Spoon- What do you think?

Girls Can Tell is still good. It's the only one of theirs I can listen to all the way through.

Kill The Moonlight is half good, half annoying. I've listened to it 20-30 times, and I still keep coming to that same conclusion.

The latest two albums did nothing for me.

You know what's great about Ga Ga Ga? The track order. I just can't enjoy those songs very much by themselves or in any other sequence, but the album as a whole comes together brilliantly every time I listen. "Finer Feelings" and "Black Like Me" especially benefit from the accumulation of whatever it is that accumulates when you experience the full album.

I think they're pretty much one of the best rock bands making music these days. Speaking about "Band X" (I really don't remember who we were talking about), a friend commented that they were "saving rock n' roll;" I replied that rock n' roll didn't need saving--we have Spoon. Hyperbolic, sure, but I do love them to death. They're also exceptionally tight live.

As far as albums, I'm really partial to A Series of Sneaks, though Kill the Moonlight may be my favorite. Gimme Fiction is exceptional in places, but as an album I find the parts are greater than the whole. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (or 5Ga's for short) is great.

Last time they came around they had The Walkmen opening. It's a shame I missed it because it's not often that you get two amazing bands like that on the same bill.

I think Ga (x5) is a great rock and roll album; I've never thought of it as "arty," in fact I love how accessible it is. Approx. once every other week "I Turn My Camera On" from Gimme Fiction comes up on the ipod shuffle and it pwns me for 2-3 days, I walk around singing/humming it until my wife threatens to shoot me in the face. Love.

Gimme Fiction is hit and miss, but Spoon is excellent, particularly Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. They're one of those bands that's so good they almost fade into the background while the other buzz bands come and go. In that sense, I think they're sort of similar to The Flaming Lips.

I love Spoon. Girls Can Tell and Kill the Moonlight are my faves. A Series of Sneaks is under appreciated, too. Gimme Friction isn't my favorite, but I liked Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. They've never really made a bad album, and that's pretty commendable.

They were a little disappointing live, though. I've heard they have a good live reputation. Maybe I caught an off performance.

Spoon and the Lips are also similar to the extent that i need to download more by each but they are definitely both pick-and-choose as opposed to "entire catalog" bands.

I don't know. Lips are more pick and choose then Spoon, if you ask me. Again, I don't think Spoon has made a single bad record...not even their earlier stuff, which was more influenced by Gang of Four and Wire. I can't say the same thing about the Lips. Some of their early stuff is brutal. Some of their later stuff is brutal.

Yeah, I find Spoon way more consistent. The last Lips album was a slap in the face after the Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi.

I don't think Spoon's a band that I'll ever got obsessed with, but they're so reliable. Even Gimme Fiction, which didn't thrill me when it came out, has some songs that really grew on me after a while.

I've heard great things about this band, but I don't know if I've heard anything from them. What would be the best entrypoint album of theirs to try out?

Oddly enough, I'd go with their most recent (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga). It's their most accessible, but also highlights what makes them unique. All of their albums sound like them, with variations. Kill the Moonlight is much more stripped down. Girls Can Tell is probably their best produced. Gimmie Friction is their most "rock n' roll." A Series of Sneaks is a bit punkier. So, anyway I'd say work backwards and start with GaX5.

They're pretty consistent, but I'd go with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or Kill the Moonlight first, if only because they're good examples of what the band sounds like now. Girls Can Tell would also be a fine choice, but they've moved away from that sound just a little.

I was a little underwhelmed by their live show, too. Despite the fact that they sounded fantastic, they were very much in their own world. The stage was almost totally dark and I don't think they talked to the audience once, which makes for a strange sort of show-going experience. But they certainly were tight.

As I went to UT with Britt Daniel and Jim Eno (though I never shared classes with them), I've been seeing Spoon live and buying their records for (HOLY SHIT) 16 years or so now. RE: live shows, yeah, they're definitely hit or miss, but in the many times I've seen them, the ratio definitely favors the hits.

Wire and Gang of Four were mentioned, but Britt's earliest incarnation of Spoon was most heavily influenced by the Pixies and PJ Harvey. Britt used to play an acoustic-electric and wear black Ray Bans every time they played live - he was really going for the Black Francis look and sound. They also used to have a female bassist singing harmonies and a second guitarist (who left to join 16 Deluxe...good move, Wendell!). Listen to the stop-start rhythms and barking/yelping vocal ticks on the Nefarious EP and Telephono, and it's really, really obvious that he's fusing PJ and the Pixies at this point.

Once he learned to sublimate all of his influences and write for himself, Britt turned Spoon into something really special. From "A Series of Sneaks" on, I think they've just gotten better and better.

Girls Can Tell remains my favorite Spoon album, partially because the lyrics seem to be the most personal and direct that Britt's ever written, and he name checks Austin landmarks (The Back Room (heavy-metal dive bar/venue) and The Sound Exchange (a long gone, much missed indie record store)), and because the entire album is just catchy as hell.

Spoon mini-anecdote which would have been perfect for last week: In April of 1994, maybe a few days after Kurt Cobain killed himself, I went to a tiny warehouse party/show hosted by the UT student radio station, KVRX. Spoon were the headliners. There was no stage, they played right in the middle of the concrete floor. There were maybe 100 people there. Britt wanted the band to play "Come As You Are" in tribute to Kurt, and started in on the song, but nobody else knew how to play it. He was pretty visibly bummed and disappointed in his band mates. They went on to play a great set anyway.

They're a contender for my all-time favorite band, with the likes of Talking Heads, Bedhead, Yo La Tengo, Built to Spill, Faith No More, and Soul Coughing kicking around the top 10 and constantly changing positions over the years. Love 'em.

What, are you looking for vinyl? It's on iTunes.

Hard to find, really? It's not like it's out of print or anything. Weird.