Spoon - Hot Thoughts

kill the moonlight back half is a grower iirc. the last track is kind of perfect

gimme fiction is the one where i skip the back half, the first 4 tracks are fantastic and then it just kinda coasts other than 'i summon you'

GF is my favorite, in no small part thanks to "They Never Get You," which could go on forever.

so are we saying that general rule of thumb is that Spoon albums are generally front-loaded? Is there an album of theirs where side B wins? Obviously Gavin upthread says he likes side B of Hot Thoughts better, but imo the two weakest tracks on Hot Thoughts (and the only weak tracks on the album afaic) are the last two

Just looking over the discography and whoa I think we're into something here. I can't really even remember what a lot of these side 2 songs sound like. Definitely true of Transference. Even my favorite (Gax5), in retrospect, sorta sputters out toward the very end

not sure if i like the latter half better, but I find Transference and TWMS to be pretty even, front and back.

i think Gax5 and transference are even & hot thoughts i prefer the back half

Two of their best songs are the last two on Gax5. A Series of Sneaks and Transference are solid all the way through.

transference has "out go the lights" -> "got nuffin" toward the end which are A+

Yeah, this theory is nonsense.

but the back half of Gimme Fiction (after "I Summon You") can be hard to sit through

i remember the back halves of both girls can tell and kill the moonlight as slogs

also telephono is their only album i have on lp and side a is great and side b is totally skippable.

kill the moonlight back half is a grower iirc

gimme fiction is the one where i skip the back half, the first 4 tracks are fantastic and then it just kinda coasts other than 'i summon you'

some opinions suggest otherwise

the b-side of ga ga is killer imo

Yeah man, The Underdog and Finer Feelings alone cement it as excellent, it it finishes with Black Like Me.

Likewise Kill The Moonlight has Don't Let It Get You Down, Back to The Life AND Vittorio E. all of which are faultless.

Second half of Gimme Fiction is all about the minimal, repetitive grooves.

What they often seem to do is load the front half with really quick, catchy pop songs, and then stretch out a bit on the second half, slow down, explore a bit more in terms of tone and mood.

This is a *really* good record, isn't it? Love the less immediate stuff like WhisperI'lllistentohearit and Pink Up. I think this is my favourite Spoon since Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Only thing it lacks for me is a 'traditional' Spoon album closer. Most of their records end on a track that makes me want to immediately play the whole thing over again, whereas Us isn't quite doing it for me yet.

Spoon records are so good for driving to ...

'back to the life' has some of my favorite production touches of anything they've done

I think this is my favourite Spoon since Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

me too

sleeper hit on here for me is "Pink Up"

looking at the vinyl tracklisting for Transference, "Written In Reverse" or "Trouble Comes Running" seems like an obvious choice to kick off the B-side, that I'm having a hard time believing they went with "I Saw the Light" from anything other than sheer laziness (keeping the track order the same for the CD & LP)

the tracklisting of that album in general is just nutty: "Before Destruction" throws me off-kilter like opening the door and walking into a scene where the action is already underway. "Goodnight Laura" practically screams "closing number" but it's nowhere near the end... and I still don't know what to make of them burying the album's best song, "Got Nuffin", at the number-ten slot. (maybe the whole thing, I'm realizing now as I describe it, maps onto the structure of a live show w/ encore ?)

(sorry this was an xpost to the conversation upthread about whether Transference has a weak second side, to which I say: not on your life, pal!)

"I Saw The Light" is a fine side-opener imo

It's too early for me to tell how I feel about this new record as a whole -- to the extent I've been listening to it, I've mostly done so in bits and pieces while walking around. Having great opening tracks either side, and releasing 'em both ahead of the album so they had time to get their hooks in, makes it easy to listen on repeat while I work my way into the heavier grooves ("Do I Have To Talk You Into It", "Tear It Down")

xp to me the song feels like a side-ender... tbh I am mostly judging it in terms of the times I have almost fallen asleep during the extended jammy outro & then when "Trouble" hits I jump up like "aw yeah, right, we' rocking, isn't we!?"

actually now I'm re-listening, the decision to strip "I Saw The Light" down to a lo-fi home-recorded demo aesthetic at the very end (for ~10 seconds), then begin "Trouble Comes Running" with a similarly isolated and thin-sounding guitar part, is kind of brilliant

I feel like Spoon deconstruct "bandness" in a way I don't know anyone else has done. They show their workings within the songs.

yeah that's a level of their work that I didn't appreciate until fairly recently -- they don't hit you over the head with it like, idk, Todd Rundgren on Something/Anything

Have you just been downloading / streaming?

