Spoon

Certain Songs #2438: Spoon – “Trouble Comes Running”

September 2, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Transference
Year: 2010

. . .

After the big-hearted and big-sounding Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Britt Daniel went more insular and experimental for the follow-up, 2010’s Transference, and I didn’t like it nearly as much.

Which means, of course, the song I liked the most from it is probably my very favorite Spoon song, the low-fi basher “Trouble Comes Running,” which starts with a faded guitar in one speaker until Daniel’s “owwwww!” kicks it off properly, with monster drummer Jim Eno alternating being restrained on the verses and letting loose on the choruses.

Certain Songs #2437: Spoon – “The Underdog”

September 1, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Year: 2007

. . .

Like a lot of Spoon’s greatest songs, the bouncy, infectious single “The Underdog” covers a lot of ground with a few instruments. In this case, it’s bass, drums, acoustic guitar and — of course — an expertly-deployed horn section.

That horn section — Jason Freese on sax, Ron Blake on trumpet and Francicso Torres on trombone — is there from the opening, but kinda muted, not yet giving away how important they’re gonna be to the song. So at first you focus on the rolling, tumbling opening, led by drummer Jim Eno, who then mostly drops out, leaving Britt Daniel to sing the opening verse over his own acoustic guitar, some percussion and eventually bassist Rob Pope.

Certain Songs #2436: Spoon – “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”

August 31, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Year: 2007

. . .

Way back last week, I wrote about how “Take The Fifth” was definitely influenced by Elvis Costello’s soul-drenched Get Happy!!!, and that’s probably one of the reference points for the horn-driven stomper “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb,” as well.

But there’s a huge difference: “Take The Fifth” was also stripped-down, and “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” is anything but, so I’m going to say that in this case Daniel went straight to Motown for this joyous piece of soul, and so it’s all decorated up rather than stripped own.

Certain Songs #2435: Spoon – “Don’t Make Me A Target”

August 30, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Year: 2007

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It says here that 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was the height of Spoon’s commercial success and critical acclaim. Of course, I might just be saying that because it’s my favorite Spoon album, but at the very least, it was their first top ten album in both the Billboard Album charts and the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics poll, coming in at #10 and #7 respectively.

Certain Songs #2434: Spoon – “Sister Jack”

August 29, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Gimme Fiction
Year: 2005

. . .

My favorite song from Gimme Fiction — and a definite contender for my favorite Spoon song period — “Sister Jack” somehow combines references to both Velvet Underground and The Jam while still sounding like Spoon.

The Velvets reference, of course, is the title: face it, you’re not gonna have “Sister [Dudes Name]” without people instantly flashing on Future Certain Song “Sister Ray.” That’s just how it is, you know?

Certain Songs #2433: Spoon – “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”

August 28, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Gimme Fiction
Year: 2005

. . .

After the critical if not commercial success of Kill The Moonlight, Spoon went back to the drawing board, and Britt Daniel and Jim Eno basically recorded nearly all of the follow-up, 2005’s Gimme Fiction by themselves. And with Eno limiting himself to the drums, Gimme Fiction is probably as close to a Britt Daniel solo album as we are going to get.

But not really, as Eno’s drums are as integral to Spoon as anything, especially on the opening track, “The Beast and Dragon, Adored.”

Certain Songs #2432: Spoon – “Don’t Let It Get You Down”

August 27, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kill The Moonlight
Year: 2002

. . .

Despite — or maybe because of — the self-conscious keyboard-driven minimalism the dominated Kill The Moonlight, there were quite a few songs that were incredibly atmospheric, like the buzzing opener “Small Stakes” and the swirling closer, “Vittorio E.” Smack dab in the middle was “Don’t Let It Get You Down,” a fantastic example of what Britt Daniel calls his mathematical mind.

Actually, I also just realized that for each of Spoon’s early 2000s albums, I’m writing about a propulsive song and and arty song. So far, “Take The Fifth” and “The Way We Get By” are the propulsive songs, and “The Fitted Shirt” and today’s “Don’t Let It Get You Down” are the arty ones. And — SPOILER ALERT! — this will carry over to the two Gimme Fiction songs I’m writing about in the next couple of days, though it totally breaks down when I get to my favorite Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Certain Songs #2431: Spoon – “The Way We Get By”

August 26, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kill The Moonlight
Year: 2002

. . .

Because it just celebrated its 20th anniversary and is considered by many to be Spoon’s best album — a take I respectfully disagree with — 2002’s Kill The Moonlight has been in the zeitgeist recently, no doubt causing a bit of “holy shit, I’m getting old!” angst in Millennials for whom it was a key text. (And as somebody who just bought the 40th anniversary reissue of Chronic Town, just you wait.)

Anyways, coming just a year after Girls Can Tell — the fastest between-album turnaround Britt Daniel will ever accomplish — Kill The Moonlight took the minimalist tendencies found on that record and turned them up to 10, or down to 1, as the case may be.

Certain Songs #2430: Spoon – “Take The Fifth”

August 25, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girls Can Tell
Year: 2001

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Britt Daniel has said that one of the key influences for Girls Can Tell was Elvis Costello’s Get Happy!! — still a top five EC album for me — and nowhere was that influence more pronounced than on my favorite track on record, “Take The Fifth,” which is also a prime example of what my favorite Spoon songs would be moving forward.

Certain Songs #2429: Spoon – “The Fitted Shirt”

August 24, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girls Can Tell
Year: 2001

. . .

While Spoon released a couple of albums in the 1990s — 1996’s indie Telephono and 1998’s major-label debut (and major-label exit) A Series of Sneaks — they didn’t really cross my radar at the time, and when I went back after getting into them, nothing jumped out at me.

However, starting with 2001’s Girls Can Tell, Spoon utterly killed it for the next decade, releasing five good-to-great records, my favorite songs from which will be dominating this column for the next week and a half or so. According to songwriter & frontman Britt Daniel, Girls Can Tell was a conscious departure from what they did in the 1990s, and on the best songs, highlighted drummer Jim Eno, who is an absolute monster.