The 2000's are over. It was decade more mired by displacement than status. The internet thrived, and took over most if not all facets of modern culture, contorting and distorting anything and everything in music, films, news, politics, and so on. What emerged, however, despite the collapse of the record industry and print media, was music in itself.The 2000's don't have a definite image because life has never been more expansive and all-encompassing. Every day is more vibrant, explosive and meaningful than the last, and we experienced it on levels that we cannot even fathom. So to look at music for the past nine years and 362 days and what sticks is not one thing, but everything.
So where are we then? Is it completely possible with the motions of music today that 2010-2019 is going to be a mirror image of 2000-2009? Yes and no. It's hard to say that if there was nothing definite about the 2000's that there will be something definite about the 2010's. Then again, with the speed and unpredictability of culture that we've witnessed in past several years, how anything from this point on can resemble something in the past would be nothing short of remarkable.
What we have to remember the decade is, in itself, nothing short of remarkable on its own merits. After the mass arrival of MP3 technology no individual genre thrived on unprecedented levels. Indeed, many facets of the music, while not as popular as others, began to grow on a more even playing field. What used to be referred to as underground in the 80's and 90's doesn't entail the same meaning anymore. Aside from your town's local talent show band, underground and in many ways "indie" music doesn't mean the same thing anymore.
The definition, gone from bands working to promote themselves and publishing their own records, has become artists who aren't as popular as others but are just as good, if not better. Of the ten albums I put on this list, only one hit number one on the Billboard charts. Is any coincidence that it is also the oldest album on the list? See for yourself.
#10: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Spoon
2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is a maturity extension of Spoon. The wry witticism lead singer Britt Daniel made popular on Girls Can Tell and Kill the Moonlight is cleaner and more coherent on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga than on any of the band's previous albums, and yet the subtle variations that are prevalent on each new album are still apparent here. In "Finer Feelings," Daniel expects "I'll find a love/One that's gonna change my heart," leading into a drippy atmospheric spasm of echoing electro-filler. Much of that first two minutes is what really settles and describes Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga -- its minimal drums and guitars helping Daniel plead and understand, and then the sounds float into the quiet ether. The experimentation, as is with most of the Austin, Texas band's records, isn't overwhelming - it's a careful groove the band has been smart enough to settle in without making themselves loose and careless. Carefulness, here, may make more sense than any other description of the band's work. Every tambourine hit, xylophone cling, hand clap and bruising horn isn't what brings the listener in; it keeps them listening.
If, indeed, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, could be deemed Spoon's masterwork, what separates itself from the aforementioned Kill the Moonlight should be a little more clear. The latter album equates to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's predecessor more than the their elaborate 2005 album Gimme Friction; the sounds are simpler and more decisive, utilizing saloon-piano and acoustic harmonies with minimal electronics to hone in on Daniel's quelling lyrics. But foremost, it's indie-pop in it's more clean element - clean and sharply produced, with experienced and crisp craftsmanship guiding it. Each of those forces is prevalent in the former album, but with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga the quiet tremble is missing. As clean and polished as it is, the album can boast its triumphs - particularly on "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," "The Underdog" and "Black Like Me" - that soar and revel any of the band's best work. "Cherry Bomb" and "The Underdog" are achingly appropriate pop anthems for a band that had, more or less, trouble finding accessible tracks on a multitude of levels. "Black Like Me," is band's most solemn moment, with Daniel recounting that "I believed that'd someone take care of me tonight," over and over until the track breaks into the dusk.
A Series of Snakes, Kill the Moonlight, Girls Can Tell and Gimme Friction, all of Spoon's memorable albums released prior to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, are minimal progressions to the band's ultimate achievement. They experiment and polish what makes the group such quiet perfectionists. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is what we get when those elements are all brought together in a terrific blend, combining Daniel's man-in-the-corner aesthetics and observations with the pristine sounds standing in the back. But more than anything else, it doesn't rely on those quiet, blissful bench-marks that made the band popular. It still uses them though, and better than ever.
Spoon - The Underdog
Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
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