DON'T MAKE ME A TARGIT ! (spoon review)

Several friends have exposed me to SPOON lately. Their new record just dropped and it's all over the trade rags. People love this band and they've been around forever. So I thought I'd pick it up- see what the fuss was about.

I ended up really enjoying "GaGaGaGaGa", Spoon's 5th full-length release.

Jill and I tried for a long while to come up with the category Spoon would fit into. Not that Spoon is super original or breaking any new ground here..... it's just fun American indie rock. That's all we could come up with.

But here's the main quality that makes Spoon stand out- If they've got one thing, it's this: Frontman Britt Daniel just says words cool. That's it. He says words in such a cool way, nothing else matters. He says "evah". He says "Targit". Bottom line is that you get taken with the way he says words. Forget everything else.

There are 3 real hits on the album: "Underdog" "You Got Yr.Cherry Bomb" and "Don't Make Me a Target" that are worth the price of the album by themselves. Or great iTunes single-purchases. They would be all over the radio if Coke or Clearchannel or McDonalds didn't own everyone's souls.

The rest of the tracks are still super fun. It's just that Daniel rarely puts a lyrical hook with a melodic hook. In other words, a tune might be catchy, but the words aren't. Or the words are catchy, but the tune doesn't get stuck in your head and sounds awkward. Take "Don't You Evah", for example. It's full of melodic hooks, but what the heck is he saying? We hear what he's saying, but it's just that he chose to say something specific for art's sake rather than just coming up with something sweet and stupid for me to easily digest. And while, usually, I like that approach, I don't think it works here. I walk around humming the melody to the lines "Petals getting picked by the love-yous and the love-you-nots" and "Five years going by everyone is still on their side" but I never sing the words, because they're awkward and forgettable.

Don't get me wrong. Love the album. Especially the 3 songs mentioned above. It was the smash of the summer. And check out the vid(s) below.

Here's the smash hit, "THE UNDERDOG"!



Oh, and you might recognize this from that car commercial: