Spoon, the veteran indie rockers, have put out a consistent body of work since the 90’s, but their 2017 record, Hot Thoughts, could not hold my attention. One weak album isn’t a deal breaker on a band I’ve enjoyed for years, but it showed in quite clear fashion that they don’t have much left to say. A “Best Of” compilation a few years later isn’t exactly a sign of renewed creative energy, despite the strength of these songs.
The album starts off with their best song, the infectious “I Turn My Camera On” off the excellent Gimme Fiction record (deep track “I Summon You” comes later and is one of the only non-singles on the collection). There’s a loose groove present in a lot of older Spoon songs which makes them so powerful. You might call it a kind of “effortless charm” and it’s fully present in those little staticy things happening towards the end of the song.
Two songs from the surprisingly solid 2017 album, They Want My Soul, “Do You” and “Inside Out” come within the first four tracks of the album. Strange choice for a band with such a rich history. Two highlights from the excellent and unpronounceable album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, “Don’t You Evah” and “The Underdog” are google-ready definitions if anyone ever asks you, “Hey what is indie rock anyway?”
The head bobbing awesomeness that is “Got Nuffin” kicks off the end of the album. One of their best songs, for sure. After that is the opening track from their 2001 album, Girls Can Tell, and title for this collection, “Everything Hits At Once.” The opening bars sound like something out of a Michael Jackson b-side and the faintly electronic tinges throughout hint at a promise that this group of guys from Austin are not going to be just any other band.
Finally, the band includes one new song that isn’t necessarily bad, but it does not meet the heights of the rest of this collection of tunes.
Which begs the question, who is this album for, really? Fans of the band know these songs backwards and forwards and would have been better served by a long-ish collection of b-sides, demos, and deep track highlights from their long career. As a introduction to Spoon, it’s perfectly fine, but does a band with twenty something years and nine albums under its collective hipster belts really need an introduction?
Some highlights below:
Elad Haber 