Right now I know no other time, Right now I know no other poll - SPOON (ILM artist poll #67) --- Voting extended until Sunday July 26, 2015

the funny thing about that is i own all their albums, so i don't need to listen on Spotify but it is so much easier...

aw yeah it's on! laffitte don't POLL me now!

so since this is also a campaigning thread, here is my introduction song to Spoon. pretty sure this will make my ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWa7w3Sd_RI

https://youtu.be/tbcUfIimKaU
My #2, and
https://youtu.be/hwxpJD8HTQo
my #1. Great songs, if in the same vein.

If there's a song Spoon is known for by the general public, it's The Way We Get By. It's their Come On Eileen.

except not horrible

Come on Eileen is godlike.

So is Way We Get By.

Excited for this poll.

https://youtu.be/hwxpJD8HTQo
my #1. Great songs, if in the same vein.

― Tom Violence, Thursday, July 16, 2015 9:43 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

prob will be mine too

i love that we live in a world where "They Way We Get By" is a gigantic hit. i always thought "The Underdog," "Sister Jack" or even something like " Written In Reverse" were much bigger songs?

aahh – so glad to see i'm not the only one who loves Trouble Comes Running. not sure if it's my number one tho.

Totally repping for 'Metal School' and the two "Laffitte" songs - they'll be high on my ballot. Had a buddy that worked at Elektra during that whole mess - textbook example of a big label not understanding their talent in the 90s. Jason Falkner felt the same way, I just don't think he wrote a song about it.

I love Finer Feelings. Probably gonna have to vote for 5 songs off GAx5 (coincidentally, one for each of the Ga's)

It took 11 months of songs stuck at the college station's MegaSeg for me to realize "New York Kicks" and "They Want My Soul" are strong tunes.

Totally repping for 'Metal School' and the two "Laffitte" songs - they'll be high on my ballot. Had a buddy that worked at Elektra during that whole mess - textbook example of a big label not understanding their talent in the 90s. Jason Falkner felt the same way, I just don't think he wrote a song about it.

at least one of the lafittes is ~highly likely~ for my top 5

this is the one i'll campaign for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGg7HRujvKw

don't forget about this snappy little number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsF0nbo7r0o

Before the poll I only heard 4 Spoon albums: GF, Moonlight, GCT and They Want My Soul, so that's about half without the (numerous!) EPs and b-sides and whatnot. So I am in that very soft spot of discovering the band while being overly familiar with them, and to me it's always the most enjoyable moment in the 'listening to music' process.

thanks Bee Oké basically

don't forget about this snappy little number

But i did! Dammit.

i have no idea any song outside of the albums.

Think i might participate in this.

http://transformrockford.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/195ekzts52eckjpg.jpg

Voted!

Telephono: 1
A Series of Sneaks: 2
Girls Can Tell: 7
Kill the Moonlight: 5
Gimme Fiction: 1
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: 5
Transference: 2
They Want My Soul: 2

not sure if either will make the cut for me but my favourite non-album tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyYp6iUlP-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBUCRiwR1M

2nd one mistitled btw, to not of

and personal pet album track i will place high:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYd7bOn52M

I'm tempted to vote for "Dracula's Cigarette" from the Get Nice! digital bonus disc from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. I'm not quite sure I could replace anything on my ballot with it, though.

i've listened to everything (except telephono) very extensively, but usually an album at a time. i shuffled everything all at once the other day and it was kind of weird breaking up the songs, you'd think that for such a songwriting-oriented band they'd work in any combination, but with the flow of the albums broken a lot more songs suddenly seemed momentarily annoying or thin or repetitive (of their tricks, not in the moment-to-moment sense)

Ballot sent!

They Want My Soul: 0
Transference: 5
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: 3
Gimme Fiction: 4
Kill the Moonlight: 2
Girls Can Tell: 2
A Series of Sneaks: 4
Telephono: 2
non-album: 3

I had never listened to They Want My Soul before, and I didn't have enough time to get to like it, but I think if I spent a few weeks with it in my car I'd get into it like I did with Transference.

I'm tempted to vote for "Dracula's Cigarette" from the Get Nice! digital bonus disc from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

I voted for something from Get Nice!

