Spoon will release their 9th studio album, “Hot Thoughts”, on March 17 2017, on Matador Records.

This is what you could call a premature evaluation of an album I have not heard yet but I’m almost positive I will like. Now, I know this sounds jaded and dumb as fuck BUT just read me out.

The first and quite possibly most important question. Have Spoon ever released a bad album, (yet)?. I’m being serious. I think this is a legitimate question.

Let’s go backwards from their last album and think a little bit about this:

  • 2014 – “They Want My Soul” was amazing and it just gets better with each listen. Standout tracks like ‘outlier’, ‘rainy taxi’, ‘inside out’, ‘rent I pay’, ‘do you’, ‘they want my soul’, ok ok the whole fucking album was great.
  • 2010 – “Transference” has aged great. For an album that some critics and so called fans had deemed meh, this one has “gotten” better with time or maybe people finally get it. Or something. Still a stellar album.
  • 2007 – “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” From the politically charged opener ‘Don’t Make Me A Target’ to the (almost/r.e.m like) perfect pop song ‘Black Like Me’ this is album is as close to perfect pop/rock n’ roll as it comes. Including massive crossover hit ‘The Underdog’.
  • 2005 – “Gimme Fiction” the continuation of great and masterful, (r.e.m. like), albums. This one still with Merge Records saw them releasing an LP with such amazing cuts like. ‘I Turn My Camera On’
  • 2002 – “Kill The Moonlight” this album is as close to a masterpiece of a pop album being released last decade as you can get. Seriously, from opening track ‘Small Stakes’ –> ‘The Way We Get By’ –> ‘Stay Don’t Go’ –> ‘Jonathon Fisk’ –> ‘Paper Tiger’, (that’s only half the album!!). This album one day will be marked as influential. At least to me it was.
  • 2001 – “Girls Can Tell” their debut at Merge  Records after the cluster fuck that was being at Elektra. It’s a very solid album. You can hear in it the footprints for what was to come in the next couple of albums. Standout tracks like ‘Everything Hits At Once’, ‘Believing Is Art’, ‘1020 am’.
  • 1998 – “Series Of Sneaks” this is the album before the clusterfuck that was their departure from their old label. It’s a what could’ve happened had they not divorced from their label in the way that they did.
  • 1996 – “Telephono” their debut album released on Matador Records.

Now, historically, as you can see they have not released a bad album, (yet). And we’re excited to listen to what seems to be another great album AND their return to their original major label 20 years later. Two decades in the making is their return to Matador Records.

By all accounts you can listen to all the work Britt Daniel has done and he has a knack for writing a great pop song. The one thing to note is that the unsung hero of the band just might be Jim Eno. His drumming might just be the perfect compliment to Britt’s singing. The music they make is almost mathematical and minimalist while being pop (music) at the same time.

If you’ve had the opportunity to listen to their lead single ‘Hot Thoughts’ then there’s a very good chance that you already noticed a likeness to something circa “Gimme Fiction’ or even ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’. Now i’m not asking for a repeat of either album, and I certainly doubt they would even release something like that again, but I am anticipating a return of sorts to catchy hooks and fragmented verses.