Prior to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, I didn’t think much of Spoon. I never really gave them a listen, and didn’t think of them much. And when Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga hit, I wasn’t even going to listen to it. But with a craving for new music, I went and gave it a listen.

And I loved it. It was so bland and basic and yet still fucking kickass. “Don’t Make Me A Target” is a great opener, planned to be on Gimme Fiction but pushed back to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Only problem being that it’s lacking some decent lyrics. Actually, it’s lacking lyrics in general. Half the song is instrumental, which isn’t exactly bad, but the song is so basic it gets a bit boring. I can’t say I’m a fan of “The Ghost of You Lingers”, which was originally named “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” because of how the piano sounds in the song. It’s way too repetitive for me, and becomes intolerable only a minute in.

“You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”, I can say, is the best song on the album. It’s not too bland, not too basic, and includes all of the experimentalism Spoon is known for. With a 60’s pop beat, some horns in the background, and some basic piano, “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” is the one song on the album I can’t stop listening to. It’s that fucking good.

“Don’t You Evah”, covering an unreleased track by The Natural History, fits right alongside “Finer Feelings”, due to the fact that both tracks feature the guitar sparingly and focus on drums and bass for the most part. Yes, this does make the tracks a bit bland, but they’re a good example of how bland and basic songs can still be decent ones. “The Underdog”, produced by Jon Brion, is different from the two tracks above, mainly because it focuses on guitar and not on bass. However, it is similar to “Don’t Make Me A Target” because of the lack of lyrics on half the song.

“Black Like Me” brings excellent closure to an excellent album. Acoustic for a minute, the drums come in after a minute, more or less, and completely transform the song. An outstanding ending for the album.

Why am I writing about this three months after I first listened to the album? I just listened to the album again after a few months, and loved it (again) upon listening. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is one of the best albums this year, so far. It’s one of the few albums I listened to all the way through and enjoyed at first. Consistent, bland, basic, and still fucking fantastic, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is an album you can’t pass up on listening to.