TWMS is really growing on me.

i never heard telamon bridge before, it's good

voted!

they want my soul 5
transference 4
ga ga ga ga ga 8
gimme fiction 3
kill the moonlight 3
girls can tell 1
a series of sneaks 1
telephono 0

I tried to get into a series of sneaks, maybe if I'd caught it 17 (!) years ago it would have stuck but sadly my appetite for noisy(ish) lo-fi(ish) alt rock seems to have diminished considerably over the years; also like telephono it doesn't conform to my (late to the party) idea of what spoon should sound like.

that's not when the party starts, you can't be late then

There are definitely parts of A Series of Sneaks that I think of as having the signature 'Spoon sound' songwriting-wise (The Minor Tough, Reservations) but the distinctive production style isn't quite there yet.

Girls Can Tell/Everything Hits at Once is obviously when the party really kicks off but I didn't arrive till gax5 (very late into the night but still gathering strength).

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t137/rosestar77/Batsignal2.jpg

Asking for some help

I just got an intern supervisor sort of promotion at work, so what this means is I don't have all the time I wanted to put into this poll. So I'm asking for help, just like with my New Order (Millsner) and the Steely Dan (pplains) polls I need someone who would be willing to help out with the pictures for this poll. I really didn't know what I wanted to do with pictures anyways, so someone else vision sounds great to me. So If anyone has the time and wants to help me with the pictures for this poll, email the spoon link above.

Thanks!

btw, this is going very well. we are into double digits already.

been staying away from this thread, even though I'm listening to a fuckton of Spoon this summer, for an absurdly nerdly/completist reason: I can't make a list without relistening to Kill the Moonlight, because that was the first one I heard and I wanna do right by it; but that was 13 years ago, & it's been a long time since I could even play the CD, let alone remember where it is :/

Man, I'm feeling totally old in this thread (I do in all Spoon conversations, but it's especially concentrated here). As someone who was there in the beginning when the earliest Spoon material dropped on Matador in the mid-90s, and remembers what a tight unit they were and how no-frills and quick and dirty all their songs were, seeing people discount those years as a band still in search of an identity is absolutely maddening. From my perch, Spoon squandered many of their best traits when they started to get more mellowed out and self-indulgent. Not that Britt can't still write a good song if he tries, but he seems to overthink it most of the time (and that's been the case since Girls Can Tell). They turned into one of the precious bands I hate so much (Death Cab, Decemberists, The Shins, Rilo Kiley, etc) who saw all the energy and vibrancy and spontaneity in some guitar-based indie rock in the 90s and said to themselves "pish to that!" and made the music as harmless and inoffensive as they possibly could (the curse of indie rock which remains to this day). I mean, if Gimme Fiction hit you at just the right time Telephono hit someone else a decade earlier, you can't help when you were born. I just feel a bit of pity for you.

it sucks that you are so old and sad as well

ikr

much love but it's crazy to compare any spoon record to death cab or decemberists; the entirety of the spoon catalog that could be considered precious consists of the underdog

Spoon is basically the indie music version of Metallica. Metallica definitely has a separate base of fans who ONLY care about music they've made from the s/t album through the present and they are a silly group of people.

idk some of those bands were big/cresting in the indie world just when i was listening a lot and doing a college radio show and whatever, and i have basically had 0 interest in listening to any of them ever, then, during the time i was listening to minimal indie, and later when i had started paying a little attention again. i started listening to spoon in the meantime and even though they're obviously… tasteful… and totally get play with that crowd and are in it for the careerist long haul now, none of that has ever made me feel like, gosh, this music is so appropriate and quality, what an excellent reason for listening to ben gibbard or whatever

i wanna say they have their weird self-sufficiency, a little insularity, that does make them akin to a lot of indie rock, but theirs is because they belong in an imaginative world (a la benedict anderson nations as 'imagined communities' ha) that only exists in records, like, some kind of idealized alternative history of rock. whereas some of their peers belong in an imaginative world that exists in… lol college. and lol portland. lol npr. etc.

That reminds me of my favorite post ever to be posted on ilm, from a very long time ago...

Pinefox sez : "Too little interest in songwriting".

To me this is so far wide of the mark that it completely misses what early-Ramones are all about. The analogies with Brill building and early 60's girlpop songcraft has been trotted out so often wrt The Ramones that it's tempting to dismiss it out-of-hand. There is some truth in it though - I can hear the Shangri-La's, say, in I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend or Babysitter. That's not to say that this automatically makes the Ramones good, of course.

