List Up: Spoon Albums

I'd like to be able to tell people who my favorite band is, but I can't settle on any one. I've certainly tried, even ranking them using all kinds of different categorical methods, but no clear-cut winner has ever presented itself. In reality there are probably about 5 or so acts that rotate, depending on who has released an album most recently (unless it's a dud). But however large that group of artists is, Spoon is definitely in the top tier of said group. And if you pressured me to pick a band/artist, I might actually go with them. Of all my favorites, and as varied as my tastes are musically (if it's got a melody, I can probably dig it on some level), Spoon probably tugs at my heartstrings the most, likely because they hearken back to the Beach Boys Pop/Classic Rock/New Wave that I was raised on before being converted to an Indie Rock kid towards the end of high school.  No band does so much with so little. They cut it down to the necessary essentials and strip away all the gimmicks that have been employed by so many over the years to hide a lack of what it takes. It's all about the rhythm and the melody with these guys, and they rarely swing and miss. Britt Daniel doesn't need to trick you, and he's not even going to try.

They've taken the long road over the years - landing a major record deal, getting kicked to the curb (despite releasing an awesome album), and then spending the next 20 years working their way back up the food chain. And now here they are, having their latest release featured on iTunes' "First Play" and playing The Tonight Show. It's hard not to love these guys. Their story is great and their music might be even better. And it's pretty much the general consensus that "They Want My Soul", which was officially released this past Tuesday, only adds another chapter to their greatness (anyone who follows my twitter feed knows I've thrown my hat in that ring as well). And so the question that begs to be answered, and which others have already attempted to answer, is where does Spoon's most recent offering rank amongst their best? Bands with a catalogue as consistently good as Spoon make it extremely difficult to answer this question, and in fact it probably is just a matter of personal preference. Ask a random die-hard Spoon fan what the band's best album is, and you're fairly likely to get any of their last seven releases as an answer - and justifiably so. But if you're reading this, either you aren't super familiar with Spoon and are looking for a bit of guidance (more likely), or you're just interested in what I think (probably less likely). Regardless, here's my take; share yours below if you have the energy after you're done berating me for my ignorance.

8. Telephono

Some people compare Spoon heavily to the Pixies (there's even an unsubstantiated rumor that they originated as a Pixies cover band); this album is why. A quality example of early 90s indie rock, but there's nothing trend-setting here. Probably the only Spoon record that I would define as for the die-hard fan only.

7. Transference

Up to this point, Spoon's highest debut on the Billboard Charts (#4). Undoubtedly a strong record, but for me it has the markings of Britt Daniel blowing off some steam and cutting loose after releasing their most precisely-crafted, poppy (and popular) release. Off-beat, backwards, and (seemingly) intentionally unfinished in some places.

6. Gimme Fiction

This is a tough one. Gimme Fiction contains some of the most beloved work in Spoon's entire catalogue ("I Turn My Camera On", "Sister Jack", and "I Summon You"). However, it's final third also contains some of their weaker moments (for them, anyway), which is what keeps it out of the "best of" conversation. Doesn't help it's sandwiched between the band's two greatest releases, either.

5. Girls Can Tell

From here on out, it's a total crapshoot. Yeah, Spoon is that good. Lots and lots of huge Spoon fans will tell you GCT is really their best record. Who knows, they might be right. I would definitely say it's in the running for their most overlooked effort. It's a quiet comeback record following a fallout with a major label that probably would have killed off bands not made of the same stuff as Daniel and company. It's also Spoon's coolest, chillest, most sneaky-good album, and one that would probably appeal to just about anyone.

4. They Want My Soul

I struggled with where to put this guy. It's only been out there for a little over a week. Realistically, there's a good chance it won't end up at #4 on my final list, even if Spoon never releases another record. But there's no doubt it's great. If I had to pick a record that best re-captures the perfect quirky/catchy balance of Kill the Moonlight, I'd probably have to go with TWMS. The random explosions of sound, the sparseness of the instrumentation, the heart and soul involved. All were essential ingredients to KTM, and all are present here, albeit through a different lens ten years and 4 albums later. Astounding they're able to still turn out such inspired material after 20 years.

