Spoon is really overrated

[anagrama]

anyone agree?

My pal Joseph Larkin thinks so...and he said so quite perfectly...
when posed with the question "why Spoon sucks?" He replied...

First and foremost, the music sucks. It's dullsville. And I guess the fan reaction is annoying as well -- why get so excited about something so pedestrian?

Its really boring, 3 minute, redundant indie pop mundane-ness.

but thats just my thoughts...I bought Girls Can Tell and while I thought the lyrics were good, the album has been gathering dust since my third listen.

[Paul]

Which sign of the apocalypse is this? I'm in the middle of agreeing with both Mike and Joseph.

However, I'll still maintain that Telephono poops all over any other Spoon record, but not just because it's a Matador release and this is a Matador board. It's because it has "Idiot Driver."

[tinobeat]

People always say spoon is mundane and boring and whatever, but I guess to these ears, the amazingly creative and sparse production on Kill The Moonlight is pretty unboring. and I just love Britt Daniel's voice, with his early-Tom-Petty annunciation (saying "doan" for "don't" etc.). I can imagine why people might not latch onto them right away (it took me a while), but I love me my Spoon.


translation for anagrama:
Britt Daniel is the greatest songwriter ever in the history of music, and to disagree with me makes you totally gay.

[Jason]

Spoon are okay. I like a few songs. A Series of Sneaks is the album I'd reach for.

Their music and attitude aren't offensive enough for me to understand why anybody'd get too upset by them. Their music is very modest. It's all just little pop/rock songs. They're not whiny, they're not bombastic, etc. And the hype isn't so huge that it can't be easily ignored.

I think of Spoon as sort of like the Foreignor of the early 00s (for the indie rock-atuned).

[tinobeat]

Foreigner, huh?

interesting... I think of them more as a an indie rock Hall & Oates or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers...

but yeah, I never get why people get so anti-spoon. They're pretty modest about what they do and their fans are generally not the "OMG Spoon rox0r U R Gay if you don't liek them" type (well, 'cept for the Gerard Cosloy "best songwriter EVER" hype back in the Matador days, which seems to have left lasting scars on Funk), and just sort of do their thing.

I can't imagine its much fun ripping on Spoon, cos people will probably go "OK, sure, whatever your pleasure." Its so much more rewarding to rip on Bright Eyes, whose fans adore him like he's the next coming of Jesus Dylan, and you say anything to the contrary they lose their shit. same for Modest Mouse and Pavement and I guess the Mars Volta now too...

[jt. r]

spoon are amazing. they put on a killing live show. i went to see trail of dead thinking they'd be upstaged by another austin band, and was totally disappointed. when the thrashiest art metallurgists in mainstream indie come off like j. richman with a head cold, b. daniel's post-nasal sounds amazing. throw in the occassional wire cover and they're an act that deserves serious consideration. add to it that they've been willing to tinker with their sound over the past three albums, and you're getting more from them than most bands playing at that tier in indie rawk presently.
i think that the guitar lines are great, that the keybs have helped them expand, and that jim eno is one of the finest drummers playing in a faux punk band. furthermore, they're some of the most generous performers out there, and they leave nothing in the tank by show's end.
sorry for sounding so street team, but this needed to be addressed.

[Funk]

Originally posted by tinobeat

but yeah, I never get why people get so anti-spoon. They're pretty modest about what they do and their fans are generally not the "OMG Spoon rox0r U R Gay if you don't liek them" type (well, 'cept for the Gerard Cosloy "best songwriter EVER" hype back in the Matador days, which seems to have left lasting scars on Funk), and just sort of do their thing.

Have you ever read anything you written aboot them, Martin? Isn't GC still all over them (http://www.12XU.net) in a distgustingly obscene way? Isn't Bright Eyes on the only good record Matador put out this year?

The thing that "upsets" is how praised they get for being so pedestrian. Like, they whined forever aboot bombing out at a major label level, and suddenly everybody felt bad for them and said "Oh, they're not so bad after all," after you couldn't give away their records before that (I know, because I still see the same copies of the Mag Wheel 7" and "Telephono" sitting in stores that I saw in the late 1990s).

[Patrick]

Man, you guys are crazy. I LOVE Spoon. Certainly in the "Best band of the '90s" category for me, with GBV, Pavement and a few other embarrassingly Matador or Matador-related bands.

Patrick

[tinobeat]

yeah, you're right, I forgot the 12XU connexion...

anyway, I tend to not read that much music press, because I'd rather just hear the shit and make up my own mind. I guess I read P*tchfork every morning for the indie rock comedy news, but aside from that, I don't read much press.

so my appraisal of how rabid/not-rabid people are about a band comes mainly from online forums and how their fans behave. things I've learned from that:

fans of Pavement, Modest Mouse, Bright Eyes, and some others tend to be hyperbolic and unbearable in their loyalty and fandom. not all of course, but generalizations make the world go round!

Spoon seem to have a sort of neutral presence. people who don't like 'em ignore them (except you and JPL), and people who do like them tend to love them but don't really make a big deal out of loving them. if you think I'm misleading myself, I say this: you only see what you want to see, and this is what I see. ta dah! easy out!

as far as those old copies of spoon rekkids, it could also be that the band sounds worlds different now, and that the increase in popularity didn't come from pity but the fact that their sound evolved and more people dug the new shit than the old shit. but if there's a vinyl copy of Telephono that you keep seeing, you wanna buy it for me and I'll send you dollars? real american dollars!

I know you know Matador has nothing to do with Bright Eyes, so I don't get the joke... umm....

[9000]

i enjoy spoon almost as much as i enjoy spooning. great band.

9000

[Gerard]

"they whined forever aboot bombing out at a major label level, and suddenly everybody felt bad for them and said 'Oh, they're not so bad after all,' after you couldn't give away their records before that (I know, because I still see the same copies of the Mag Wheel 7" and "Telephono" sitting in stores that I saw in the late 1990s)."

Damn, I was just trying to fathom how Spoon managed to go from selling a handful of records on Matador 7 years ago to getting dropped by Elektra a couple of years later....to selling 50,000 + copies of 'Kill The Moonlight' I _had_ come to the sappy conclusion that Britt and Jim didn't let the labels _or_ tastemakers get them down and not managed to make subsequent albums that were vastly improved...and most of their old fans (and a fucking ton of new ones) agreed.

After reading Funk's comments, however, I realize how naive I was to believe this. Spoon's recent success after such lean commerical years, is in fact A GIGANTIC SYMPATHY VOTE. The thousands of people who purchase their records, go to their gigs, buy their t-shirts and pester the band members are not in fact, music fans who love Britt's songs just as much as Pavement, Arab Strap or Linkin Park fans love theirs....but are instead, gullible, misguided types whose time and money are better directed towards a) the truly talented or b) the truly needy or c) both.

Now that we've cleared that one up, let's talk about something else.

GC