Exquisitely tactful vocalist, unerringly consistent songsmith, and all-around awesome frontman Britt Daniel, you deserve every accolade you receive and so much more.
Ok, I'll admit, Spoon is my favorite band. My music taste has somewhat of a formalist slant. I appreciate expansive creativity and avant-garde boundary pushing, sure, but I really have a soft spot for musicians and artists who can artfully manipulate the formal constraints of classic pop and rock songwriting structures and assemble them into new, exciting and timeless shapes.* Spoon is a perhaps peerless example of such a band.
I heard recently that Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog fame has a project to review one R.E.M. song every day for a year or something (and that Floodwatchmusic , another great blog, is doing the same for Rush(!)). Maybe I'll anatomize Spoon's catalog as well. I'd love to set out in clear and rational terms, with all the evidence I can muster, why I believe them to be truly (one of) the greatest band(s) of our generation.
*As an aside, I think the same sort of logic explains why I love "Ocean's Eleven"; the movie takes a familiar theme and and executes it with such wit, class and restraint that the end result has a transcendent sort of breezy magic, channeling the charisma and glamor of Old Hollywood.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Here's to you, Britt Daniel.
Posted by yoshinorimike at 8:59 PM
Labels: Britt Daniel, Spoon
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
i also tend to like formalism in art - the tension between structure and creativity can be enlightening. i mean there's a reason certain genre elements and conventions just tend to work, as you've mentioned about OCEAN'S 11. i highly encourage you to do your song by song analysis of spoon.
ReplyDeletePlease do this.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to "Small Stakes" in headphones today. I don't know how they got that drum sound on that song. They captured that cavernous reverb sound that you might get recording drums in the stairwell of the seminary without losing any punch or clarity.
I'm thinking they must have recorded using two mic positions and combined the sound later.
Those guys are wizards in the studio.