60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Spoon — “The Underdog”

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Today, Rob explains how even after five successful studio albums, Spoon still felt vengeful enough to write the most triumphant song about being the underdog. He reflects on how Spoon's major label dropped the Austin rockers and became the opposite of a muse for the band, shaping their swaggery image. Finally, he is joined by music critic Ryan Dombal who greatly appreciates the snobbery of Spoon and the rockstar frontman energy of Britt Daniels. (00:00) Intro: The three phases of major-label rock stardom (21:23) This week’s song: “The Underdog” by Spoon (25:39) Britt Daniel’s origins and ‘Telefono’ (34:56) How Spoon got dropped from Elektra Records (40:48) Spoon’s evolution as the 21st century's most consistent band (56:44) “The Underdog,” the ultimate mouth-horn song (01:02:28) Interview with Ryan Dombal (01:33:02) Outro Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Olivia Crerie, Julianna Ress, Chris Sutton, and Justin Sayles Guest: Ryan Dombal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/60songsthatexplainthe90s/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@60songsthatexplainthe90s?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And we'll see you on the internet. There are historically three phases to major label rock stardom. Phase one, the young, Scrappy, unsullied rock band attracts attention. They went and cut a record, the record hit the chart, and someone in the newspaper said it was art. Disco-cassanova sat and heavy on the breath. The local teenie-boban band was playing it in a day, shake a pop. They went and cut a record, the record hit the chart, and someone in the newspaper said it was art. That's how rock and roll. works, my friends. That's how rock criticism works. Also, here we have a song called Shake and Pop, released in 1978 by Nick Lowe, L-O-W-E, a young, brash, dapper, subversive, and incomprehensibly

rad English gentleman, the God-tier singer and songwriter and producer Nick Lowe, whose 1978 debut solo album is called Jesus of Cool. Phenomenal album title. Get out of town. Every instrument here, every member of the band on this song, Shake and Pop, thinks they're the star of the band. I love it so much. The guitar player is like, I'm the star.

The bassist is like, no, I'm the star. Boom, bum, boom, boom, boom. Meanwhile, the drummer is just whacking the song. snare drum indiscriminately. I'm the star. This song's got a fascinating combination of total band cohesion and zero band cohesion. Shaken pop sounds like these goofballs will be breaking up violently in the next 90 seconds. Better sign them fast. Major label rock stardom phase two, the vultures descend. We have a lot and roll, roll.

CBS are going to pay a great and big advance. Hey, and lad, come on, take a chance. A rest to say they love it, but the kids can't dance do it. We have a late-breaking challenger for star of the band. The keyboard player is like, no, I'm the star. Wee-you. Meanwhile, these fellas have attracted major label interest. CBS are going to pay a great big advance.

CBS used to be a big record label. It confuses me every time. This is going to go great. This is going to be awesome. This band's going to love signing to a major label. Nick Lowe is best known for writing and first releasing a modest little tune called Parenthesis, What's So Funny About Close Parenthesis, Peace, Love, and Understanding. The only thing cooler than rock songs with parentheses in the title is when the title, is when the

starts with the parentheses. Nick's original version with his old pub rock band Brinsley Schwartz comes out in 1974. From the parentheses on down, you cannot quite tell if Nick is joking. You're 98% sure, he's sincere, but the song doesn't work without the 2% chance that he's mocking the very concept of peace, love, and understanding. You need that 2% chance that he's taking the piss. That's a popular English expression. Also, I love it when singers harmonize on the word harmony. There's a K-pop Demon Hunter song where they harmonize on the word harmony,

and sometimes it makes me cry. So then Elvis Costello covers that song, not the K-pop Demon Hunter's song. You can find the Elvis Costello version of What's So Funny About, Peace, Love and Understanding on his 1979 album, Armed Forces, produced by Nick Lowe, and Elvis makes the song Eternally Famous.

Then, in 1992, the jazz soul singer Curtis Stigers covers Peace Love and Understanding on the Bodyguard soundtrack, which sells 30 billion copies, thanks to Whitney Houston, and now Nick Lowe

is a zillionaire. Nick's getting annual songwriting royalty checks higher than the GDP of Poland. I chose Poland at random. That doesn't happen very often. That exact wildly lucrative

sequence of events. You know what does happen often? Major label rock stardom Phase 3. Oh, wow. This sucks. It never was a hint. I'm so long in the newspaper said it was shit.

The drama is a boogie. They cut another is a whore. The bass player's sounding close. He never would a want to want. They cut another record. It never was a hit. And someone in the newspaper said it was shit. That's also sometimes how rock and roll and rock criticism works, my friends.

I love how caustic, but somehow how suave Nick Lowe sounds, as he recounts the now thoroughly sullied and defeated band, dispersing in a disorderly fashion. The drummer is a bookie, the singer is a whore, the bass players selling clothes he never would have wore. Incredible. Major label rock stardom is not for the faint of heart or the large of brain. Don't do it, kids. As noted philosopher Steve Albini once put it, some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

Nick Lowe's got a wild, rad, elegantly chaotic, aspirational-type career. Power Pop fans know him best for his lively 1979 hit, cruel to be kind. Sopranos fans know him best for his somber 1994 tune The Beast in Me, which plays at the end of the pilot episode of the Sopranos, when the camera pans across Tony's empty pool because the ducks are gone. And then, in 2001, Nick Lowe. puts out an equally phenomenal solo album called The Convincer. Except he's no longer the Jesus of Cool

era, rude, subversive, bomb-throwing meta-pub rocker guy. Now, he's a ludicrously debonair crooner type, fixing to charm the pants off everybody at Bingo Night. Yeah, this album is called The Convincer.

On the album cover, an astoundingly blue-eyed Nick Lowe is tending to a cigarette and rocking an immaculately tailored suit and tie and fitted shirt. One tousled lock of white hair across his forehead. Holy crap. Lock up your mothers. Track one on the convincer is called Home Wrecker.

He can fix her. Three, four. You look like butterwood melt in your mouth, but I know it will. Home record. That three, four, count in is vitally important to me. All of a sudden, a little studio patter, a quick peek behind the curtain before Nick's plutonium strength charisma kicks in.

I interviewed Nick Lowe in 2018 in his hotel room in Cleveland while he was on tour, and he made a hotel room in Cleveland feel like a hotel room in Paris, right? And Nick says to me, quote, people who know how to play rock and roll, this is going to sound a bit po-faced, but it's quite hard to find people who know how to do it properly. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but the role part of the rock and roll. That's the intriguing bit to me. Otherwise, it's just rock, and rock isn't very interesting to me. End quote. Meanwhile, as Nick Lowe has evolved, from rude young man to rudely handsome older man, many fine 90s alternative rock bands

are acquainting themselves with the pros and cons of major label rock stardom. One perk of major label rock stardom is maybe they put your song on the radio and MTV. Here we have Popular, the 1996 debut single from Nata Surf. a young, scrappy, unsullied New York City rock band signed to a steamed major label Elektra Records. Not a Sir Frontman Matthew Cause sounds like he's angrily reading a one-star Yelp review of high school out loud. Not any particular high school,

just a one-star Yelp review of the idea of high school. Now, offhand, I can't imagine anything that was more my shit as a high school senior in 1996, than a grumpy, bitterly ironic, power pop-ish, wheezer-adjacent jam about standoffish popular girls produced by Rick O'Kasik from the cars. My mom says I'm a catch.

