[rating=4.50]
Like a 90 minute comedy film, its been argued that a ten song album is the perfect length. If you oppose, give Kid A, Loaded, The Queen is Dead or Sticky Fingers a spin. Spoon front-man Britt Daniel, a notorious perfectionist, went full stride with ten songs on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon’s six full-lenghth. Although there’s no argument about the dreadful album title, Daniel nailed Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’s inner contents: ten songs of confident style shifting and melody.
Where 2005’s Gimme Fiction brought Spoon to the masses with the falsetto funk hit “ I Got My Camera On,” Daniel challenges our ears on this go-around by maxing out his minimalist compositions with horns and slinky staccato rhythms. The opener “Don’t Make Me a Target,” is a bold opening statement with its straight forward guitar, before leading into the moody “The Ghost of You Lingers,” that haunts with a familiar simple classic rock keyboard riff and echoing vocals. Spoon explores some smiley late 60’s pop on “You Got Your Cherry Bomb,” while “Don’t You Evah,” with its slinky beat and Daniel’s scratchy vocals, will soon make for a re-mix favorite for lazy DJ’s. The slinky beats continue on “Eddies Raga,” where Daniel admits- ‘And it’d been so long since I’d been suitably high… So we did an Airborne, settled in for the night.’ However it’s “The Underdog,” with its retro horns, that gives Spoon a thumbs up for swinging ten songs into 36 minutes of hooks and atmospheric experiments that are almost perfect.
