Spoon Albums Ranked

Spoon is an American indie rock band from Austin, Texas, formed in 1993. The band is the brainchild of Britt Daniel (vocals, guitar) and Jim Eno (drums) and has seen many lineup changes throughout its history. Alex Fischel (keyboards, guitar) and Gerardo Larios (guitar, keyboards) are also currently members of the band. Critics have described the band’s musical style as indie rock, indie pop, art rock, and experimental rock. Spoon released their debut studio album, Telephono, in 1996 through Matador Records. Their next full-length album, A Series of Sneaks, was released in 1998 through Elektra Records. The band subsequently signed with Merge Records, where Spoon achieved greater commercial and critical prominence with the albums Girls Can Tell (2001), Kill the Moonlight (2002), Gimme Fiction (2005), Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007), and Transference (2010). They signed with Loma Vista Recordings and ANTI- for the release of They Want My Soul (2014). The band later returned to Matador to release their ninth album, Hot Thoughts (2017). Here are all of Spoon’s albums ranked.

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10. Everything Hits At Once: The Best Of Spoon, 2019

“Spoon is one of the most consistent bands like, ever, and their albums are incredible adventures on their own. Seriously, from Girls Can Tell, you can pick an album at random and will be hard pressed to find a track or two that isn’t good. This ends up a Greatest Hits of Greatest Hits deal — select commercial/trailer-friendlier stuff from their already insanely compelling discography. And, not a unique problem, but a compilation will never explain how interesting Transference or Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or Gimme Fiction are as album experiences. I mean, Transference works (and works so well) because it’s a 40 some minute chunk of interesting, spooky noise.”

9. Telephono, 1996

“I expected this album to be complete crap, a sort of a novelty album that the label decided to re-issue after Spoon became good. But this is great from front to back, one of Spoon’s best. There’s a sense of style and a raw energy that permeates throughout. It sounds nothing like Spoon, there’s nothing minimalistic about it, in fact it’s pretty grungy. But Spoon clearly had talent from the beginning.”

8. A Series Of Sneaks, 1998

“Spoon had spent four plus years prior to this — their major label debut (*) — trying really, really hard to sound like the Pixies. I didn’t like it. Magically, Brett discovered that his naturally distinctive rasp was enough and that maybe they could forge their own rhythmic strain of rock instead. A Series of Sneaks is the beginning of that, retaining the only good thing they had during their Pixies fixation — the scrappiness. It’s a weird halfway point, and a good one at that.”

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7. Transference, 2010

“Transference, like other notable works by Spoon, is not an instant sit-up-and-grab-you-by-the-balls record full of killer songs and sure-fire chartbusters. In fact, more so than almost all of their recent output, Transference is a work that seems to be unfinished in many ways; songs end abruptly, vocal lines seem to get chewed up as though they were being looped through William Basinski’s tape deck and some songs move abruptly into new tempos and moods. But it is exactly this, the things that are missing, the fractured indecisiveness that makes the record such a rewarding listen, and by the time you know the record inside out you find it is the moments that aren’t there which you find yourself looking forward to the most, all of them no doubt took away by clever programming and studio trickery.”

6. Girls Can Tell, 2001

“This album is great for listening to in the early evening, when the sun has already gone down below the horizon, but it’s streaks of light still dash across the sky. Ideally you start it then, and it finishes when all light has faded and you have only the moon and city lights to guide you. It’s got more variety in the different moods than I think a lot of people give it credit for; they just hear some same-y instrumentation and declare all Spoon songs sound the same on this album, and the several that follow. These are the same people that seem to think all albums must have crazy experimentation and break boundaries to be enjoyed. What’s wrong with something more straight ahead?”

5. Hot Thoughts, 2017

“Hot Thoughts shows that the men of Spoon were as devastated by the deaths of Prince and David Bowie in early 2016 as anyone else, or at least that they had legendary records by those two artists a bit farther to the front of their minds. Bowie doesn’t get name-checked that often in Spoon reviews, but the Prince influence has been clear since the beginning and occasionally made obvious in classics like I Turn My Camera On. Their 9th album makes it explicit again in the first moments of the title track and first single, a taut, sexual dance-rock banger that’s an instant addition to Spoon’s all-time greats.”

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4. Gimme Fiction, 2005

“Gimme Fiction is arguably Spoon’s strongest effort, to date. There is a variety of styles found throughout the songs that are, for the most part, very accessible. The production was solid for the entire album, especially in some of the higher-tempo songs. This album is exciting, and it feels like Spoon’s most energetic release since Telephono.”

3. Kill The Moonlight, 2002

“This is a nice album, but there’s really nothing here that’s exceptionally good or anything. Songs like “Don’t Let It Get You Down” are pretty cool, to be sure, but like I said they aren’t amazing either. Spoon in general isn’t a band that I really love (I feel this way about a lot of the mid-00s indie bands that weren’t part of the top tier), so I guess nothing here should be that surprising.”

2. They Want My Soul, 2014

“This album makes me want to check out their back catalog so it definitely succeeds for me on a personal level. Even though it doesn’t really blow me away, I can’t help but appreciate their uncluttered straightforward approach towards pop / rock. It’s easy listening and sometimes that’s a good thing.”

1. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, 2007

“I love the ambience of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga — Spoon throws in found sound everywhere, inside songs and in-between songs. Random, unknown entities murmur and walk around, doing whatever they please as the record continues unabated. It feels like a haunted house, with peak “The Ghost of You Lingers” hammering out the same few keys on a piano with a horror movie like insistence. It lends the album its own distinct feel from the other Spoon albums, something that runs counter to what a lot Spoon detractors (including some of my RYM friends!) claim as their biggest general failing: that they basically write the same album over and over again. They do not, buddies.”