3. Series of Sneaks

An album that is sort of legendary for all the wrong reasons. Spoon's lone major label release prior to TWMS (sort of) also happens to be a flat-out great album. It's the band's most straight forward record, and their most "Rock" oriented. It's resided atop this list for me on many occasions, but, having said that, it's pretty rough around the edges and probably not for everyone.

2. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

If there were such a thing as a consensus "Greatest Spoon Record", my guess is that this would probably be it. And there's plenty of solid reasons for that. 10 of them to be precise. Not a track here is without an exact purpose, and nothing goes to waste. It's the most meticulous, catchy, and accessible of Spoon's albums, and "Finer Feelings" is one of my all-time favorite tracks by any band. If you're a first time listener, this, along with Girls Can Tell, would be the place to start.

1. Kill the Moonlight

Can't think of any other way to explain why KTM sits on top of this list other than it is the most "Spoon" of any Spoon record. It takes the best elements of all the aforementioned albums and incorporates them together seamlessly. It's quirky and off-beat, but catchy and accessible. It's cool, but it rocks pretty hard, too. Immediately, it may not be for everyone, but it can be if they only let it sink in. It's the Spoon record that found me, and to this day I think it remains their magnum opus.

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Tales of a Conflicted Apple Loyalist

Let me start by addressing the timeliness of writing about the whole Spotify/iTunes thing at this juncture. I realize I'm late to the party here; that's actually why I'm taking the time to share my thoughts. Hopefully my perspective provides enough of a twist to make it worth your while. So first of all, let me preface the main body of this post with a little bit of backstory on who is writing what you are about to read:

I hate the idea of taking the Spotify Plunge. Hate it. I'm about as close to a certifiable disciple of the Steve Jobs Philosophy as you're likely to find. Someone who loves the idea of integration and wants everything to work together seamlessly.  A guy who cringes at using apps that don't look like they were designed to fit in aesthetically with all the native ones on my iPhone. I would never think of jailbreaking any of my Apple devices. Not because I'm afraid something will go wrong.  It just doesn't sound attractive to me. At all. My entire tech food chain from top to bottom is branded the same way, looks the same way, and runs the same way. And I love it.

On top of all that, and perhaps most significantly, I am somewhat of an obsessive collector. I've been one for as long as I can remember, specifically with music and media in general. But music more than anything else. I can remember being 12 and completely obsessing over having every album from all of my favorite artists, and if they weren't all organized perfectly (artists in alphabetical order, albums chronologically), freak-outs ensued.  I'm still the same guy, and though the vehicle is no longer physical in nature (it killed me to let go of CDs and all their glorious packaging),  I still get considerable gratification from finding new music, downloading it, and watching the track count go up in my pretty sizable iTunes library.  In short, I'm the consumer corporate types count on.

So why is any of this pertinent information?  Bottom line: If Apple isn't worried already (and I'm sure they've probably hired people to run formulas like this), they better get that fixed pretty quick. Plain and simple. I am one of the LAST people they should ever have to worry about shelling out money to another company every month. And yet, here I am after 48 hours of Spotify Premium, thinking there's probably no going back.

So what's made a believer out of me already? Well let's start with the obvious:

IT'S A MASSIVE, BOTTOMLESS OCEAN OF MUSIC, AND FOR 10 BUCKS A MONTH IT ALL BELONGS TO ME (sort of). Seriously, have you been on there yet?  It's completely ridiculous. Too good to be legal even, but it is.  As a lover of indie music who is constantly digging for the next payoff, Spotify presents a double-edged sword of awesomeness. Practically almost everything by almost everyone is available, indie bands included. This is invaluable, because the "unknown" factor is so prominent with indie music. There are tons of great unknown bands out there, but for every great one you stumble on you'll suffer through at least 5 awful ones along the way. Spotify makes this irrelevant, at least financially speaking. There is no risk. And no doubt the discovery/recommendation features are pretty fantastic as well. Also the awesome price point cannot be overstated. $10 will get you one album on iTunes. As somebody who will routinely purchase somewhere between 4-8 albums a month, it's just flat-out economically irresponsible for me to not go with Spotify.