That's a great line. And indeed, I dug popular quite a bit whenever it came on the radio, but I did not quite dig popular enough to go drop $18 on Nata Surf's 1996, debut album called High Low. But that, of course, is exactly what Elektra Records needed me to do. Uh-oh. This does not bode well for the next NataSurf album. They cut another record. It never was a hit. That song, energetic, hooky, propulsive, splendid.

That song is called Hyperspace. And it appears on NataSurf's modest but feisty, second album called the proximity effect and released by Elektra Records in 1998 in Europe. Uh-oh, the proximity effect does not have any radio-friendly tunes that might get as popular as popular. And so Elektra Records declines to release the album at all in America. It does come out eventually. And NataSurf get dropped. So the dudes and not a surf get day jobs. Not the drummer is a bookie type day jobs, normal, respectable day jobs, web designer, record store employee, etc. But as a successful enduring rock band, NataSurf are toast, right? They can see it all and they're okay. They wish there was another way. And it turns out there is another way. Not a major label.

In 2002, NataSurf released their third album called Let. Let. go on prestigious Seattle independent label, Barsuk Records, best known for putting out early indie pop albums by Death Cab for Cutie and Riloh Kylie and whatnot. That song, Soaring, Yearning, Heartbroken, Defiantly Hopeful, that song is called Inside of Love and it will eventually soundtrack, Soaring, Yearning episodes of One Tree Hill and How I Met Your Mother. Do Not a surf, put out more fine album, and eventually land a song on Gray's Anatomy? You bet they do. Not a surf have quietly, modestly survived.

Not a surf have expertly transitioned from raucous mid-90s buzzbin, ironic alt rock band to thoughtful early 2000s, Garden State Extended Universe, super sincere indie rock band. That's hard to do. Popular is a great and alarmingly memorable song, that is nonetheless so strange and grouchy and novel that it has major novelty hit energy. It felt like a career-ending hit song.

When rock critics write about Not a Surf in the 2000s, you get headlines like a band just now recovering from success. That's the New York Times in 2003. Or NataSurf, colon, life after the one-hit wonder. That's Time magazine in 2012. In that time article, not a surf frontman, Matthew Cause, says, quote, We've tried playing popular at concerts now. If we don't play it, someone is grumpy.

If we do play it, someone else is grumpy. We can't win. End quote. Speaking of grumpy, dig the wildly appealing rasp in this dude's voice as he literally sings the words, who sucked out the first? feeling. This is my dream. Who sucked out the feeling?

Here we have sucked out. The 1996 breakout single from Superdrag, a young, scrappy, unsullied Knoxville, Tennessee rock band, led by singer-songwriter John Davis and signed to a steamed major label, Electra Records. Holy shit, it's Elektra again. Not a surf and Superdrag toured together. and everything. Sucked Out is an insidiously catchy major label hit song about how being a major label band totally sucks. This was my dream played out rockin routine. Note the past tense there. I loved sucked out, which appears on the 1996 Super Drag album, Regretfully Yours, but regretfully, I did not buy that

CD for $18 either, which does not bode well for the next super drag album. They cut another record, it never was a hit. The next super drag album is released in 1998 and is called Head Trip in

Every Key. And it rules. Actually, that song is called Do the Vampire. Note the ferocious defiance. Note what you might interpret as the willful disinterest in major label type shenanigans. We don't want to know what's really going on.

Head Trip and Every Key is recorded at fabled L.A. Studio Sound City with producer Jerry Finn, best known for his extensive work with Green Day and Blink 182. We got ambition on this record. We got a bigger budget. We want to go 100% analog in an increasingly digital world. We want to rhyme alternative station with bankrupt vibration. We got a sitar and a melitron and a theramine and some horns and some strings and no hit songs. And so Electra drops the band and good fucking riddance.

You know what might restore Superdrags previously sucked out feeling? You know what this band needs? Not a major label. I want I don't want to deal with the asshole. I know what I know. I want to feel like an asshole. I want rock and roll, but I don't want to deal with the hassle. Super Drag sign with the modest, splendid Portland, Oregon indie label, Arena Rock Recording

Company. And they put out their next album in the year 2000, an album called In the Valley of Dying Stars. Talking to Vice in 2014, John Davis says, quote, that's the one where it just makes me proud that we lost our deal. We went back to putting records out on an indie label, got back in our van, kept doing us, because we weren't going to let the dude that wrote the vitamin C record tell us what our band was supposed to sound like. And if we had knuckled under and been like, yeah, we'll make it more like third eye blind, then we would still be in the same boat today sitting in cubicles, but we would have had to live with that.

I'd rather not have to live with that and at least know that we stayed true." End quote. Vitamin C is the lady who sang the graduation song. You know, as we go on, we remember all the times we had to get. There's a time in place for that song, commencement ceremonies, mostly. But I do take John's point that vitamin C, see is not his vibe. Anyway, this super drag song is called Keep It Close to Me. That's such an exhilarating moment live when the bass and drums finally kick in. It's supposed to be

Burr. Someone on a podcast said it was art. I saw Super Drag play Keep It Close to Me live in late 2000 at Bernie's Bagels and Distillery, a tiny, seedy basement club in Columbus, Ohio, famous for noisy rock music and beer and bagels. Low ceilings, though. Any tall people in the band, you had to be careful not to jump around on stage because you might whack your head on the pipes overhead.

And John Davis rolls into Bernies with a whole rack of guitars, like six to eight to ten guitars, like he's in ACDC, like he's playing a sold-out football stadium. It's like bringing a fog machine into a storage unit, but Superdrag kicked ass that day,

my friends, Superdrag treated that bagel shop basement like it was a football stadium. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. And if the record industry demeans you and discard you and turns you into the underdog,

well, that's when you make a job. them fear the underdog. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 47th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing the underdog by Spoon. From their 2007 album, Gagga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga. Yes, Spoon, the Austin, Texas rock band that used to be on Elektra Records, and now they're not. Right off the rip, I got to tell you, the underdog is a truly fantastic.

mouth horn song. You know what I mean? Mouthhorn when you go, a first ballot Mouthhorn Hall of Fame song right here. You'll see. What did I tell you?

And then the best part, you got to switch it up. Just a little bit right here. You go, fantastic. Try it yourself. Give it a shot during the ad break. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk.

Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Okay. Unbelievable. Okay, real quick, do you know the band The Mountain Goats? High IQ and even higher EQ, indie rock legends? EQ stands for emotional quotient, I think.

If it doesn't just pretend, it does. The Mountain Goats, who've been around since the mid-90s, based in Durham, North Carolina now, led by the brilliant songwriter and author, John Darniel. A while back John was gracious enough to come on this show to talk about Lincoln Park. In July, 2026, the Mountain Goats put out an extra rad new single about a nameless fictional 90s rock band trying to make it big by touring with a real-life famous 90s rock band. The song starts with the label vultures descending. Three years on the local circuit.

played twice at the county fair and the second time then our friend who worked the business and said a guy from a label was there there were two more like him at the next show staring us down like hawks CBS is going to pay a great

big advance and if you adjusted these lyrics slightly or even if you kept all the lyrics but adjusted the delivery slightly the chorus and the title of this mountain goat song could work as a punchline as a rude, mean joke. At the expense of both the fictional underdog 90s rock band, John is singing about,

and the real-life famous 90s rock band that gives this song its title. But as much as I love Sardonic, merciless, Nick Lowe-type black humor, we do not need rude, the bass players selling clothes he never would have wore energy here. Trying to make it big and major label rock and roll is hard. man. And so what we need is peace, love, and understanding. And there was love in the air and all the money was there and we were going on tour with Candlebox. That Mountain Goat song is called Candlebox. Candlebox are a famous 90s rock band from Seattle who unfairly took a bunch of shit from other cooler Seattle rock bands. Shame on you if you don't know who Candlebox is.

