In the summer of 2014, I went to Chipotle with Britt Daniel. I was in New York for the week, working on various Stereogum projects, one of which was a cover story about Spoon’s new album They Want My Soul, which came out 10 years ago today. Daniel was in town to do press, and the plan was to meet him for lunch somewhere to discuss this new era of Spoon. His publicist asked if I had any suggestions about where to eat because “if we leave it up to britt you’ll end up at chipotle.” After a smiley face, in parentheses, she added, “he looooves chipotle.” I thought this was a delightful revelation, so I made Chipotle a big part of my feature, even putting the food chain’s name in the headline. Only years afterward did I realize that doing so made the story look like sponcon. All so I could spotlight my scoop that Britt Daniel orders chicken soft tacos with mild salsa, cheese, and a side of guac.
In those days, Spoon were in the midst of a reboot. They hadn’t released an album since 2010’s Transference, a dark and evasive future cult classic that put a stop to their streak as can’t-miss indie-rock hit-makers. In the interim, Daniel had joined up with Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner and New Bomb Turks’ Sam Brown in the supergroup Divine Fits, a project that seemed to rejuvenate him creatively and threatened to take over as Daniel’s main band going forward. Ultimately, Divine Fits proved to be a one-off, and the band’s touring keyboardist Alex Fischel joined Spoon — another in a long list of lineup changes that have helped to subtly shift Spoon’s dynamic despite the rock-hard consistency supplied by the core duo of Daniel and drummer Jim Eno. Daniel returned from Divine Fits rejuvenated, excited to make new music with Spoon for a new label home, Loma Vista.
Along with a new era came new producers. The band recorded its legendary run of Girls Can Tell, Kill The Moonlight, Gimme Fiction, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga with their Austin colleague Mike McCarthy, then opted to produce Transference themselves. This time they started by logging hours at LA’s famed Sunset Sound with Joe Chiccarelli, an arrangement that never quite clicked. Spoon left Sunset Sound with half an album, but rather than return for planned sessions to knock out the rest, they pivoted. Dave Fridmann, the sonic wizard known for helming blown-out albums by the Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney, and others, was scheduled to mix the LP, and Spoon thought it might be cool to have him produce the rest of the tracklist.
The end result was an album fans received as not just a return to form but a contender for Spoon’s best. After a few years wandering in the wilderness, They Want My Soul was the platonic ideal of a Spoon LP, striking the band’s signature balance of pop acumen, rock ‘n’ roll grit, and experimental flair. The album title and cover art were vaguely ominous, and Spoon teased their return with social media posts reading “RIP,” but the spooky branding masked one of the brightest, most outgoing albums in Spoon’s catalog.
“RIP” turned out to be an acronym for lead single “Rent I Pay,” a hulked-out take on Spoon’s signature sound blessed by Fridmann’s audio creatine. Tunes like the propulsive title track, the shuffling “Let Me Be Mine,” and the doo-doo-doo ditty “Do You?” and were pure pop pleasures. The Girls Can Tell throwback “Rainy Taxi,” with its rock-solid bassline and tambourine shakes, was a reminder that even a shadowy Spoon track can be wildly infectious. And as Daniel told me over lunch, “Even the songs that are a bit more experimental, like say ‘Inside Out’ or ‘Knock Knock Knock,’ are still bigger-sounding experimental as opposed to introverted experimental.”
It’s true: As had been the band’s modus operandi for years, even when they were pushing the boundary of what a Spoon song could be, they rooted it in hooks and grooves that would connect with listeners regardless of the window dressing. “Outlier” lived up to its name with a rolling dance-rock beat and eerie synth bursts that made it sound like a video game’s home screen — a foreign sound for Spoon, but one that slid neatly into their oeuvre, setting the stage for 2017’s Hot Thoughts. The bones of “Knock Knock Knock” could just have easily been converted into a breathless rocker like “Jonathon Fisk” (a holy roller character from Kill The Moonlight who resurfaced on “They Want My Soul”), but instead it was engulfed by a swirling weather pattern of whistling melodies, backwards keyboards, and guitar noise.
Perhaps fittingly, the album’s most experimental song has also become its most enduring. Daniel has often spoken about how Dr. Dre’s 2001 influenced the creation of “Inside Out,” a piano-pop tune that seems to float through dream space. It comes off less like hip-hop than downtempo electronica to be slotted into fashion boutique playlists alongside Moby’s Play. But however you categorize it, the track stands out as both a unique presence in Spoon’s catalog and one of their most towering achievements. “Break out of character for me,” Daniel sings, fulfilling his own request in real time.
In my cover story on the album, Fridmann sang Spoon’s praises, noting what an adventurous presence they were in the studio despite the meticulous final product. It’s a quality that has made them arguably the most beloved indie band of their generation: that ability to bridge the gap between the Rolling Stones and the avant-garde, between wiry post-punk and soulful pop, transmogrifying it all into sleek, streamlined hit after hit. Today we get a look behind the curtain as Spoon release a 10th anniversary edition of They Want My Soul with the requisite demos and alternate versions. It’s a vision of the road not taken — “Rent I Pay” as an acoustic country waltz?? — and a testament to the combination of hard work and exploration that went into the album. But even without the seams showing, the daring and inspiration came through clearly in the final product.
These days They Want My Soul sits near the top of many fans’ Spoon album rankings, widely recognized as a concise tour de force that shows off many sides of one of rock’s most consistently excellent bands. Few artists are this vital eight albums deep. But as good as They Want My Soul is, part of the album’s appeal is that it arrived at a time when many fans worried whether Spoon might be creatively tapped out or completely finished. They’ve kept up that standard in the ensuing decade, with 2022’s Lucifer On The Sofa once again affirming their stature as a band that does not miss. This latter day version of Spoon is not as prolific as the unit that became a pillar of 2000s indie, but they’re as vibrant and rewarding as ever. As generation after generation of peers come and go, Spoon somehow keep staving off the Grim Reaper, not just surviving but thriving. Their place in history was already secure, but with They Want My Soul, they started to seem immortal.
