{"id":1025,"date":"2009-12-23T07:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T15:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/congratulating-spoon-alas.html"},"modified":"2009-12-23T07:57:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T15:57:00","slug":"congratulating-spoon-alas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/congratulating-spoon-alas.html","title":{"rendered":"Congratulating Spoon — Alas"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIRST of all, I’m awfully pleased that one of my favorite working bands — the Austin\/ Portland combo Spoon<\/a> — has been voted the decade’s best indie rock band, American division, by the readers of The Misread City. More proof that my Steve McQueen\/ ’59 Miles Davis\/ Audrey Hepburn- digging followers have great taste. (And an incredibly retro sensibility, but maybe that is my fault.)<\/p>\n

For this indie\u00a0list, I tried to concentrate on groups that were of the 21st century rather than ’90s bands that held on. I included Sleater-Kinney, because of a very strong Indian summer, but left off some of my favorites, like Built to Spill and Yo La Tengo. And while Spoon began in the ’90s, and put out at least one good record before the turn of\u00a0the century, the winning streak that began with 2001’s “Girls Can Tell” has made them the most consistently exciting indie band\u00a0of the period. They’re also\u00a0a sharp, focussed, driven live band, and they no longer remind me unduly of\u00a0their influences — Pixies, Wire, Revolver-era Beatles.<\/p>\n

Some of their best songs:\u00a0“Rhythm and Soul,” “Don’t Make\u00a0Me a Target,” “Sister Jack.”\u00a0Here<\/a> is the atypical\u00a0tune “I Turn My Camera On,” which still has their characteristic mix of minimalism and\u00a0rhythm. And here<\/a> is the sly, funky “Don’t You Evah,” with a more typical nasal Britt Daniel vocal.<\/p>\n

So I’ve already said I love this band., and I can’t wait to hear their next LP, “Transference,” which comes out in mid-January. (Here<\/a> is Sunday’s NYT piece, not by me.)<\/p>\n

But there’s also something a bit deflating about Spoon being the decade’s winner. This is a modest group that does something very specific and\u00a0often low-key. Compared to the greatest Amerindie bands of the 90s — Pavement, Guided by Voices, Yo La Tengo, etc. — they are stylistically conservative. Compare them to 80s indie — Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Replacements — they seem unambitious. <\/p>\n

I won’t blame Spoon for this — they are\u00a0a kickass group and keep getting better. But it makes me wonder if indie has lost its ability to innovate, to surprise us. Another of decade’s most celebrated bands, The Strokes, sounds to me like a pedestrian pastiche, and groups that I was once excited about — Interpol, for instance, the Shins, the Decemberists — haven’t really gone anywhere.<\/p>\n

We’re a long way from indie rock being a dead language, but it has certainly become a constricting one. Here’s hoping that the 2010s show a group\u00a0or movement arriving to open it up a bit.\u00a0Two of my runners up — TV on the Radio, with their baffling blend of Eno, dub and hip hop — and Wilco, with a commitment to a personal vision — may show the way forward.<\/p>\n

Until then, I”ll be blasting “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Photo credit: Merge Records<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIRST of all, I’m awfully pleased that one of my favorite working bands — the Austin\/ Portland combo Spoon — has been voted the decade’s best indie rock band, American division, by the readers of The Misread City. More proof that my Steve McQueen\/ ’59 Miles Davis\/ Audrey Hepburn- digging followers have great taste. (And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[342,40,115,146,343],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-austin","7":"category-indie","8":"category-ought-nostalgia","9":"category-portland","10":"category-spoon","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}