Spoon Wants My Soul

Spoon's back! I could speak of their history, but I'm among those who already know it and just wanna discuss their new album, They Want My Soul.

The thing that I've loved about Spoon is their brilliant singable melodies and that are draped over surprisingly simple and energetic chord progressions, all with the sandpapery snap of Britt Daniel's voice (see "Small Stakes", or like, any other Spoon song). "Snap" is a good descriptor for Spoon--they're sharp and crack like a Beatlesy whip. The album opener "Rent I Pay" loudly follows this recognizable Spoon formula, and it's awesome--Britt barks and fizzles, his mouth cupping the vowels and cracking the consonants.

"Formula" is also a good descriptor for the band. When I was a younger music critic I thought "formulaic" meant "generic" and that generic was bad. Now I see that all bands are formulaic  in ways unique to themselves. A band's way of doing things is composed of noticeable mainstays. It's what gives bands their "signature sound"--how you know it's them. Spoon's pop formula is totally evident in all of their albums, including this one: hardline beats outlining a simple and clear structure, which is usually contrasted in a song by a noisy instrumental section that sound less composed than everything else. Say the title of Spoon's fifth album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" aloud, and that sound mirrors that of the band: They move expertly fast with extreme precision--ga ga ga ga gah! These songs are pulled off like expertly planned heists. This album's title track, "They Want My Soul," epitomizes this: verse, another half-verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge and outro. Ga ga ga ga GAH! While formulaic, this song still shakes up pop's typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-chorus structure by only hitting the chorus a total of twice and then immediately winding down. Spoon often does do traditional things with small twists like this, which makes their version of traditional surprising. It's one of their great strengths.

But they've mixed up their formula with electronic sounds. The meat-n-potatoes rock of "Rent I Pay" gives way to synthesizers on "Outliers" and "New York Kiss". I struggle with this. Electronic music is something I have yet to connect with, and because electronica is so hot with youngsters now, I associate Spoon's use of electronic elements as an uncharacteristically intentional knock on popularity's door. I have struggled to know what to make of these songs, and with a couple others that strike me as so self-aware that they seem intended to be perceived as Classic Spoon Hits--"Knock Knock Knock" has a chord change that reminded me of alternative rock the first I heard it, and "Let Me Be Mine" just sounded like Spoon on autopilot, nothing but formula without the knick-knacks that spice things up.

But these are struggles I'm coming to terms with. They're consistent with Spoon's tendency to make the traditional surprising. It's a solid album, hard hitting and beautiful, especially beautiful in the singles "Do You" and "Inside Out". These songs are the kind that made me love Spoon to begin with--shining melodies scratched from sandpaper. I don't find this Spoon's "comeback" album as many music rags have opined, but that's not a bad thing: they continue a strong streak of albums here, and make some respectable attempts to shake things up. It's not their best album, but a "not the best" Spoon album is more than good enough, and I'm glad to have it.