Spoon: They Want My Soul

Spoon's 2010 album Transference was an oddball of an album. It seemed like a reaction to the easy catchiness of their previous effort, 2007's fantastic Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Transference zigged where you expected it to zag, and was full of unexpected stops and starts. It was well enough reviewed when it was initially released, but opinion seems to have turned on Transference since then, with many early reviews of Spoon's latest album, They Want My Soul, hailing it as a return to form for the band after a previous misstep. 
And while Transference wasn't bad, there's no denying that Soul takes after Ga Ga Go Ga Ga, with its catchy melodies and production sheen. There are plenty of similarities to be drawn between those two albums: they are mostly the same length (37 minutes vs. 36), the same number of songs (10), and once again Spoon displays the same knack for infectious songwriting.
The album kicks off with rocker "Rent I Pay," which comes out of the gate with a hard-hitting drumbeat courtesy of the great Jim Eno. It's followed by "Inside Out," which is full of empty space and seems content to just let its programmed beat and keyboards wash over you for five minutes. "Do You" is the obvious highlight, a song reminiscent of great Spoon singles of the past like "The Underdog" or" I Turn My Camera On" in its catchiness and in the immediate impact it makes on the listener.
And that's perhaps the most apt description for They Want My Soul: immediate. Following up an album that seemed almost a little too concerned with defying the expectations of the listener, Spoon has abandoned that approach for one that's closer to hitting the listener in the face and saying "hey look, a great Spoon song."
It's hard to believe Spoon has been doing this for nearly 20 years, and even harder to believe that, almost 20 years in, they've crafted one of their best albums to date. It's not quite Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or Kill the Moonlight, but it certainly belongs in the discussion.
Grade: A

The Radio Is Irrelevant

Earlier this week, I was on YouTube, listening to a song that had been popular a few years back, “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects. (This is not something I’d normally be listening to, it just got in my head that day… anyway…) The top comment for the song struck me as odd. It said “I love this song! I miss hearing it all the time!” 

Clearly he or she was referring to the days when the All-American Rejects were extremely popular on the radio. The main reason I found this comment odd is because this person was listening to this song on YouTube, which means he or she can, in fact, hear it all the time. It’s on the internet! For free! You can hear it as much or as little as you like!

This brings me to my topic, the irrelevance of the radio. Radio stations were once the only way of discovering new artists, or really of hearing any music that you or your friends did not own. Being played on the radio was once the goal of any artist hoping to become popular and grow an audience. However, so much has changed today that this is no longer imperative, or even important, for a new artist.

     Take, for example, High Violet, a 2010 album by The National. The National, for those unaware, are a highly critically praised indie rock band, known for sad songs and their frontman’s deep baritone. Hardly Top 40 fare. Yet High Violet debuted on the Billboard 100 at #3, shattering their previous highest place on the chart by 63 places.

     In the past, success of an album largely hinged on the strength of its radio singles. So how did the singles for High Violet do? Well, the only single from High Violet was “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” released four months before the album. “Bloodbuzz Ohio’s” highest position on the charts? Sixteenth, and that was in Belgium. The song failed to chart at all in the United States, getting little airplay even from rock stations.

     So how to account for the increased sales of High Violet? Start with the fact that “Bloodbuzz Ohio” was available for months before the release of the album on iTunes, YouTube, Pandora, The National’s own website, and a myriad of other online music sites. It received positive reviews from online music reviewers, being voted “best new music” by indie heavyweights Pitchfork Media. This positive press, coupled with the widespread availability of the song, was the most significant factor in High Violet’s sales.

     The internet is what has changed all of this. There are now so many different ways of hearing a new song or album that the radio is just not nearly as important as it used to be. These days when a band comes out with a new song, they generally post it to their website. Soon a video is posted to YouTube, and the song goes up for sale on iTunes and for streaming on Spotify. This is the way most people now find out about new music, and all these people have already heard the song before radio stations even get hold of it.

So we don’t need the radio for music discovery anymore. What does that leave? Radio stations are now most played in cars and in stores. Yet even this is declining. Many cars now come with Sirius radio, which is more split up by genre, and stores have access to Sirius as well as Pandora. The majority of cars now also come with a hookup for an iPod, or a CD player at the very least.   

The radio will likely always be used by people who want to hear some tunes on the way back from work, and don’t really care what they are. But for those serious about music, there are a host of more viable, and more convenient, options for discovering and hearing music. So, to the person who commented on that YouTube video, never fear. You can listen to “Move Along” any time you want.