The other half of what makes Spotify so attractive is its social media integration. Frankly, Apple confounds me with this. How and why they haven't made it easier to share what you're listening to with others blows my mind. This has to be costing them money. Has to. And personally, I love sharing the music I discover just about as much as I enjoy collecting it. I'm sure there are plenty of others out there just like me, so why you wouldn't provide these people with a convenient means to help you sell your product for free is beyond me.  And Spotify just absolutely kills iTunes in this department. They make it extremely easy to share songs and/or albums (I'm an album guy) both with friends within Spotify and through social media outlets like Twitter. And I love being able to see what my friends are listening to in the "Activity" feed.  It's almost as strong in this department as iTunes is inept.

Spotify is not without its issues, though. For one, I'm not a big fan of the interface. It's a bit clunky, and organizationally speaking I can't stand it. There really needs to be some sort of library for you to store artists/albums that you're currently into, but presently the only method for that is through playlists.  I don't imagine it will take long before it gets pretty hairy trying to find what I want to listen to on my phone, and honestly if anything could drive me away at this point, that would probably be it.  Another huge gripe for me is the lack of any kind of mini player whatsoever, which I find absolutely inexcusable. It was a big turn off for me when Spotify first came out, and it's still annoying the crap out of me now. Also, and this is a bit of a nit-picky thing, but I'd really like to be able to tell Spotify that I've already heard a band in the discover section. I appreciate being told that I will like Braid because I listened to Crash of Rhinos, but the reason I'm listening to Crash of Rhinos to begin with is because I worshipped Braid about 15 years ago when they were actually around (the first time, that is).  Lastly, general integration is a major issue for me. iTunes works seamlessly with every other program on my iMac. This is lost with Spotify, and Airplay is nowhere to be found. Yeah, there's a workaround for that, but I don't really want to have to dig around in my computer's settings every time I want to use it.

Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, this stuff wouldn't have been that big of a deal. It certainly wouldn't have been a decade-plus back when Winamp was setting the bar for music players. But the thing is the iTunes interface has just become soooo stinking good.  It's definitely not perfect, and Apple takes inexplicable steps in the wrong direction at times, but they usually get around to doing what needs to be done. And the current version is their best yet. The new mini player is so fantastic it actually makes Spotify's lack of one a bigger issue than it probably should be. There are a ton of ways to view and organize your music (a big deal for an obsessive collector), and Spotify offers exactly zero options in this department. I suppose someone could make the "you get what you pay for" argument here, but I don't find that to be a valid excuse for most of these issues.

All that having been said, sagging digital music sales has been a hot topic as of late, and one has to wonder how long Apple can stay with the status quo before they start taking a substantial hit.  iTunes Radio will be a positive step in the right direction, and maybe it will stem the tide for a bit, but it's hard to imagine that a company (or companies) providing a well-executed subscription option won't force them to join the revolution at some point.  The way I see it, right now they're profiting from the ignorance of their consumers.  That's not going to last forever, so the real question is how long before we reach that fork in the road. As an Apple enthusiast, I sincerely hope it's soon. 

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13 Best of 2013... So Far.

*Fair warning: I read an article a while back chastising the use of double spaces following punctuation (apparently it's a holdover from the typewriter days and supposedly should be regarded as obsolete).  Since then, I can't seem to commit to either single or double spacing.  So if you feel nauseated after reading this, you'll know why.  Apologies in advance.

