Spoon: Coming soon

THEY DO
THEY DO

Some of my favourite ever songs sound like they come from the soundtrack to coming of age movies.

Songs such as Pretty in Pink by the Psychedelic Furs, the theme to the John Hughes ’80s classic starring Molly Ringwald. Or New Slang by The Shins, from the Zach Braff-directed Garden State, in which Natalie Portman’s character plops a pair of headphones on Zach’s ears and says, “This song will change your life”.

Foster the People have a song like that, actually called Coming of Age which, although I don’t think it appears on a film as yet, sounds like it should.

Some bands have a knack for writing songs that can send you on an emotional ride in the space of a few bars, setting your soul adrift like a kite on the breeze, reminding you of the exciting or moving moments of life.

One band that does that is Spoon, from Austin, Texas. Tracks such as Do You from their latest album They Want My Soul will make you feel like you’ve been listening to that song since you were a teenager.

Ahead of their visit to Brisbane this week, I asked singer Britt Daniel what kind of film a Spoon film would be.

“I’d like it to be dark and dramatic, with some black humour,” he said. “And maybe some juvenile humour as well.”

The talented bunch have been one of the most highly praised bands ever – even being named by website Metacritic as Artist of the Decade for being the best reviewed band of the 2000s.

I’m not alone in my love of them. Fellow Courier-Mail scribe Noel Mengel put They Want My Soul in his top 10 albums of 2014.

They’re playing Brisbane on Tuesday night at The Hi-Fi and it’s a gig you shouldn’t miss. Definitely worth adding to the soundtrack to your life.

While we might remember our favourite films, it’s the songs that really get stuck in our heads.

“Music works in a singular way that no other medium does,” muses Daniel. “I would guess that it has a more direct tie to our emotions than a visual medium.

“But it’s weird because visual mediums always seem to trump the audio medium. If you have the two going at the same time, the video of what you’re seeing is probably going to lead and the music is sort of the undercurrent that might get to you without you knowing it.”

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply