Spoon: How'd they slip by me?

Every once in a while you find a band that has somehow slid under your radar. I ran into this phenomenon, which certainly is familiar to some of you, a few months ago. The band’s name is “Spoon”. And I’m sure that many of you out there right now are saying, “How had this dude never heard of Spoon before?” Well that is exactly what I am getting at.

Check out Spoon (if you haven't already)

How I never heard of Spoon until last fall is beyond me. They are a pretty well established indie-rock band. They started to pop-up on a Pandora station that I created, and I thought “hey, these guys sound pretty good”. So I went down to Strictly Discs, a local record store, and picked up “Gimme Fiction”, an album they put out in ’05 (which debuted @ #44 in the U.S. Billboard 200). What a fantastic album! The first two thirds of it in particular blew me away.





Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to go right back down to the store and grab “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”, their offering from 2007 (debuted @ # 10). This CD is equally, if not more impressive than the previous one. The more I looked into Spoon, the more surprised I was that I’d never heard of them. They have been around since the mid ‘90’s and have released a number of generally well received albums.

So I guess I am getting at two things here. Firstly, if somehow you are like me and have let Spoon slip by you, definitely check out their last couple albums, they will rock your socks off. And secondly, there is always more great music out there to be discovered, whether it be the no-name trio playing down @ your favorite bar this weekend or the band that has somehow been rocking for years without you knowing about them.




I find it interesting when I look through my music collection. I have CD’s from some bands that can fill up Alpine Valley in one minute, and I have others from some bands that probably wouldn’t fill up a local coffee shop. It just makes me wonder…how much wonderful music is out there that I’ve never been in earshot of?? Well, I think that the answer is “a lot”! And I guess that is the whole spirit of Top Shelf Audio Daily; to help provide answers to that question. So if Spoon turns out to be your next great discovery (which I’m certain they will be if you’ve never listened) excellent! And if not, maybe you’ll come across your Spoon tomorrow!

- ben