20 best spoon songs (15-11)

Let’s be honest: Spoon are a one-trick pony. But what a trick it is. Stripped/minimal/nude: use whatever words you want, but that’s Spoon’s game. Their songs rank somewhere between Nicole Ritchie and Calista Flockheart on the meaty scale. In 11 years, the band has steadily evolved and mutated this sound, graduating from Just Another Matador Band to the indie band everyone can love.

It wasn’t an easy road. There was an ill-fated major label stint, some definite missteps and a whole lot of touring. But that has paid off: after five albums, Spoon have sold more than 440,000 records, a pretty astonishing number, especially when you look back to where they were when their debut, Telephono, dropped in 1996: a Texas band coming up during indie rock’s death knell with a generic name and an overly familiar sound. The band has certainly matured and improved, but even more so the audience has changed. Indie is big, and Spoon have been in a perfect place to receive their just dues. By all means they deserve it.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon’s sixth album, comes out Tuesday, July 10. In honor of the occasion, we’re counting down Spoon’s 20 best moments, five at a time, culminating with the top five picks on Tuesday. Hope you dig it.

15 “Believing Is Art” | Girls Can Tell

A dreadfully boring record, but it absolutely has its highlights, this among them. “Believing Is Art” would actually belong much better on Kill the Moonlight; its tautness and minimalism are much more in line with Moonlight or even A Series of Sneaks than the (relatively) bloated Girls Can Tell. The guitar squeals are what make this song so great: they sound like dogs barking back at Daniel’s vocals about “this is a call.” They’re the only things that rise much above a murmur.

14 “Claws Tracking” | Telephono

YOUTH! NOISE! EXUBERANCE! Spoon don’t make songs like this one anymore. Britt’s anger has sublimated itself from fury to a passive-aggressive simmer that seethes rather than screams. But here, in the band’s early days, they were brash enough to think that loud protestations were the answer, and who are we to disagree?

13 “The Way We Get By” | Kill the Moonlight

The High School Song. Fifty bucks says Britt watched Dazed & Confused on repeat for a week and this is what came out. Carefree and goofy and more of that swagger (oh Britt!) and such an infectious fuck-all-ya’ll vibe that, on a good night, could easily convince you to take on an entire offensive line with the undeniable fact that you will kick their asses embedded deep in your brain. A dangerous song, I guess I should say.

12 “The Beast and Dragon, Adored” | Gimme Fiction

There was a theory floating around when Gimme Fiction came out that the retail version of the album was actually backwards. When Spoon made the record, the theory goes, “The Beast and Dragon, Adored” was sequenced to be the closing track, not the opener. The idea was quickly shot down, but I can hear why folks might have grabbed onto the suggestion. There is a sense of finality to the tune, although, more than anything, I hear middle-age from the somewhat archaic “rock & roll” bark to the halting, plodding rhythm. Spoon like to take their time, and this song screams patience.

This is the third in the triumvirate of Britt’s favorite Spoon songs, by the way.

11 “Chips and Dip” | Love Ways

This could be a lot higher. Always one of my favorite non-album tracks from Spoon, “Chips and Dip” is up-and-down great. Fantastic songwriting, a beautiful spaciousness in the arrangement (1:1 ratio of white space to filled), Britt cocksure and swaggering, a xylophone solo by Eric Harvey that somehow anticipates and betters everything the Arcade Fire have done, a sense of impending… (What is it? Doom? Love?) that peters off. Sullen.