Blast from the Past: Spoon's Telephono

Who you listen to can help to define what type of social sphere you find yourself in. Beyond how good looking you are, what kind of car you drive, individual wealth, and athletic prowess, I doubt there is anything as important to your social status as the music you choose to listen to. I may be wrong in this assumption. But beyond which table in the cafeteria you sit at, musical influences can also have a heavy hand in the music your new band starts off playing. Take Spoon as an example. You know them now as a hugely successful indie band, who according their Wikipedia page have been featured on a lot TV shows (sorry I found that little tidbit odd and wanted to throw it in here somewhere), but before that Spoon were a Pixies aping, Wire loving young band that were just beginning to mold themselves out of what they personally listened to.

On their debut full length, 1996's Telephono, the band were often derided as a Pixies loving copycat. Rolling Stone went so far as to say "...Spoon molded that knowledge into their debut album, Telephono, which might have been better called Smells Like Doolittle.", ouch! Actually, that review goes on to applaud Spoon for taking a chance by copying an influence of Nirvana rather then copying Nirvana but it's not all too positive in the long run. Other reviews (almost everything I can find) either panned or hailed the album for the obvious influence the Pixies and Wire had on the band; and, if Telephono were to come out now it would probably be compared to Pavement at length like the re-issue was on Pitchfork. If you dig down a bit deeper, go past all the soft verses/loud choruses and sharp guitars, you can almost make out the shape of what Spoon was to become.

There is a definite mixing of the hard guitar sounds found in post-punk with a more melodic, pop approach all over Telephono. The subtle ways Britt will change melodies in a song with this quirk of his voice or that one, and the way the short songs manage to hook you after only one listen are all Spoon at their finest. They obviously went ahead and perfected this over time, but back then they were just trying to find their own voice amongst all the sounds they had heard over the years. It was this influence that turned them into what they were at the time, and it slowly shaped them in the long run as well.

Spoon's music has obviously changed over the years, moving from these energetic, short bursts of rock, to a more polished pop sound, but behind all the shine and polish there is definitely still an air of what they once were and who they once listened to. Their records still have small traces of Wire and the Pixies and even Pavement from time to time, but they no longer sound like copycats. Instead there are new bands that have been influenced by Spoon and are out their copying them and trying to develop their own sound. We can only hope that somewhere out there some Spoon sound-a-like is going to continue to grow and develop their sound as Spoon developed theirs.
Spoon - "Not Turning Off"
Spoon - "Cvantez"
Spoon - "Claws Tracking"
Spoon - "Wanted to Be Your"
Spoon - "Plastic Mylar"

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