Along with being a mouthful, Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is a modern masterpiece. The oft-mislabeled as indie band from Austin, Texas managed to create an atmosphere on the album that unfolds much like its cover; unique little pieces for each arrangement culminating in a work more beautiful in the eyes of its beholders as a whole.
Spoon is headed up by the unique combination of songwriter/guitarist Britt Daniel and drummer/arranger Jim Eno and both play a distinctive part in the band’s sound. Spoon is no stranger to the headlines in the indie music scene, famously being dropped by their first major label, Spoon caught fire with their debut record A Series of Sneaks which contained two not so subtle digs at former Elektra A&R man Ron Laffitte “The Agony of Laffitte” and “Laffitte Don’t Fail Me Now”. Though they had previously echoed a sound made famous by groups like The Pixies and Wire, album by album Spoon whittled down their style bit by bit, making it into a modernist painting, an ode to the darkly tinged psychedelia that permeated The Beatles Revolver and The White Album. There’s a great argument to be made in how Spoon became more like The Beatles than their previous influences, there’s an equal, if not greater effort put into the song’s overall production rather than just the songwriting itself. Again like The Beatles, there are no flashy solos, no parts where the individual is recognized over the whole. This quality, most noticeable on this record, is perhaps what keeps Spoon going, there are no ego battles, just musicians focused on the music.
Continue reading Modern Classics: Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, (2007)
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