But they're better than good - they're masters. Their best songs are great because they are lean and simple - there's nothing that shouldn't be there. Couple this with a simple melodic hook(nothing fancy - 4 chords max. and another 2 for the middle 8) and a propulsive beat, and you have something irresistable. Add some elements of The Ramones 'own world' imagery (pick from : NY street images, retards, 'nam casualties, glue, girls)and you have genius.

Take "Glad to see you Go" from Leave Home - straight into a Beach Boys/Eddie Cochrane morphed melody and just listen to the way that the song shifts gear slightly on lines 3 and 4 of the verse as Tommy closes the high-hat a touch under the chords and melody. The shift into the chorus is sublime and the sheer rush as it comes back to the last verse from the middle 8 ("I need somebody good, I need a miracle") is like a ride in the space shuttle - on the outside.

Take "Rockaway Beach" - another point on the curve linking "Summer in the City", " Dancing in the Street" and "Baby on more Time". Again - great chorus, great lyrics ("Chewin out a rhythm on my bubblegum") and a sense of PLACE. In less than 3 minutes you feel exactly what it's like to be a teenager in baking hot NY - and you feel it every single time you hear it. That's great songwriting, Pinefox.

Rockaway, Glad..., Listen to My Heart, 53rd and 3rd, You Should Never Have Opened That Door are equals of "Please, Please Me", "California Girls", "My Generation" ..... the list goes on....if you can look past the "punk" thing which is really a red herring as far as The Ramones are concerned.

I guess it all depends on what you look for in a song - they're not Burt or Jimmy Webb, but they tell a story, crank up the adrenaline, and make their own world for 3 mins for EVERY SINGLE TRACK on the first 4 albums. That's classic.

― Dr. C, Sunday, July 15, 2001 8:00 PM (14 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Ramones 'own world' imagery

Bonus applicable content: "Their best songs are great because they are lean and simple - there's nothing that shouldn't be there."

That's why the earliest Spoon is the best Spoon.

Speaking of Gimme (Gimme Shock) Fiction, don't forget this one, fellow stragglers, while finalizing yr ballots...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmS7djrOut0

finally caved and dove in. not sure if i'll finish in time to vote, but this is proving a nice way to raise my estimation of Sneaks.

Was anyone surprised by what an earworm "New York Kiss" has turned out to be?

nope

love the bass notes on the piano after the chorus

Sent!

ASoS: 1
GCT: 3
KTM: 6
GF: 4
GGGGG: 4
T: 3
TWMS: 3
Non LP: 1

fiction: 7
transference: 6
ga: 5
girls: 2
moonlight: 2
soul: 2
sneaks: 1

whoo, my inbox has exploded today.

Aw,Yeah!

i originally thought They Want My Soul was a disappointment, turns out i voted for four songs off that album, New York Kiss indeed:

4 TWMS
5 Trans
6 GAx6
5 GF
3 KtM
1 GCT
1 ASoS

4 hours left to vote.

i'm going to bed but there are a few hours left if you are inclined to vote.

Sent one.

Urgh, will vote! Hold the door open for me. I have to go to bed but will hastily assemble a ballot in the AM.

open for now.

will be sending out another round of confirmation emails tonight.

Going to start with the Divine Fits stuff on Wednesday night,might also do part of the album countdown as well that night. The majority of the poll will be on Thursday and Friday, only will go into Saturday if I run out of time

I also have someone who is helping with the pictures and can tell you we are in for a treat.

still waiting for your ballot hardcore dilettante.

sending out confirmation emails right now, will post that i'm done and that voting is closed here in a few hours.

i have sent out confirmation emails to everyone. please speak up if you did not get one.

voting is officially closed.

I hang my head in shame.

It's been a big weekend. But I look forward to the rollout & moaning to myself that if I had sent a ballot in "Anything You Want" could have placed higher than "The Fitted Shirt" (which is the only Spoon track I actively loathe, tho I think I may be alone in this opinion).

"the fitted shirt" is like the spooniest spoon that ever spooned!

i feel like it's an AC/DC riff reconfigured into a Spoon song. (which, obviously, is great)

yeah but then there's the beatley bit Peak Spoon QED

I put "The Fitted Shirt" high on my ballot because I played drums in a band with a friend who is a big Spoon fan and he named the band the Fitted Shirt.

I was also once in a drop-D metal band with a song called "Requiem."

"I was in this drop-d metal band we called 'Requiem'" might be my favourite lyric ever. That and "moving furniture and cutting lawns".

meddal band

POLL POLL POLL POLL POLL - SPOON (ILM artist poll #67) --- The results thread