Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon · 03/14/2008 10:01 AM
Radiohead isn’t the only music I’ve been listening to obsessively for weeks on end. In addition to In Rainbows, I’ve also been listening to Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. This album has held my interest for about two-dozen listens, if iTunes is to be believed. I had not been aware of the mere existence of Spoon until late last year, when I heard “My Japanese Cigarette Case” on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast1. The supposed indie rock quartet turns out to be pretty good and—unbeknownst to me—pretty popular. This is what I get for listening to NPR and not watching TV, I suppose. The album is instantly reassuring: not only does it contain a nearly 40-minute disc, but it also contains a 20-minute bonus disc, which contains some alternate versions of songs on the album proper as well as several bonus tracks, such as the almost-folksy “Mean Mad Margaret” and a track so ambient Brian Eno could have recorded it in the 70s, “Be Still My Servant.” Like They Might Be Giant’s second latest, “The Else,” the addition of a bonus CD makes me feel a lot less screwed over by the man. If more records were worth the money in this sense, maybe the recording industry wouldn’t be in decline. But who am I to tell the recording industry that they’re being utterly boneheaded for pursuing lawsuits instead of content? In related news, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the album that convinced me that my iPod is a useful tool for its ostensible purpose: listening to music. This album seems to be recorded with the listening habits of iPod users in mind. Namely, almost every track on this album has space; the words, the beats, and the instruments play in such a way to leave space for ambient sound to blend into the music. Unlike a lot of other music, which obligates me to turn it up or turn it off while walking around campus, this album gives me the opportunity to accept the ambient sound in conjunction with the music. From the album opener “Don’t Make Me a Target” to the single-friendly “The Underdog,” each track has a neat hollowness created by what I suspect is more production than composition. I don’t know what makes the album work in that capacity, but whatever it was sold me not just on the music by also on the device I use to listen to it. 1 Not technically true; they were on the soundtrack of my favorite film of 2006, Stranger Than Fiction—I just didn’t realize it. 
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If tech writing ever loses allure for you, you wouldn’t do badly to try and break into music reviews. I really enjoyed this one. I’m not sure I could have been nearly as insightful about the less obvious aspects of the music that you interestingly point out. Bravo.
— Jeremy 04/08/2008 08:41 AM #