Well, it's been a while (where "a while" = 2 years). Life has shifted into ludicrous speed with 3 little ones, and I've taken to sharing most of my musings single serving-style on Twitter. But I've got a few more hours to work with now that summer break has arrived, and I feel like I need some more square footage for this, so here we are.

Anyway, there's not much debating that 2013 has a strong shot at ending up one of the best years of music in at least half a decade.  This really isn't news; indeed it seems like pretty much the entire internet recognizes it.  And while it's debatable how much of this is due to what I've found to be a pretty subpar output over the last couple years, it's very difficult at this point to deny the strength of what's been released recently. In fact, I think you'd probably have to total up the best releases from the past 3 or 4 years just to even hold a candle to those from the the past 5 months.

Yeah, it's a bandwagon move on my part to write when there's a lot of great stuff to write about, but it is what it is I guess.  I've been looking for a reason to write something, so I figure I better go with it while I've got the inspiration (and I'm in between diaper changes, feedings, bath times, etc.).  So without further ado, here are my top 13 albums of 2013... so far. They're sans rankings due largely to the fact that some of these albums have been released very recently and I just haven't been able to give them the same listening attention as earlier releases.  Hopefully I'll have time for an end of year list, and we'll rank it out then.  Hopefully.

Appleseed Cast - Illumination Ritual
After releasing the epic Low Level Owl I & II back in '01, these guys were one of the first to be labeled "America's answer to Radiohead".  After straying in a couple different directions (albeit enjoyable ones) over the past decade, they've finally released what I think is the truest follow up to their masterpiece.  Not that I'm selling this as being as good as LLO, but it delivers on that promise more than the rest of their output since, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Daft Punk have forever been "the band that influences all the bands that take over the world".  Now they're "the band that has the biggest album on Planet Earth." Tons of tracks with guest vocalists (my faves are Julian Casablancas and Panda Bear) and the entire thing just grooves like crazy.

Deerhunter - Monomania
Bit of a departure from the sugary, retro, reverb pop that Bradford Cox has been releasing for the last 5 years.  It's a rowdy record, and the more you turn it up, the better it sounds. [Insert Spinal Tap joke here.]

Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaValle - Perils from the Sea
Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon & Red House Painters) and Jimmy LaValle (The Album Leaf) do the Postal Service thing.  Trust me, though; despite similarities in the blueprint, this isn't some redundant ripoff.  LaValle's brand of lap pop is much more ambient than Jimmy Tamborello's, and Kozelek's voice is one of the most unique out there. This is not the sugary pop that Gibbard and Tamborello produced, but it comes close to canceling out Owl City on their list of descendants.  I'm sure they can appreciate that.

My Bloody Valentine - m b v
Somehow these guys managed to successfully follow up one of the most influential albums in modern music - an album that was supposed to be impossible to follow up. And it only took them 20 years to do it.

The National - Trouble Will Find Me
These guys are in the running for my favorite band over the past 5 years.  They are just so consistently good, and they somehow consistently keep getting better.  They're not gonna knock you over with innovation, and their songs won't suck you in with gimmicks or huge hooks.  They just settle into your brain, establish camp, and stay there.  And they are very good at what they do.  Debatable whether or not it's as good as their last (High Violet), but if it isn't, it's right there.

Phoenix - Bankrupt!
Phoenix didn't fair quite as well as MBV at following up a huge album, but this is still a very enjoyable rock record.  In fact, about the only major complaint about it is that it's not as good Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.  Which isn't much of a complaint, considering there's only been about 10 records released since then that are as good.  Don't compare, just listen and enjoy.

Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
Just getting into this album, but I can already tell I'm going to wear it out.  These guys have managed to maintain their edge over all these years, and they're still making the most melodic, goth-y alt-rock out there.

Rogue Wave - Nightingale Floors
Prototypical indie pop/rock band releases a prototypical indie pop/rock record. Don't hear any "Lake Michigan"-type standouts here, but they've obviously made a conscious effort to get back to what made them so good to begin with, and it's probably their best overall record since Descended Like Vultures.

