Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
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Music CD Cover
Artist: SpoonBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-07-10
Music Label: Merge Records
Soundtracks:
- Don't Make Me A Target
- Ghost Of You Lingers, The
- You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
- Don't You Evah
- Rhythm And Soul
- Eddie's Ragga
- Underdog, The
- My Little Japanese Cigarette Case
- Finer Feelings
- Black Like Me
Free Music Notes for Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Free Music Review: My favorite Spoon albums since GIRLS CAN TELL
Hit: 5 Stars
This album really defied my expectations. Most "mature" bands that have been around for many years and who have already cranked out a number of excellent albums, the last few of which, while good, were not up on the level of their best album (2001's GIRLS CAN TELL) usually, when at the point Spoon has reached, begins a long, slow slide into competent mediocrity. So, I was very hesitant about pickup up GA GA GA GA GA. But imagine my shock in discovering that it was their best album in years! It may be a tad more mainstream and of the Indie Pop tag that is placed on them they might be a bit more pop than Indie now, but the brute fact is that these are some great songs.
Britt Daniels has always had a gift with hooks and there are a string of songs on the album that are just irresistible. There are hordes of bands out there that are enormously proficient on their instruments, but musicality is a far more illusive gift. Daniels has that gift. And he wields that gift wonderfully on this album.
The album is not perfect. For one thing, it is too short. Old LPs maxed out at just around 40 minutes, but this is well short of 40 minutes, short by the standards of the CD age. And I thought the last song on the album, "Black Like Me," was strikingly dull. So the album ends on a bit of a thud. After all the excitement of most of the previous songs, it was a anticlimactic way to end the disc. Referring once again to the LP age, back in the days bands tried to make the final cut on the disc one of the album's highlights. Thus "Desolation Row" ended HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED. Ending an album on a strong song was making a statement. Too many contemporary discs of the CD age end with a bit of a whimper. But these are the only complaints about the album.
Most of the songs simply blow me away. I love the opening cut, "Don't Make a Target of Me," its hooks as well as the strangled, almost incoherent chords that don't quite get played in the instrumental break. The first time I heard the song I thought, "This isn't bad at all," but after it moved into the next two songs, "The Ghost of You Lingers" and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," I started getting excited. If the rest of the songs, I though, were this good, this was going to be one of their best albums ever. "Don't You Evah" was OK in a vaguely Beck sort of way, but it didn't rock my world. But "Rhthm and Soul" (what's up with the spelling there?) instantly one me back. "Eddie's Raga" was OK, but didn't blow me away, but "The Underdog" was completely back on track, while "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" was easily one of the best cuts on the whole album. "Finer Feelings" was a fine feeling song, with only "Black Like Me," the weakest song on the album, to bring things to a close.
What can I add? Spoon has been one of my favorite bands of the past several years, but I honestly thought they might have plateaued and been on the path of decline. I no longer think that. Maybe they are one of those bands that are just so good that they can crank out fine albums for an indefinite period of time. I'll certainly not take their next album for granted.
I want to end with a shout out to Britt Daniels for his appearance on Season Two of my late but still deeply beloved VERONICA MARS. Fans of the show know that Veronica got a job as a hostess in a restaurant that also had a coffee bar area and an alcohol bar area, complete with karaoke night. In this particular episode Britt Daniels gets up and sings, quite appropriately, the Elvis Costello song "Veronica."
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Poster
This record starts with "Don't Make Me A Target", a song that builds on Spoon's familiar minimal rhythmic piano/guitar vamp popularized on earlier hits like "Small Stakes" or "The Way We Get By". The album quickly moves into uncharted territory with the atmospheric "The Ghost Of You Lingers" and moves through several different stylistic changes from the explosive "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" to the wall-of-sound horns of radio single "The Underdog". Their most heartfelt batch of songs since 2001's "Girls Can Tell".Something happened to Spoon between records five and six--they got big. It's not as if these unprepossessing Texans were unpopular before, but after Gimme Fiction, their music was everywhere. There was Britt Daniel, who has since moved to Oregon, singing karaoke on cult favorite Veronica Mars, there was his soundtrack for deadpan Will Ferrell vehicle Stranger Than Fiction, and then there were the countless times their tunes, especially 2002's "The Way We Get By," appeared in other movies and TV shows. The irony is that they hadn't signed to a major label (they tried that in the 1990s; it didn't take). Nor had they given their sound a major overhaul. Maybe it was a change of publicist, or maybe the times had simply caught up with these "faux punks/gentlemen dudes." In any case, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the mark of men confident enough to give their album one of the world's goofiest titles (at least it's an improvement over Queen's "Radio Ga Ga"). If Gimme Fiction was a transitional work, record number six moves even further away from the angularity of Wire and other early influences. "The Ghost of You Lingers," for instance, is downright dreamy, while "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" is brass-bedecked power-pop (with chimes!). Open-minded listeners will surely find this Beatlesque song cycle irresistible. Fans of the Spoon's darker, more dramatic material might want to check their expectations at the door. They'll be glad they did. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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