You know the Candlebox song Far Behind? You can try doing Mouthhorn to famous guitar riffs, but I don't recommend it. Okay, let me ask you something. Does this guy sound like Ryan Gosling to you? She was smoking up all the cigarettes. I'm putting them out in his hand. She said that you think this hurts now, kid, well, just wait till later, man. Every time I hear, just wait until later, man, I picture Ryan Gosling.

Specifically, Ryan Gosling in that movie, The Nice Guys, the sleazy goofball action buddy comedy from 2016 with Russell Crow. It's a fantastic movie. When Ryan Gosling's in a shootout and he takes cover behind the car that's on a revolving platform, so then Ryan immediately loses his cover and he all. almost get shot. It's incredible. Okay, here we have a song called Nefarious, an early offering from the Austin, Texas rock band Spoon. Led by one Brit Daniel, B-R-I-T-T-T, a young, brash, dapper, subversive, and incomprehensibly rad Texan gentlemen. Britt Daniel is born in 1971 in Galveston, Texas, and raised in Temple, Texas, about an hour north of Austin.

He's going to college at the University of Texas at Austin. Musically, he's into a lot of English post-punk and new wave. New Order, the Cure, Depeche Mode, Art of Noise, things of that nature. But he loves Prince, too. And you don't hear much Prince in Early Spoon, but Prince is going to be a big deal later. Also, here at the dawn of the 90s, Brit is noticing that all the scruffy, subversive, and super cool American bands he loves, guided by voices, Yolatango, pavement, also Liz Fair. They've all got the same logo on the back covers of their albums.

They're all on the same indie record label, Matador Records, out of New York City, the hallowed American Institution, Matador Records. So now Brits been starting a bunch of bands that try and fail to make it big. And here in Austin, his latest band is called Spoon. Britt Daniel wore sunglasses on stage a lot in the early Spoon era because he thought it looked cool. He's not wrong. This is fucking torture today. It's fucking torture. Nefarious.

But mostly the vast appeal of nefarious comes down to Brits' weird, tough guy sunglasses indoors as he goes, this is fucking torture to me. this song first appears on Spoon's debut EP, released on a tiny Austin label in 1994 and called Nefarious. This song is then re-recorded for Spoon's full-length debut album, released in 1996 on American Indy Rock Institution, Matador Records, and called Telephono. Spoon will spend much of their 30 years and counting career,

jumping between Matador Records and Merge Records. Merge being another hallowed American indie rock institution based in Durham, North Carolina. The Mountain Goats were on Merge for a long time. Usually on this program, the specific record labels don't matter much, but this time they do. It's the mid-90s, an alternative rock is still big business, and we got super drag and not a surf songs on the radio, but young unsullied spoon are instinctively wary of that major label universe. There's a great book called Our Noise, the story of Merge Records, the indie label that got big and stayed small in oral history, published in 2009 by the journalist John Cook alongside Mack McCullen and Laura Balance of Merge Records and Superchunk fame. Shout out Superchunk, speaking of scruffy, subversive, and super cool American bands.

And in that Our Noise book, Britt Daniel says, quote, I knew there was something not to be trusted about the major label system, but I wasn't really sure what. They just seemed to either make a band really huge in a really cheesy way or else not be able to succeed. And I didn't really want to come out huge with our first record. It kind of scared me. End quote. Hey, so great news. Spoon do not come out huge on their first record. This very early era of Spoon, we got Britt Daniel on guitar and lead vocals. We got Jim Eno, he's on drums, and he'll stick around forever.

And we got Andy McGuire. She's on bass and backing vocals. And she won't be around for very long. Spoon made a video for the later version of Nefarious in which all three members of the band are wearing sunglasses as they play the song in a living room while two people make out on the couch. I say with great affection that this video appears to have cost $10

total, and that includes the breathmints budget for the people on the couch. The Boston rock band and hallowed American institution, The Pixies. Where is My Mind? And so forth. Quiet verses and loud choruses. Ultra-harsh, ultra-melodicism. The alluring vocal interplay between a screaming, ranty frontman guy and an angelic sing-songy, incomprehensibly rad bassist lady.

Early spoon sound a lot like the Pixies. Okay? You read that a lot. in coverage of early spoon, but you also objectively hear that a lot in this first spoon album, Telephono. And as a rock critic, I'm always on guard for lazy, self-perpetuating narratives of this type when everyone just writes the same thing. Someone in the newspaper says Spoon sound like the Pixies, and now everyone in every newspaper starts saying it. But like, dude, this song is called dismember, and I love it, but I'm pretty sure I know.

know why. I love it. That's what you are. That's what you do to miss sugar. Come on, let's go outside. Yeah, I love this song because spoon bassist Andy McGuire sings, dismember, dismember in a twinkling nursery rhyme cadence like Kim Deal from the Pixies. Andy McGuire leaves Spoon before this record even comes out in 1996 under very strange and acrimonious and confusing he said she said type circumstances. And meanwhile, telephono flops.

This album sells very poorly, even by Matador Records' non-major label standards. Undaunted, or at least only slightly daunted, Spoon follow this up with a 1997 Matador EP called Soft Effects, which also sells poorly, even by Matador Records, standards. But now Spoon are sounding less. and less like some other famous band, and more and more like themselves. This song is called Waiting for the Kid to Come Out, and the weird sonic details here, the super-reverbed handclaps, Britt Daniels's frantic overlapping vocals, the uneasy sense that any one element of this song could drop out at any time and maybe never come back,

That's the essence of Spoon. That's the mind meld between Britt Daniels, frontman and primary songwriter and Jim Eno drummer. A lot of people going to be in this band. A lot of bassists. It's not a super ugly acrimonious Guns and Roses band infighting situation usually, but like, yeah. And yet the center holds. The molten volatile core of Spoon holds. And that core is Brit and Jim just trying shit as songwriters and as producers.

They get weirder and more classic sounding and more popular simultaneously. I love it when that happens. But not quite yet. It is 1997. And Spooner already kind of sort of a failure. This Matador Records thing ain't working out. And you'd assume that the major label vultures have no reason to still be interested in Spoon. Meanwhile, Spoon are still tremendously wary of the major label vultures.

You would assume all that, yes, but it's still technically the mid-90s. An alternative rock is still technically hot shit, and there's one guy who works for our old friend, Electra Records, an A&R man named Ron Lafitte, and Ron loves Spoon. And this early flop aside, Ron is still convinced Spoon can be huge if they've got the right label situation and there was love in the air and all the money was there and so next thing you know spoon have signed with electra this is going to go great they cut another record it never was a hit the second full-length spoon album is released on electro records in 1998 and it's called a series of sneaks that song is called car radio which britt pronounces like car radio one word it's like he's

in a foreign language, which in a way he is. This is the nominal lead single off a series of sneaks, but car radio will not be a fluke major label, alt-rock car radio hit that makes spoon huge in a really cheesy way, in part because car radio is only 89 seconds long. This is suboptimal in the esteemed opinion of Elektra Records. In that book, R Noy, Spoon drummer Jim Eno says, quote, I think it's probably the first time in the history of music that a band was asked to do a radio edit to make a song longer.