yes, i was using the free Spotify but have been paying $10 for awhile now. i figured $10 is way less than i used to spend per month on CDs.

on initial listen this feels like a descendent of kill the moonlight in terms of its deconstructionist tendencies. seems like a good record. i don't mind "us" but it does break a long streak of killer closing tracks (like, back to telephono long)

xp I'm sure indie rock appreciates your generous support

i remember the old music critic description of spoon circa kill the moonlight was that their songs were jenga towers where they tried to strip out as much as possible without them collapsing into nothing. they're not quite that minimalist anymore but i think some sort of architectural metaphor still works

Am I alone in thinking this is the worst Spoon album in a long time? That being said it's certainly not bad, but "WhisperI'lllistentohearit" sounds like a bad Cult song and half the album seems well below par in terms of hooks.

Hmm, I actually hear the Cult thing but that doesn't diminish my love for that song, it's one of my favorites. It reminds me of Dwight Twilley or something (once it kicks in)

Overall, not a hook-y album, this is also true. But hooks are not why I buy Spoon albums

hooks are why i buy spoon albums

but this one has just enough

I can't believe people aren't losing their shit over "Pink Up," which sounds like Tortoise and Mellow Gold-era Beck getting together to try to make Kid A

Wimmels perfectly describes why I'm not feeling this album.

Wimmels your Twilley comparison has me intrigued though I'll listen again with that in mind.

I'm hearing fuckloads of hooks in this, especially on those first four tracks. Jesus. They're like a velcro prom dress. They're just mostly rhythmic and riff-based rather then vocal.

Am I alone in thinking this is the worst Spoon album in a long time? That being said it's certainly not bad, but "WhisperI'lllistentohearit" sounds like a bad Cult song and half the album seems well below par in terms of hooks.

― DavidLeeRoth, Wednesday, March 22, 2017 9:36 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i couldn't get into it but i've only listened once. i think maybe it's too fridmann-y

I thought the last one was too Fridmann-y, but that this one pulls back from there. I wasn't keen on TWMS, and would still rank it below everything else since KTM.

GF, GA(x5), and Transference are miles better than the last two albums. The last album had a few better stand alone tunes, but didn't sound very cohesive which is not surprising knowing that they worked with two different producers. Hot Thoughts sounds more like an album, but the tunes just don't stand out to me. I will say the song "Hot Thoughts" is one of my favorite things they've ever done.

i find it hard to believe daniel's ability to write a hooky tune will ever wither, so the new one just seems to me like a deliberate effort to write a certain kind of album. i like at least a few tunes on 'soul' way better than anything on this one, yet i find i've already played the new one ~40 times. it has a very compelling arc to it.

this is good but the drum sounds are kinda driving me nuts fucking flaming lips ruined drums forever

I love all Spoon albums, including this one so far. BUT the run from Kill the Moonlight to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (give or take the albums bookending that run) are rarefied air. This album and the last one are good but feel less essential to me. I haven't felt a desire to go back to the last one in quite some time.

Starting to think of this band in comparison with Clinic. Pretty much same number of albums, same issues with building blocks, how to modify their sound, production, how to progress artistically, etc. I liked Free Reign II better than anything Spoon has done recently, which might be a good indication of where I'd like them to go.

that is frankly bizarre. spoon's success with those things over an extended period has become the defining feature of the band.

Is Transference a break-up album?

I think its the sound of the band breaking up more than a relationship Britt was having, but I could be wrong.

Not getting into this album, feel a bit turned off by the obviousness of the titles and choruses. Where are the beasts and dragons, the monsieur valentines, the sister jacks and japanese cigarette cases? Have they strayed too far from the mystery zone?

i forgot how well executed My Mathematical Mind is - they ride on that single chord for a full 3 minutes until when it finally resolves in the final bars it feels like total collapse

Pink Up is Sex & The Church from The Buddha Of Suburbia and I claim my £5.

I've nursed a theory for a while that Spoon alternate between a sort of extroverted and introverted mode from album to album

so Telephono, Girls Can Tell, Gimme Fiction, and Transference are introverted mode - somewhat darker tonally or nocturnal in vibe, more abstract and atmospheric, and (recently) more defined by groove-oriented compositions

and Series of Sneaks, Kill the Moonlight, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, They Want My Soul are extroverted mode - on the whole more kinetic, brighter, less moody, more immediate songwriting and production

I'm not saying there's like a night and day difference between the two but I think there is something there in terms of general impression. And I think Hot Thoughts continues the trend, though it is maybe more of a synthesis than its immediate predecessors which I thought made the difference especially stark.

they've been working on a plan