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Spoon

Girls Can Tell

Merge | 2001 | Album

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The album’s title, “Girls Can Tell,” doesn’t refer to one of the songs: it refers to all of them. As unconventional as the sound, this pleasant change is just one demonstration of the difference between Spoon and other prepackaged indie-rockers to lazy to come up with an all encompassing title or their own sound. Spoon falls victim to neither indie trap, perhaps because it took them so long to find their own label that they managed to codify their sound before an industry producer cleaned it up to make sure it sounded like Modest Mouse.

“Everything Hits at Once” combines a solid percussion base that works as a foundation for guitar chords (take note: they use more than three) and a raspy vocals declaring “In traffic we become on the way back home/ part of something bigger than our own.” The longing is tangible and everything comes together in this song and makes it hit all at once and all day long after you’re done listening. In “Anything You Want” a keyboard practically does harmony as the same solid percussions back up guitar riffs and vocals that have something to say. The last track on the album, “Chicago at Night,” has a sadder sound than some of the other songs as Spoon croons “Everybody’s at disadvantage/speaking with their second language,” but you get the feeling that music is Spoon’s first language.

Spoon can tell you more about girls than most bands out there, and more about how to make good music than almost all bands out there. This is the kind of album with songs that stand on their own and work together well enough that you’ll always want to hear them in context, or at least hear more than one after you’ve heard the first. You’ll want everything, all at once.

Glenna Gordon