Spooniness, Longevity
September 14, 2021
When Radiohead isn’t my favorite band, Spoon is my favorite band. I was lucky to see them play twice in the last few weeks — once at the Belly Up, and again a few nights later at the Boulder Theater.
I’ve never really thought much about why I like Spoon. I remember my roommate playing A Series of Sneaks in 1998, but it wasn’t until a few years later when I heard Gimme Fiction that I was hooked. It was both familiar and new and so fun to listen to — layered with hooks and unexpected sounds and lyrics that just sounded cool. Since then I have been on a steady, regular diet of Britt Daniel & Co., mostly bouncing from album to album. They’re my go-to when I want to be inspired, and don’t want to spend time digging through the digital archives for something I’ll end up changing anyway. Spoon always delivers the goods.
And I’m not alone. Spoon’s critical success and universal acceptance is almost comical. In fact, some have proposed that Spoon is the “Most Consistently Great Rock Band Ever.” Which makes me wonder, how do you measure greatness in art, or in any creative medium? For the purposes of establishing some order in the music world, the rules in one particular test have to do with turning out at least five great albums, one after another, without putting out any “bad” albums. A broken winning streak immediately disqualifies you from the “great” category.
Britt Daniel. Photo: Invision/AP/Shutterstock
If you make a list of the bands that have survived long enough to string together at least five great albums, the company becomes very elite pretty quickly. Six albums is almost unheard of. Music journailst Steven Hyder has a great piece that chronicles the few bands that have reached the six album level and beyond. And I know — there’s no way to get around the subjectivity, but it’s still an interesting exercise, although much of this is based on rankings from Metacritc, which counts for something. To summarize his piece:
6 Great Albums: Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Rush, Tom Petty, Wilco, Yo La Tengo, Beck, Kanye West, Mastodon.
7 Great Albums: The Beatles, The Kinks, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Prince, Sleater-Kinney.
I mean, come on. That’s a who’s who, hall-of-fame gang of 27th degree black belt ninjas. But after 7 albums, things really start to thin out:
8 Great Albums: Led Zeppelin, Queen, U2, and.....Spoon.
Here is album art from those 8 wins. There’s also a good piece on Monster Children about the story behind each album cover:
Longevity in any career is difficult. Longevity in the music business is especially hard. Most bands struggle, a few succeed, and even fewer make a living. Then a small percentage of those become “famous” and make an album. Fewer still make more than one album, and a fraction of those manage to stay together for more than a few albums, let alone a “great” album, or an unbroken string of six, seven, eight great albums.
What is it that makes Spoon so great for so long? I spent some time reading back through some pieces about them, interviews with Britt Daniel and others, and found some great quasi-non-answers. Here are some of my faves:
From a NYT article by Melena Ryzik following the release of Transference:
Janet Weiss, a veteran drummer now with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, who has played with Mr. Daniel in Portland, called him a crafty songwriter. “With Spoon you get the feeling, like, he’s up to something, something’s happening that he’s aware of that he’s not quite letting you in on,” she said. “It’s like sly or coy at times. I think that makes people sort of want to put their ear closer to the speaker.”
“I don’t think Britt is about to all of a sudden veer into some territory just for the sake of being modern,” said Mac McCaughan, a founder of Merge, who signed the band after Elektra dropped it in 1998. “He’s taking familiar things and putting them back together in a certain way that’s specifically Spoon.”
“When I joined the band, Britt would discourage anybody in the band from having a beard,” Mr. [Eric] Harvey said. “He thought beards were not cool. Five years later everyone in a band has a beard.” Not Spoon. “So,” he concluded, “we can say Spoon is not beard rock.”
photo by Graeme Mitchell
From Rob Harvilla via The Ringer following the release of Hot Thoughts:
“Daniel rarely writes songs as spare or vulnerable or direct as “The Fitted Shirt” anymore. But he’s as fashionable as ever, and grows more so the more unfashionable the very idea of an Indie Rock Star becomes. He is the change — and the refusal to change — that he wanted to see in the world.”
“Daniel is likely no longer fantasizing about day jobs, benefit plans, 401(k)s, exit strategies. He is, undoubtedly to his chagrin and maybe yours, an Elder Statesman now — a full-fledged Indie Rock Star who hasn’t ever triggered a backlash, has never mired himself in self-pity or remorse. There are no phases to Spoon, no boom times or fallow periods. They leave you wanting more, and then come right back and give it to you. That’s it. Daniel never had to put on a uniform, or even a shirt with a collar. But he often does, because it’s the dapper, dignified thing to do. Because it fits him.”
“I think that we’ve shown that we have, what do they call it? Gumption,” Daniel says, reflecting on Spoon’s 25-year antihero career as the diner’s manager brings him his usual iced tea. “We stuck around even when it made more sense not to.”
It’s hard to understand precisely how and why an artist remains relevant. With Spoon, it seems like much of their success is built upon a foundation of quiet, strong confidence that puts the music first. It’s all about the art, not all about the artist. This takes a level of honesty and clarity that is difficult to attain, let alone maintain. Beyond that, they just keep moving forward at a steady pace, staying curious about their own work, unafraid to experiment and change, but always doing so with a high level of intelligence and self-awareness.
As Daniel says, “We’re gonna make a record that may fall on its face, but it’s going to do so in an interesting way. I feel like a band is more interesting if they’re willing to do things like that every now and then.”