Gimme Stardom
Spoon shoots for success (again)
Why isn’t Britt Daniel a rock star?
He’s made critically lauded and accessible music for 10 years. He has a recognizable look - messy, blond hair and a light scowl - and a smoky (if not a little congested), instantly identifiable voice. In short, he has the trappings of celebrity.
But, he isn’t a rock star. First off, he gets up early - one Thursday morning, his alarm was set for the very not rock star hour of 8:15. He drops influences like Wire, Public Image, Ltd, and Julian Cope in interviews. He lives in Austin, Texas, far from the maddening crowds of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or London. The press isn’t in the know about his dating life, though he says “there are some songs about relationships” on his band Spoon’s new record, Gimme Fiction.
Gimmie Fiction, according to Daniel, was supposed to be a dance record. Maybe that would have garnered him some fame. He could have hopped on the bandwagon with Franz Ferdinand and the Rapture. His bandmates, including no-frills drummer Jim Eno, the only other original member of Spoon, were on board. But Gimme Fiction is no dance record. “The songs just didn’t come to me that way,” says Daniel. Instead, he emerged from Eno’s backyard studio with a collection of diverse songs that, when sung through his phlegmy croon, could only have been recorded by Spoon.
Gimme Fiction continues an arc begun on Spoon’s last and most successful recording to date, 2002’s Kill the Moonlight (80,000 copies sold). Released a year-and-a-half after Girls Can Tell - a masterpiece of updated ’60s pop - Moonlight swerves into moments of art rock, especially on the track “Stay Don’t Go,” which uses a beat-boxed loop as its only instrumentation. The new album takes things a step further. The slow-building opener, “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” begins with a solemn bassline and piano figure before moving to a lead-footed beat that essentially welcomes listeners into Daniel’s world. The danceable first single, “I Turn My Camera On,” is Daniel’s falsetto over staccato bass and drums. “The Infinite Pet” improves on the hollow electronic sound of Moonlight’s “Paper Tiger.” It winds into an extended jam of bass, drums, Daniel’s whimper and a synth tone similar to a plane taking off.
The ordering of Gimme Fiction was labored over by Daniel, who puts a lot of thought into the process. He explains that it’s easier to work with songs that have a lot of variety than it is when all the tracks have a similar backbone, like Girls Can Tell. “I also like the kind of records that have the same sound all the way through,” comparing the new record to his older work. “Like an early Cure record would do. There’s something to be said for both.”
Regardless of the diversity in the track list, there is one constant to Daniel’s songs: Spoon’s music is imbued with a reverence to soul and R&B beneath the surface of straightforward pop and artsy experimentation. His work has all the heart-on-sleeve swagger of Prince and Marvin Gaye - two major influences on the last two Spoon records. That soulful backbone allows Daniel the freedom to run between piano-driven melodies, stuttering guitars, beat-boxing or whatever comes into his head without losing hold of his fan base.
“Maybe the soul part is the more universal part,” says Daniel, musing on that theory.
Perhaps this time out, the universe will be listening. Gimme Fiction has sold 20,000 copies in its first week and it cracked the top 50 on the Billboard albums chart, Spoon’s first ever appearance on it. That early success hints that the antihero Britt Daniel could become the star he should be. Finally.