofiest thing they've ever written

to me this record seems to be minor spoon (just like ga x 5), while transference was major spoon, and i'll never understand why the vast majority of ppl seem to think the opposite.

oh lol i just got to the cover

GF is my favorite but it doesn't matter; it could be Ga5 or KTM. I like Transference these days.

Sometimes I want to hear more Spoon songs where Britt allows his guitar chords to ring out a bit more in the fashion of "Sister Jack" but hey they have their sound.

Though maybe they would sound too much like Teenage Fanclub or something huh.

Every time there's a Spoon discussion it ends up with album ranking. I think we've established that they have some of the least amount of consensus of "best album" of any band.

they are obviously accomplished career musicians so i think the more interesting question is always why discussions about them have so little traction

which i think probably has more to do with the way people listen to them than with much about the records

Every time a new Spoon record comes out, I listen to some or all of it once and then go dig out Telephono and A Series of Sneaks and remember that they were once a not-boring-actually-kind-of-great band.

xp they are sorta wallpaper-y, it's true... really pretty, high-end wallpaper tho

I think I saw them live once, touring on the back of Gimme Fiction, with the Clientele opening, but I honestly can't even remember?

Johnny Fever u mad??

Nah dawg, I just know what I like. If I had to hazard a guess, though, I think that experience with Elektra probably affected Britt in a way that made him write songs that idg anymore.

"First they came for the Pixies-wannabe guitar rock bands, & I said nothing, because it was 2000 & I was tired of that shit anyway. Next they came for the Wire & Gang of Four-wannabe guitar rock bands, & I said nothing, because Pitchfork needed to get off their dicks anyway. Then they came for the atmospheric post-rock guitar bands, & I said nothing, because really it was my wife who was the Friday Night Lights fan in our household."

Like, over time I realize the change from what Spoon began as to what Spoon is now was really gradual, but starting with Girls Can Tell it just seems like the moment had passed.

("Metal Detektor" is great tho, I can't front, I just think yer unfairly pigeonholing them... those records don't sound fully-realized AT ALL, they're like a buncha kids playing around in the studio--I miss goofy shit like "Staring at the Board" too, but if the opening seconds of Girls don't knock all that shit far back into the cobwebby corners of your mind, then maybe you need a better system)

I like the singles off this new album. I agree with those that have knock knock knocked the cover song on this album, however.

i don't think they've sounded like girls can tell ever again either tho

Everything Hits at Once is a too-precious piece of crap.

i kind of love how all-over-the-map peoples sense of what qualifies as "good spoon" is. the narcissism of small differences i guess.

i think telephono and transference are the only albums i've yet to see referred to as their best, though now that there's a new Latest Spoon Album it looks like Transference will get more love

telephono is their best

I think 5*Ga is the best

because I'm a too precious motherfucker

croup, it's long been my opinion that Telephono is the best one, and I'm sure I've said so at least once in every Spoon thread ever started on ilm. Opinions, I got 'em.

I'm a big Telephono/Series of Sneaks fan but Gimme Fiction might be their best? Girls Can Tell is the worst.

Ithink I'd go

GCT > GF > SoS > TWMS > GAx5 > KtM > Transference > Telephono

well shut my mouth! though that just goes to reaffirm that this isn't a band with an obv canonical pick

5Ga and KTM are my least fave (a challop i treasure) and I usually say Gimme Fiction's my fave though I could make arguments for any of their first 3 too

i guess Kill the Moonlight was their first album to get pazz'n'jop style ass smooches from day one, though that was cuz enough people'd got on board with GCT

I can't imagine what someone who finds "Everything Hits At Once" too precious must think of, like, "Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine"

I will take "Two Sides..." over "Everything..."

they both rule obv

i really enjoy series of sneaks, never even really play telephono, but even though sneaks is certainly a full-fledged album it seems kind of undeveloped in comparison with the ones that follow. i never really even listen to 'girls' since they still seem like they're not fully themselves yet. people who pick the earlier ones seem to me to want to place the band in some other context than the one they earned by developing a consistent sound of their own.

would probably go transference > fiction > kill = ga > soul > sneaks > girls > telephono at present.

i didn't mean before that the music is kind of wallpapery, or that people use it that way, but that they seem to develop a really intensely personal but obscure and quotidian affection for the records that does seem like it correlates in some way with the cryptic and guarded emotiveness of the songs and the stylishness of the sounds, like the records are destined to be these things from the listeners' lives that move them deeply 10 or 20 years from now without their understanding why at all

people who pick the earlier ones seem to me to want to place the band in some other context than the one they earned by developing a consistent sound of their own.

I'm placing them in the context by which I was introduced to them. At some point, we decided to split up and go different directions. It's cool. Every once in a while I check in to see what they're doing now, and I'll always remember the good times we had early on, but Spoon really isn't a part of my life now.