Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
by Spoon

From paladisiac TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/09/2011 19:14 | #32510 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Maybe it's the addition of the horn sections, but almost all songs on this album sound so damn funky. They're still proponents of the 3-minute-ish, concise indie-pop-rock song. There's some air of danger ("Clubs and sticks and bats and balls / For nuclear dicks with their dialect drawls") with opener "don't make me a target" and it's cameo clanging guitar and its extended bridge with play-along-at-home hand claps. Love the horns and cymbals in "you got yr. cherry bomb" and its perpetual drumming motion and cooing vocals near the end. Love the horns and melody of "the underdog" and its built-up ending, with snappy lyrics like "You got no time for the messenger, / got no regard for the thing that you don't understand. / You got no fear of The Underdog, / that's why you will not survive.". The guitar-work in "don't you evah" is funky and the background faint vocal plays are fun. You'll find yourself singing along to the chorus of "finer feelings". The only track that doesn't fully-sit well is the echoey, piano-monotoned lead single "the ghost of you still lingers". I like the song, but i probably missed the point of the vocal and other FX and it feels like a run-on sentence with no chorus and that piano. But that's a minor quibble -- i'm still ga ga over ga ga ga ga ga. These guys sound cooler than that Michael J Fox character tried to sound at the end of Back to the Future. See "eddie's ragga" and its groovy bass. See the acoustic guitar and rawk attitude in "japanese cigarette case". Or maybe they're the indie version of prime huey lewis & the news crossed with early inxs (and a pinch of the clash) on this album. (i'm sure the indie kids love that analogy.) Whatever the magic behind GA5, this is the culmination of spoon's talent.

From buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/18/2016 16:18 | #177086 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, rather than taking any major steps in a new direction, is a kind of ”taking stock” record that collates and refines everything Spoon had done incredibly well on their prior records. This project results, then, in an incredible inventory of sounds: a grand arsenal of hand claps, Motown-lifted tambourine bursts, music-hall piano lines, and bass levels that hover in the red. Let's not call it a formula, though; let's just acknowledge it for what it is: a great band doing all the things it does best, particularly on the lead single "The Underdog," one of their bounciest, brassiest songs to date.

From HoldenM TOP 100 COMMENTER 03/03/2013 19:04 | #66899 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Top notch songwriting with organic production and that Spoon nuance? Of course it's their best album, and one of my all time favorites.

From alistamina 04/18/2010 15:35 | #1051 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

One of the year's best. At their height, Spoon presents Freshness along great creativity which has resulted plenty of great songs.

Spoon's bests album. Tight, Concise, Fun.

Don't You Evah is the best Spoon song

Ghost of You Lingers has great haunting effects with stabbing piano

Don't Make Me a Target has a deceptively sloppy guitar throughout with great transitions.

The album closes on a fantastic note with the last 2 songs.

Excellent 40 minute gem