We didn't want to seem like a bunch of assholes, so we sat in front of a digital editing system for a couple days and did it. We were going to just take 30 seconds from the chorus of a third-eye blind song and pop it in. That would have sounded good. end quote. The idea of third-eye blind as the platonic ideal of late 90s mainstream alternative rock is very funny to me. Every struggling major label rock band is under intense corporate pressure to sound more like third-eye blind. Write more songs about crystal meth. Electra Records put their immense, fearsome, major label, promotional machine behind Spoon. And they get car radio in rotation on exactly, one radio station.

One station. The book doesn't say which radio station exactly. That's too bad. The series of Sneaks record flops big time and Spoon's label champion, an A&R man, Ron Lafitte, the guy who whined and dined Spoon

and convinced them to sign with Elektra in the first place. Ron ghosts the band and he leaves Elektra and Spoon get dropped the same week that he leaves. That's how major label rock and roll works, my friends. Spoon are an even bigger failure now, and there's only one thing left to do, folks. Sing a couple super mean songs about their former A&R man.

Here we have a jaunty and extra caustic song called Lafitte's Don't Fail Me Now, dedicated unambiguously to Mr. Ron Lafitte, Spoon's former A&R guy at Elektra Records. In 1999, on a lot of a seven inch for Saddle Creek records. Speaking of American indie rock institutions, spoon cut two songs about their former pal Ron. The second song is called The Agony of Lafitte. It is Ron Lafitte's great misfortune that his last name rhymes with a lot of stuff. I'm struck primarily by how direct, how viciously straightforward the Ron Lafitte songs are. All that I want to know, are you ever honest with anyone? It's like I knew two of you, man, the one before and after we shook hands.

Spoon lyrics can be quite cryptic. Occasionally you're 98% sure what or who Britt Daniel is singing about, but even then, it's the 2% uncertainty that matters. Whereas there is no uncertainty here on these two songs. Spoon are big mad and justifiably so. But it's over now, right? Spoon are toast. Jim Eno and Britt Daniels both get day jobs.

Brit's working temp jobs at Banks and Manhattan where he's got to wear a suit and tie. In that hour noise book, Brit says, quote, I didn't think I'd ever be able to make records. Getting dropped as a baby band on a major was like the kiss of death. It felt like things could not get any lower. End quote. And then the next thing you know, Spoon are a huge overnight success. This song is called Everything Hits at Once.

It is the first song in the third full-length Spoon album released on Merge Records in 2001 and called Girls Can Tell. It's the shockingly elegant use of empty space here. The serene but insistent forward momentum, the startling, alliterative opening line, don't say a word, the last one still stinging. The crisp, unfussy, fantastic drums in the palpable sense that Spoon have made,

master the art of playing rock and roll properly by emphasizing the roll bit over the rock bit. That's all wonderfully evident in just those 21 seconds. Girls Can Tell is the first of, by my count, eight consecutive instant classic Spoon albums released between 2001 and 2022. I hope Spoon put a new one out very soon and make it nine. consecutive instant classic albums, one of the most reliably stupendous and yet consistently surprising rock bands of the 21st century. Sidebar, first time I heard this record, girls can tell, and this is my first time I heard any spoon at all. I'd just gotten yelled at on the phone.

I was living in Ohio, and I interviewed for a job at an Alt Weekly in Houston, and I got the job, and I accepted the job, but then a week later, I freaked out and flaked out. and turned down the job I'd already accepted. I pulled a Lafitte, basically, and then a corporate guy at the chain that owned the Houston paper called me up and yelled at me on the phone. What the fuck were his first words to me, if I recall correctly? I did not enjoy that. I do not enjoy conflict.

And after he yelled at me and hung up, I sat there in silence for like 30 seconds, and then I went back to work, and I sort of mindlessly put on an album by a band I'd never heard of that became one of my favorite bands ever, and I will always be grateful to Spoon for coming to me in that exact moment of post-got-yled-at, sheepish vulnerability. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the second line of this chorus is what we needs is just what we want.

And I got to say, it's honestly kind of blowing my mind. Everything hits a wants. What we need is just what we want. Yeah, it's what we needs is just what we wants. What a bizarrely perfect way to put it. The Dow of Popeye. Spoon start writing the songs on Girls Can Tell before Merge Records even signs the band.

In that book, Our Noise, Britt Daniel says, quote, The pressure was off. I was just writing them for myself. I doubted we'd ever record them. Maybe we'd play them live or something. So I stopped trying to be indie rock cool or play by the rules of what I thought good bands did or post-punk bands were supposed to do.

I felt vulnerable. And that was what was starting to come out. And I was doing things that I hadn't had the guts to do before. I just felt like, well, if I want to have a piano on a song, I can have a piano on a song. Fuck it. Nobody's going to hear it anyway. end quote. This song's called Take the Fifth. Dig

the piano. Huge, bouncy, laid-back swaggering Motown energy to take the fifth. Plus the tambourine, dude, the little bsh in the deep background. The tambourine makes the whole song. Spoon don't sound

like the Pixies anymore. They're into soul music. They're into the kinks. They're into our old friend Elvis Costello. Spoon now sound a lot like our old swaggering debonair friend, Nick Lowe. But more importantly, they sound like Nick Lowe looks. When I was still growing up, that hair off to wear our entire fitted shirt. My favorite song on this Girls Can Tell album is called The Fitted Shirt. It's about how Britt Daniel has started dressing for the job he wants in the

The job he wants is surprisingly well-dressed non-major label Rockstar, because rock stardom looks and feels a little different here in the early 2000s. You don't necessarily need CBS to pay a great big advance for one thing. I'm going to find buttons for my that's all you're sure. I've seen Spoon Live 8 to 10 times over the past 20 odd years, and I ain't never seen Brit in a T-shirt. That's all I'm saying. On Girls Can Tell, primarily we got Britt Daniel on vocals, guitars, and keyboards, Jim Eno on drums, Joshua Zarbo on bass,

and Mike McCarthy producing with help from both Brit and Jim. And this arrangement will hold for the next couple great spoon records, including 2002's Kill the Moonlight, which includes the first modest hit that makes spoon kind of a big deal in a not at all cheesy kind of way. We get high in back seats or calls. We break into mobile homes. We go to sleep to shake a peep. If you wake up on our own. That's the way we get by. The way we get by.

All that's the way we get by. Hey, what did I tell you? There's Britt Daniel in another cool, low-budget video sauntering down the street in his button-down fitted shirt. He's also still wearing sunglasses sometimes, but at least this time he's outside. This song is called The Way We Get By. The piano is now asserting its dominance.

The third line of the opening verse there, I'd never quite fully absorbed. We get high and back seats of cars. We break into mobile homes. We go to sleep to Shake Appeal, never wake up on our own. Shake Appeal is a song by Iggy and the Stooges from Raw Power, 1973. A lot of hand claps in Shake Appeal. Every verse of the way we get by name drops another song by Iggy Pop and or the Stooges. Rock critics digs Spoon.