The Strokes - Comedown Machine
Another return to form after a couple years of releasing not-so-great music. Think it's pretty well the internet consensus that this is the most under-appreciated album of 2013 at this point.  Lead off track "Tap Out" contains one of the best chorus melodies they've ever produced, and there's plenty more to go around afterwards.  I keep trying to put this album away so I can move on to other things, but then it just sucks me back in, and it sounds better every time I go back to it.

Their / They're / There - S/T
Mike Kinsella (American Football, Owen, Cap'n Jazz, Owls) has a new side job: playing drums with these dudes.  Personally, I think it's every bit as good as anything that he's been involved with since American Football. Really takes me back to the days of the legendary Polyvinyl releases at the turn of the century. And "Concession Speech Writer" is straight up lightning in a bottle.

Sigur Rós - Kveikur
After releasing their most immediate (and, I think, enjoyable) album in 2008, they dropped an album last year that was probably the most ambient, abstract, and boring of their career.  Didn't take them long to bounce back, though.  Kveikur seems almost hyper-focused for them, and it's the most percussion-driven and immediate album they've ever produced.  Particularly "Ísjaki", whose only peer in their catalogue in terms of immediate catchiness is "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur". Finally, a Sigur Rós album you can listen to in the car!

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
Stereogum named this album the best of the year so far.  I don't know if I can say that's true, but I definitely can't say that it isn't, either.  Much like The National, they just continue to refine and improve what they do.  And, also much like The National, they're an acquired taste.  But regardless of what you like, it's hard to deny that these guys are very smart and very good at what they do.  It was easy to see them as potential one hit (and one note) wonders when they first came onto the scene, but based on what they've produced here, they're probably not going away anytime soon.






Honorable Mention
Atoms for Peace - Amok
Junip - S/T
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
The Little Ones - The Dawn Sang Along
Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love


Pretty ridiculous that it was actually that difficult to pick out a top 13 in June.  But it was just that.  Let me know what you think and share your own lists below!

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Is This Thing On?

Been a while; anybody still out there? Here's a list of some things that don't suck. Been a pretty decent summer:

Bon Iver Bon Iver*

Battles Gloss Drop

The Cars Move Like This

Explosions in the Sky Take Care, Take Care*

Foo Fighters Wasting Light

Junior Boys It's All True

Maritime Human Hearts

Release the Sunbird Come Back to Us

Mock Orange Disguised as Ghosts

The Sea and Cake Moonlight Butterfly

Washed Out Within and Without

The Wooden Birds Two Matchsticks

Fringe

Friday Night Lights* (TV) - May not be new to you, but it is to me.

Shark Week

Captain America: The First Avenger

Super 8

Have given in to the realization that Cowboys & Aliens isn't going to be mind-blowingly awesome, but I'm holding out hope it's going to be fun. Let you know after tomorrow...

*If you don't like this Album/Show/Movie, listen to/watch it again, and try harder. If that doesn't work for you, get your head checked.

BTW...

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The Weeknd

I really dig this song so I went ahead and got the rest of the "mixtape". It's free. Pretty disappointed as the rest of it just sounds like ho-hum r&b to me. I'll keep trying though just to see if the hype this artist has received is fo' rell. Again, could not figure out how to put the mp3 player on here so I went with the lazy route. Sound off.

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TVOTR are back!

Booyakasha. They're dropping their new album Nine Types of Light "this spring".

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Black History Month

It's about effing time! So this is pretty much the perfect segue into the month of February... rumors of a band reuniting who have a song titled "Black History Month". It had to have been planned out all like this. I'm just glad they didn't wait till 2079 or something like that.

Go. Read. Get pumped. But not too pumped. If you can read between the lines you can see this beautiful ray of light shining through that has been created with "Blood on Our Hands" out of a "Dead Womb" and has produced "Sexy Results". Kinda gross, but it's not my fault. Lates, brahs.

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