Prior to the release of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, online buzz suggested Spoon's sixth record was a grower, a distinction also conferred upon the Austin band's two previous albums, each more experimental (and at times alienating) than its predecessor. That optimistic adjective-- which incorporates both the listener's failure to quickly grasp a record as well as a hope to eventually do so-- feels exceedingly appropriate for Spoon, who have cultivated an intense fan base while continuing to experiment (the frequent comparisons to Wilco are indeed apt in this case).
A large contingent of Spoon's following has come from Britt Daniel's continual knack for, as he sang on 1998's "Metal Detektor", making "the sound of getting kicked when you're down." If any song were to be the quintessential Spoon pop single, then, the radiant, Jon Brion-produced "The Underdog", a Cliff's Notes encapsulation of Spoon's earnest compassion for the fucked-over, is it. With a three-piece brass fanfare, "Underdog" is a battle cry against succumbing to mediocrity masquerading as a middle finger to the standard-bearers: The lyric "Get free from the middle man" could also read: "Get free from the middle, man." Likewise, the slinky "Don't You Evah" (a cover of an unreleased song by former tourmates the Natural History) affirms Spoon's trend toward emotional trusses for the fairer sex, recalling Gimme Fiction's "They Never Got You" and Kill the Moonlight's "Don't Let It Get You Down". A different directive occurs on opener "Don't Make Me a Target", however, which revisits the obscurantist personal politicizing that many thought marked *Fiction'*s "My Mathematical Mind". With a few well-chosen phrases-- "Here come a man from the star...Beating his drum...Nuclear dicks with their dialect drawls," both victim and perpetrator become crystal clear.
Ga Ga travels past in a flash-- at 36 minutes, it returns to the brief runtime that Fiction well surpassed-- but leaves plenty of reasons to revisit. Daniel and drummer Jim Eno's tendencies toward studio-based devilry come full-flower here, each listen revealing craftsmen reveling in detail. What in lesser hands could be extra-textual gobbledygook instead feels the product of studio freestyling, something to which the murky mixing-board wizardry of Jamaican dub is an obvious precursor. Penultimate song "Finer Feelings" is one bit of proof, its wide-open guitars-- straight from Sandinista!-- augmented with a sampled toast from (Clash collaborator) Mikey Dread's "Industrial Spy". With the addition of echoed ambiance from a Brussels fair field recording, "Feelings" acquires the aura of a surreal Kingston sound system.
Earlier, "Evah"'s introduction dips into the self-referentiality the band flirted with on Fiction, featuring a diced-up, looped Daniel asking Eno to record his studio talkback. Two songs later, all manner of discordance enters and exits the reverb-heavy mix of the appropriately titled "Eddie's Ragga", which developed from a jam session with Eddie Robert of Daniel-produced Austinites I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. Ga Ga's most intriguing sonic creation, however, is the song which takes the dub influence in the furthest direction: "The Ghost of You Lingers". A return to Moonlight's spooky sonic variegation, "Ghost"'s pounding, echoed piano feels like a merged memory of the jabbed guitar from "Small Stakes" with "Paper Tiger"'s moody expressionism. Daniel's unmistakable voice is a distant, gothic wail here, as he mourns his missing love with characteristic jargon: "We put on a clinic/ If you were here would you calm me down or settle the score."
Daniel's gift for non-mawkish romanticism results in both Ga Ga's best moments, and three of the best songs the band has yet create. Especially on Girls Can Tell, Spoon's always flirted with straight-up blue-eyed soul, and "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" is their full-on take-off of Elvis Costello's Motown M.O. on Get Happy! (perhaps purposefully, then, the album's bonus disc is titled Get Nice!). Backed by an irresistible Holland-Dozier-Holland gospel-pop-stomp, "Cherry Bomb" re-imagines the heart/sleeve cliché as a vivid bicep tattoo, as Daniel implores his love to three-point-turn and chill out. Ga Ga's real bang happens at its close, however, with the one-two send-off of "Feelings" and "Black Like Me". The former, which ostensibly documents a Memphis-based isolation, features a handclap-accompanied chorus as energized and unremittingly hopeful as Daniel's ever been: "Sometimes I think that I'll find a love/ One that's gonna change my heart/ I'll find it in Commercial Appeal/ And then this heartache'll get chased away."
"Black"'s melodic melancholy-- backed by a weeping piano/guitar motif that recalls Let it Bleed-- is simply gorgeous. Has Daniel ever written a lyric more crushing in its confused simplicity than "I'm in need of someone to take care of me tonight"? Rather than attempt to relate with someone who's already taken leave, he splits, and so, apparently, does his mind. During the internalized call-and-response that follows, he appeals: "All the weird kids up front/ Tell me what you know you want." Thus, at the end of his emotional rope, he crosses the fourth wall and reveals the aching coda as a mutually lived performance.
With Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon have once again found a gray area between the poles of pop accessibility and untested studio theorizing, modifying a formula that has grown to feel familiar even as it wanders, and refusing to square the circle while doing so. Through whatever process they use, the band has also managed to create yet another wonderfully singular indie rock record, unafraid of unfettered passion or self-sabotage, and which affirms a shrouded, hybrid style as unquestionably theirs. Perhaps it is fitting to refer to Ga Ga, and Spoon albums on the whole, as growers, then, but with a different definition: one that takes into account the bands continual, and continually rewarding, approach to creative maturation.