Man, I don't know why. What strikes me about this record Kill the Moonlight is that immediately, upon achieving a modest but durable sort of indie rock and roll prominence, Spoon immediately start deconstructing the very notion of rock and roll. My favorite parts of this record are this studio pattern, the weird cross-talk, the peak behind the curtain. The sense that Kill the Moonlight is like 85%

finished, but it's the unfinished 15% that makes the whole record. I dig this song, Jonathan Fisk. It's about a kid who bullied Brit Daniel in middle school, and it starts with 20 seconds of skeletal guitar and drums augmented by random studio moaning. I also dig this song called Back to the Life, which starts with 20 seconds of skeletal echoing handclaps and unhinged laughter. It's a good song overall, but yeah, my favorite part of Back to the Life is Brit going Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Spoon are a fount of both expected and unexpected excellence throughout the 2000s and beyond without ever feeling overexposed or trendy. Spoon emerge in the early 2000s amidst the strokes and the white stripes and all that rock is back action. Spoon are somehow both gloriously stable and delightfully unstable in the late 2000s, amidst Vampire Weekend and Animal Collective and the whole Brooklyn indie Renaissance. But Spoon do not rely on any outside force or larger narrative to fuel their stability or

instability. What did the super drag guy say again? We kept doing us. Spoon just keep doing Spoon. Spoon just keep doing increasingly implausible quantities of implausibly high-quality spoon. Here comes Prince. I turn my camera on. I cut my fingers on the way. On the way. The way of slipping away.

I turned my feelings on. You made me untouchable for life. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. The next Spoon album comes out in 2005 and is called Gimmie Fiction. This song is called I Turn My Camera on. Britt has mastered his falsetto.

And You Wasn't Polite is my favorite line in this song. In his ever so slightly goofy lasciviousness, Brit on I Turn My Camera on has somehow triangulated actual prince and Dave Chappelle's loving impression of Prince. I turn my camera on will kick your ass at pickup basketball and then feed you pancakes. I turn my camera on is the most pornographic song to ever soundtrack a Jaguar ad. As of two weeks ago, I can confirm that I turn my camera on still kills live. So does this one.

This is another gimmie fiction song called My Mathematical Mind. It's the slow burn here. steady escalation. It's the total band cohesion. Every element here is absolutely essential, and nobody's trying to be the star. The rolling piano goes do, do, do, do, do, do, and do, do do do do do, do the lumpy baseline goes do, do do do do, do. Britt's electric guitar thrashes around and then drops out for long stretches and then miraculously reappears. And Jim Eno on drum, just plows forward. He holds this on together.

He puts the team on his back. Jim never does too much until too much is explicitly called for. My mathematical mind never lets up, and it never quite loses control. It's a perfectly calibrated slow motion detonation. The symbols blow up last. And despite whoever else is in the band or in the studio or in the liner notes, what you hear on any given spoon song, what you learn to focus on and rely on is the unbreakable bond between Brit and Jim, the nimble snarl of Brit's voice and the precise

clamor of Jim's drums. The precise clamor of the percussion in general, really, the more the better. Tamborines, vibraphones, beatboxing, sleigh bells, whatever. Dig this song called finer feelings. Dig how the handclaps and shakers are as crucial an element as the lyrics. And it turns out that the lyrics are pretty goddamn important. Finer Feelings appears on Spoon's sixth album, released in 2007 and called Gaga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga, the Shaker especially, keeps dropping in and out of the mix on this song. And I am genuinely thrilled each time it reappears. Like it's the family of deer that keeps wandering arbitrarily out of and then back into my backyard. But also, yes, sometimes I think that I'll find a love, one that's going to change my

hearts, and I'll find it in commercial appeal, and this heartache will get chased away. Spooner now four fantastic albums and nearly a decade removed from their disastrous stint on Electric Records. Their disastrous stint attempting to conform to a major label's misguided conception of commercial appeal. This record, Gaga, Gaga, Gaga, Gagga, Gaguer Debuts at number 10 on the Billboard album chart, a career high for Spoon. Their next two albums will debut in the top five. By the way, this one's called Gaga, Gaga, Gaga, Gag, after the sound this piano makes. That song is called The Ghost of You Linger's.

It goes on like that for three and a half minutes, the asymmetrical stack of Brit vocal tracks as that piano goes, a more commercial appeal-minded band would bury this eerie, unsettled ghost of a song deep on Side B, a deep cut, an afterthought. Here it's track two. Here it's the main attraction. At this point, in addition to Britt and Jim, we've got Rob Pope, he of Kansas City emo Giants, the Get Up Kids. Rob is on bass now. We got Eric Harvey on pianos and keyboards.

But we still got Mike McCarthy helping Britt and Jim with production, with the exception of one song here. And that just happens to be the song that goes, Picture yourself in a living room. your piping slipper set out for you I know you think that it ain't too far So here we have the underdog In which the underdog, voiced by Britt Daniel, jauntily and sardonically addresses the powers that be

Which the powers that be, maybe that's the major label system Or maybe that's, you know, the government. We begin by jauntily pointing out that the powers that be will one day find themselves old and feeble, hence the pipe and slippers. The line, I know you think that it ain't too far, rattled me a little bit in 2007, and it shakes me vigorously now. Brits' vocal delivery gets pretty loopy, pretty fast.

Meanwhile, a strutting, mocking, irresistible little baseline drops down from the ceiling with honestly justifiable I'm the Star type energy. I hear a call of a lifetime rain There's a need to get up for it Oh, he cut out the middleman The way Brits' vocals feel so assured And so volatile here The way he seems to lean away from

And then abruptly back toward the microphone on the line Oh, you cut out the middleman The underdog feels alive And imperfect and suspiciously upbeat And positively seething Talking to the A.V. Club about this song in 2007, Britt talks about Van Morrison and Paul Simon and Ray Davies of the kinks. Guys with a classic rock feel, but a youthful brawler type vibe. Britt talks about, quote, pitting this pretty pissed off lyric against this horn part that sounds like a fiesta.

End quote. We have almost arrived at the fiesta. Got no regard for the thing that you don't understand. You got no fear of the underdog. That's why you will not survive. And then the fiesta arrived. The underdog is co-produced by John Bryan, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalists, L.A. Seenster and superstar collaborator

with everyone from Fiona Apple to Kanye West. The Fiesta ass horn part has a palpable semi-tweed John Bryan bounce to it. And yeah, the Fiesta nicely offsets how pissed off Brit Daniels sounds. Got no regard for the thing that you don't understand. That could be about Elektra records. Sure, though Electra is pretty far back in the primordial mist at this point. It could also be about George W. Bush, though. Yes. In the AB club, Brit says, quote, I'm not the underdog, but, well, actually, I guess I've been the underdog.

To me, it always felt like I was talking to the big guy, you know, the big guy in the government and trying to tell him about some things he didn't seem to be aware of. I just think that's a pretty arrogant group of liars we've got up there, and they don't really consider the abilities of their opponents. End quote. That's as direct as Brit gets in interviews in terms of spelling out what his songs are about. In general, I think he prefers to embrace the ambiguity, and so do I. These are my favorite lines in the underdog. Dig the snapping and knee-slapping, percussive action as well. No way that I spell it out. I just dig that Brit sings, The thing that I tell you now,

it may not go over well, but he never quite gets around to specifying what the thing is. If you don't know, you don't know. And if you're not listening, then no one can tell you. That goes for CBS records and all their descendants. That goes for all other, you know, authority figures. Spoonplay the Underdog on Saturday Night Live. It's a live staple.

It's among the band's most streamed. songs, etc. But the underdog is not a fluke hit or a huge outlier. It stands in for all the great spoon songs spoon cranked out before and have kept cranking out since. Just as important here on this Gaga Gaga album is a song called Don't You Ever, which begins with Britt Daniels sassing Jim Eno in the studio. I'm so glad these dudes have each other. And I'm so grateful that we have them. complicated. It doesn't seem complicated the way Spoon do it. All they want is rock and roll. They just don't want to deal with the hassle. And so they don't. We are so delighted to speak once again with Ryan Dombal, a writer and critic and editor and video producer and co-founder of the wonderful

music and culture website, Hearing Things. Previously, he spent 15 plus years as an editor at pitch for. Ryan, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. You have referred to Spoon in Prince as the most consistent indie rock band of their generation. You've talked about like, this is a name you can trust. They won't let you down. Like Metacritic, I think, did a thing a long time ago about like the most consistently highly rated, like reviewed rock bands of the 2000s. And Spoon are way up there. Like how are they so reliable and so consistent without ever getting boring, you know, you don't quite know what to expect other than you can expect to not be disappointed. Like, how do you do that?

I think part of it is that, like you said, they do have a consistent sound that you can rely on. And it's a eternal sound. It's rock and roll. It's guitar music. A lot of people have liked that for quite a few decades at this point. And they've never done a crazy left turn. they've never started wearing, you know, nudie suits that I know of on stage. You know, these things that bands do when they get bored and they've been around for a long time.

It's like, well, we got to do something different just to keep us excited. EDM. Right. Yeah, exactly. And it does seem like Spoon are able to stay excited just by being themselves, you know, like Britt Daniel, being himself. That seems like an eternal quest for him. and I think it, you know, to our benefit. And I think it's helped by how a lot of, you know, him as a songwriter is pretty elliptical.

There's always something to grab onto or, you know, put your imagination to work while you're listening to Spoon. And I feel like that also helps longevity. There are some proper nouns, like in their songs, but even so, they remain timeless. So, yeah, I think it is, they just have an out-of-time appeal, and that's why they've stayed so relevant and so good for so long. Yeah, it makes me think of Girls Can Tell was the first record that I heard, and the fitted shirt was a song that I was really drawn to immediately. And that's sort of a song about, like, you know, I watched my dad growing up,

you'd put a suit and tie on over a fitted shirt, like an, And the song is Britt deciding to do that, right? And that's both true. That's more sort of literally true in what he wears on stage, but just it established them in my mind immediately. As you say, as a band a little bit out of time, a band that's trying to be classic, you know, harkening back to an era of rock and roll sort of sophistication slash danger. Like I feel like that was Spoon's thing in my head from the very beginning,

was this combination of like this classic. sophisticated button down sort of approach, but then sort of experimenting with that without ever alienating people who really love that approach. Yeah, I think you're right. And I half wore this this button down shirt in honor of this episode and talking about soon. It's very kind of you. Thank you. Because I'm sadly in a t-shirt most of the time now in my life. But yeah, and, you know, Britt Daniel, I feel like that's all I've ever seen him in is in buttoned down shirts. But key is that they're never buttoned, you know, to the top. I feel like there's always maybe, I feel like there's always one button, you know, unleashed.

One more button, I'm done than I would undo myself, right? I agree. So, so yeah, that I think you're absolutely right because they have they're wearing, he's wearing the button up shirt. but it's a little bit reckless, and that's the same thing with their sound. It's fairly conventional sound, if you're familiar with rock music at all. But there he is, making these little weird vocal noises, you know, in between lines, and there's the studio chatter that's like, you know, in like a song on almost all of their albums.

And, yeah, these little seams that you can see or little moments of restlessness that really cut through the, convention that otherwise, you know, you would think of with Spoon if you're just listening to it in passing. When did you get into them? Because it was Girls Can Tell for me, like, but I feel like you would hear them differently if you had been with them from the beginning. If you had been there for the 90s, sort of the failed launch of the Matador record, and then the Elektra, like the major label, like the whole dropped saga.

Like, do you hear this band completely different if you missed sort of the struggle, failure 90s? era. Yeah, maybe. I'm like you. I got into them with Gimmy Fiction, which was also after all the drama with how they were dropped and all that. So I didn't really, wasn't really aware of all that when I got into them. But I have, you know, gone back and, and reestablish myself with that lore.

And it's pretty amazing indie lore, like 90s indie lore, where, you know, they, were dropped a few months after they released their album on Electra, and then they put out subsequently this two-song single aimed at the A&R guy who had signed them, you know, who had wound and dine them, and then, like, they were dropped as well. And listening back to those two songs, I was really struck by how it's funny, like, the premise is funny. You're writing a, you know, two-song, like, single about your A-N-R guy. I can't really think of another example of that. Neither can I. But also they sound or, you know, Brit sounds legitimately hurt by this experience. He does. This experience in these songs. And I think

that I was touched by that. And I feel like it's really indicative of bread and spoon as a whole as far as they seem to live by this code of integrity. You know, like one of the, like the hook on one of the songs is like, are you honest with anyone? And that I feel like Britt probably does like to think that he, I just, he comes across as a guy who is honest with everyone. Yes. Even if that honesty, you might not want to hear. It's frightening. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, so yeah, I was struck by that how they are, they do sound legitimately hurt. And I think that experience also cemented them in their minds and in reality as these underdogs, you know, not to not to belabor the point. But and, and, and yeah, they, they just kind of went from there. And I think made the most of that, of that

experience. And I think it was this crucible that really formed them and helped them move on in this amazing way. I, like you say, there are proper nouns in spoon songs, but those two songs, the Ron Lafitte songs. And like Ron Lafitte is a very funny name. Unfortunately, like it rhymes with stuff like that really worked to Spoon's benefit and to not Ron's benefit. But like those two songs sort of stand alone how wounded and how direct Brit is. Like I feel like what I love about Spoon is like it's like it's not that it's totally oblique. Like I have a pretty good idea of who or what he's singing about a lot of the time. But there is a directness. There is a super vulnerability and anger to just those two songs of just naming this guy specifically.

And as you say, like, are you honest with anyone is like, that's not a spoon line necessarily. Like those two songs standalone for me is so direct and wounded. Like do you think is what happened to spoon that bad? You know, like it was this like a uniquely terrible situation that warranted an angry series of songs about their A&R guy?

Or were they just really great spoon about. using a typical bad major label experience to motivate themselves into the next phase of their careers. I really think it's the latter because especially coming from the 90s, you read about all these bands, it seemed like every one in 10 bands got a second album, you know, like on a major label sort of thing. So this was very typical experience, especially at that moment in time. Yeah. And most bands just walk away wounded and maybe break up or put out a couple albums that no one cares about. And then that's it. But yeah, they spoon did it different.

They decided to just put this man, put Ron Lafitte on Front Street on blast. Yeah, exactly. And I love that they, I love that they did that. I wonder what Ron Lafitte is doing. Like that could be, that would be a great, you know, 20, 14 blog post. There we go. Let's go back in time and get some clicks.

Yeah, exactly. This is my decades of editing experience. You can't turn it off. Yeah. So, yeah, but I think they, yeah, so they, they, the way they were wronged was not unique, but their reaction to it was very unique. And I think that's very telling of spoof as well. you talked about they're always being on their albums like cross talk like studio chatter like i'm really

drawn to the way that brid and jim eno work together like just just their little snippets of conversation on these records but i just you know this is a band with a lot of people in it's you know where brit is the one absolute content but brit and jim are the core of the band always like what do you think it is about these two guys you know this singer-songwriter and this drummer you know, they're producers, co-producers on all this stuff. Like, what is the synergy between them? Like, what makes these two guys work so well together? You know, and no one else can get close enough to them to be part of the core forever.

Yeah, it's a great question. And I would guess, I don't know them. I don't know them personally. But reading the tea leaves of their little interactions on the albums, I would guess, again. I'm just thinking there's one on Gaga, where, I think it's on Gaga, where Britt is like, did you get that gym? Don't you have a...

Yeah, he says like, did you get that gym? Like, several times. And to me, that's like, this dude is like, annoying. You know, like, yeah, he got it. He's the producer, right? Like, that's his job. Like, you've been working with him for like 10 years by that point. You can trust him, right? Yeah. Yes. So I would imagine like a lot of relationships where the singer, producer, drummer, the relationships is that Jim Eno can probably just put up with Britt Daniel, like at his, you know, at his maybe kind of meticulous moments.

I feel like that's probably part of it. Jim Eno seems like just a very normal, nice dude. Yeah, exactly. So I think that would probably be a big part of it. and I just really think with any rock band, even something as relatively modest as spoon, you don't think of Britt Daniels as this asshole rock star, but he's a frontman.

Like every frontman is going to have that ego to an extent. And I think part of it is when you're the drummer, producer, just being able to put up with, you know, the little intricacies of someone's personality. And, yeah, I imagine Brit. appreciates that as well. Now I'm thinking about some kind of monster. I'm thinking about all the scenes of Metallica in the studio and of Lars and James just

yelling at each other. That's a slightly different situation in a few key respects. But I think there's a core dynamic there that maybe carries through. There's an archetypal lead singer drummer relationship. Totally. Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned that because on one. of the Ron Lafitte songs, he mentions a Metallica album that Ron Lafitte was supposed to give to him.

Should have given it to him. Yeah, he really should have. But I feel like Britt is probably very familiar with Metallica's lore and, you know, the lore of so many. He's, you know, he really seems like a student, student of the game. Yes. Do you like the underdog, Ryan? And, you know, like, by defaults, you know, like, it's one of their highest dream songs. It's one of their highest charting songs.

They played it on Saturday Night Live. Like, it's a calling card. They'll play it during the encore usually. But, like, does the underdog work for you as the definitive spoon hit or is the entire point of spoon that they do not have or need one definitive hit? So I'll answer this. But I also want to just preface it by saying, I love, as a fan of this show, of this podcast, I love it when you're talking about the songs,

you know, the headlining song, and then like 35 minutes into the episode, you're like, this is my 18th favorite white stripe song, you know what I mean? That's right. Jimmy Eat Wills the Middle, yeah, is not the best song on that. Yes, I think I like the underdog more than you do. That happens all the time, and I'm glad that you appreciate it. But in this instance, it's not my favorite spoon song, but I do like it as arguably the biggest spoon song.

But I believe what you said is it's giving boss tones. Was that what you said to me about the horn section doesn't do it for you? Yeah. So I like the underdog. Like, let me get, let me put that off. But listening back again now, I would say it's probably one of my least favorite songs on that album, I'm not skipping it or anything, but it really does stand out to me. Like on that album and just listening to all of the, you know, their whole discography,

like the horns, you know, John Brian helped produce this song and I'm 99% sure he was the one who thought to put the horns on it. That's a John Brian horn line. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes sense because. people like horns.

It makes the song seem bigger. And you're not going to see that song in all these different movies if those horns aren't on it, probably, or these commercials or whatever. But I just don't think it, I don't love the horns on that song. It's corny.

It's like corny to me. And it is giving Boston's a little bit. I was looking to, I just thought of that, this round of listening to that song. And I was like, yeah, this is kind of Scott. And that's just,

so weird to me because Spoon is so cool. They're one of my low stars for cool and ska is the least cool thing. Still, I don't know. I'm sure there's apologists. There has been, we've come

back around on ska, Ryan. You got to get ahead of the game. Sky is cool now. Right. It's so uncool. It's cool. Yes. As someone who was a teenager in the 90s, no, like, no. Okay, agree to disagree.

I don't know if I didn't disagree. Okay. And also, I was humming along on K Rock. Don't get me wrong. Sure. I wasn't like, you know, spitting on my, you know, like bulldozing my like boss tones, cassettes or whatever. Okay, good.

But anyway, the underdog, yeah, not my favorite. But the lyric is incredible. The lyric is incredible. And the lyric is really sums up. spoon, you know, in so many ways. Just like thematically, they are this incredible example of underdogs. And they're always kind of punching up. And that is what the song is about.

And I love that. And I'll always love that as someone who's, you know, probably considers themselves like an underdog. And it's like a lot of art that is coming from that. that place. And to make that underdog sentiment seem so triumphant, I do appreciate that. I think it's cool. But I almost feel like they made it too triumphant so that almost anyone could just listen to this song and wear that label as a patch. And it, it rubs me the wrong way a little bit. As a spoon fan, you know, you're a snob.

If you're a big spoon fan, you're kind of a snob. And I would say I am sort of like that. So, yeah, I feel like, but maybe if it weren't for that song, we wouldn't have gotten all these other albums, you know, who's to say? But listening back now, it is not my favorite. Yeah, I'm thinking about Gaga now and like you got your cherry bomb, like, finer feelings. Like, yes, if I'm ranking songs, which is a very spoon activity, like on that album or a spoon fan activity anyway, like, yeah, it's not my favorite either. But it's probably necessary to them continuing to have this career, you know, this successful career where they could continue to describe themselves as the underdog, but still like, you know, get things at commercials and stuff like that.

Totally. So necessary evil, sure, if you want to see it that way. What is the best spoon album, Brian? I don't know the answer to this, and I'm hoping that you do. It's an ever-changing thing because, like I said, they're so consistent. But going back across their discography and preparation for this interview, I have to say, transference has become number one. And that sounds like an asshole.

thing to say because this is kind of like, you know, this is kind of a dud. You know, I think in the greater consciousness, it was the follow-up to to ga-g-a-g-a and didn't do well as well seemingly by many, many factors commercially. But to me, that album is spoon uncut. you know, it is just them at their rawest and it's kind of ugly and they're doing their thing. Because even though Spoon seems like the kind of band that are just really on their own trip at all times and would never capitulate to, you know, commercial interests, like for the underdog, they got John Bryan. And the horns.

Right. Yeah. And, you know, for something like New York Kiss from. from, they want my soul. They got, what is the dudes, sort of the semi-sonic dude. Oh, did that? That's right.

I forgot about that. It's, oh, I should know that guy's name. Sorry, semi-sonic dude. He helped write the song, and this is after he helped write songs for Adele and, you know, all these other pop stars. Right, right, right. So I do think that Brit has this inkling,

you know, part of him wants to, wants to see what he can do with this like bigger pop history songbook. So, but on transference, there's none of that. Like, really, that it just, but this, it's not like it's a really weird. I wouldn't even say it's like experimental. It's just raw, like strip back, you know. I feel like the songs are there. And like when they play those songs live, to me, they sound just as good as Cherry Bond.

or all these other huge songs, you know, like something like Trouble Come Running, I don't know. I guess that wasn't a hit, but it's to be that could have been on Gaga. Sounds like it. Yeah. So, so yeah, that is my number one album.

And I think it's partly because it's a little bit lesser known, but yeah, that's the one that's played, that I've played, like on my, my Spoon LP collection. That's the one that I can't get off the turntable is just so listenable to me. And I think part of it is maybe because it doesn't have those highs, you know, it doesn't have that underdog with all these associations. Right, right.

It's yours. Yeah, exactly. Sure. We were talking about, we've both seen Spoon Live pretty recently. And they played like a fairly deep cut off transference out go the lights, which is like, I don't want to say it as Ron Lafitte energy. but like it's a slower, it's sort of a ballad. Like it's, you can feel almost in Brit's voice that there's more of a personal, more vulnerable tone to this one song. Like you can sort of tell when he means it a little bit more personally.

And that song always worked for me on the record. And like, it really struck me live. And he prefaced it, Britt, by saying something like, you know, we haven't played this very much. You know, like, there was a sense that like we had never done this song, Justice Live. but like we figured it out, you know? And it was a really moving sort of high point for that show for me. Like, did you have a similar experience with that song? You saw them in Central Park, I think, which is very impressive.

But yeah, what was your experience of Spoon Live now? Yeah, I saw them a few weeks ago in Central Park. It was a free show, beautiful New York City summer night. And it's, I love that you mention Outgo the Lights because I had the same exact experience. as you, partly because, like I said, I really like this album.

I haven't heard a lot of them. I have played live ever. And that was cool. But I love this song. Like I wrote about this song when it came out for a pitchfork. Like a track, remember track reviews? Like I remember I wrote about this song.

Great sorts of content. And yeah. And I just was really taken by it. I think it's one. of their most beautiful tracks ever. It is really heartbreaking. And live, I was, it was, because when I saw them, it was the real greatest hit sort of set, which is fine.

And I, I enjoy that. But this was one of the kind of couple of deep cuts that they went into. And I was really genuinely shocked that they play it. I'm not like, I'm not that guy who's at the show like writing down the fucking that list. You know, like, that's not really me. I'm just kind of letting me wash over me. Sure.

But when they played this, I did feel like one of those people. I was like, oh, shit. Like, I was the only person. I was like one of seven people in, you know, in Central Park who was like, holy shit, they're playing alcohol or the light, you know. So I was so kind of struck that the whole concert I was behind this group of young people who were having a good time, but seemed to be on psychedelic drugs, the whole time, which is fine.

You know, like, no judgment. This is the bands for that necessarily. And, you know, that's what I was thinking. And it was low-key bothering me just because they were right in my sightline. Sure, sure. And I was, you know, I was thinking about it from the exact way that you said. I was like, this isn't, this doesn't seem right, you know, like they got lost on their way to, like, the crumbin concert. David Getter.

Yeah. Okay. Exactly. So the whole time I was just sitting there and being, you know, mildly annoyed by this. But for Alco the lights, I was like, I need to step in front of these folks to really enjoy this. Right. To really enjoy this song. And I did.

And it was a beautiful moment. And I'm glad I did. And, you know, I feel like the people, those folks had a great time, you know, watching that song too. I don't know if they were familiar with it. Maybe they were. They didn't get it the way you did. Yeah, they did not mind meld with grit the way you. The song at a show that makes you walk, move forward, even like five steps, but that's a big

moment. That's a real testament to the greatness of a song. If it could make you leave where you were standing and move even a little closer, that is an underrated indicator of a truly great song. Totally. And yeah, it was exactly, I think probably seven steps. So we're not talking like, you know, moving to the first. It matters. No, it matters. It's not like you were crowd surfing, but it's still,

still a significant move on your part. Just to wrap up, like, we have both interviewed Britt Daniel, you know, which I found, like, as a terrifying, I just did like a phoner with him, I think, in the Gimmie fiction era. And like, even then, like, I've always found him very intimidating, you know, like, it's not like he's a dick or anything, as you say, but like there's, he's got a wariness to him, you know. He's, he's careful with journalists. he's wary of them. He's not going to give you too much. Like, you've interviewed a lot of people, you know.

Did you find him to be an especially scary interview? I'll say no. Okay. I've interviewed a lot of artists of his era ilk. Malthus, Dan Behar. Right. Even Jeff Tweedy, I kind of put in the similar category. I think I'm drawn to these.

I'm drawn to these weirdos. for whatever reason. With Britt, I remember I was probably fairly intimidated, but the interview I did was for this series that we did a pitchfork where people would talk about music they love throughout their life. I have 10, 15. Yeah. Yeah, so that was grounding and that was a grounding force in the interview. It wasn't like we were just going in kind of talking about even like your new album.

That just seems like so much more open-ended. And I also like it when the interviewe has to do a little work for the interview. That's a secret. Yes. Okay. Yeah, they might be a little bit more invested if they took the 10 minutes to write down, or think about the songs that meant the most of them, you know, like when they were 10 years old. So that's a little secret, another editor tip.

But, yeah, no, I wasn't that. I was probably a little bit intimidated, but trying to think back. to it. He was pretty cool about it. I don't remember him being mean or anything. He was actually reading that interview back. He was more open than I think I would assume he would be talking about his childhood. I don't think he's, I'm sure he's talked about it a little bit here and there, but it's not something he's talking about in every interview. All the time. Right. Right. So yeah, he was, he was okay, but I feel like he put me at ease. Like it was in person, which is also nice.

You're just like, it's harder to be cantankerous when there's this, you know, nerd with a tape recorder three feet away from you, who's, you know, clearly hanging on your every word. So I think that must be ingratiating to these artists. I would hope so. Sure. I would hope so.

But, yeah, there was one, he was in a leather jacket. It was, you know, probably a morning, some morning on the Lower East Side and some pretty nice hotel. And he was in the leather jacket, can of Coke. And he had his iPhone. And I do remember the iPhone had this like, you know, discrete crack like on the top, right? And it just felt like he bought it that way. You know, like, Britt Daniel. Oh, we got it used.

Okay. Yeah. Or you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Or I just, I just can't imagine like Britt Daniel, like giving a shit about. you know his iPhone screen like that would be it's very cool very cool yeah exactly yeah did you wear a fitted shirt to your interview what I don't even think I knew what a fit a shirt like how to acquire one at that time they didn't have those in New York City uh in the late

2000s yeah I remember I was there but I probably did wear a I would I would guess I wore a button up and, you know, clean trousers. Sure. I'm sure he remembers you as fondly as you remember him. Yeah, definitely. Didn't want to look like a slub in front of Daniel. Nobody does. Ryan, this has been wonderful.

Thank you so much for talking. Yeah, thank you. Thanks very much to our guests this week, Ryan Dombel. Thanks to our producers, Juliana Ress, Justin Sales, Olivia Creary, and Chris Sutton. animations and graphics by Chris Callaton. And special thanks to Cole Kuchner. And thanks to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to the underdog by Spoon.

See you next week. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk. 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.