Gimme Fiction

Spoon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 10, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Merge Records
• ASIN: B00082ZRN0
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,653 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Gimme Fiction is Spoon's loosest, most eclectic effort yet. While still sounding like themselves, the Austin-based band manages to evoke a number of other artists on their fifth full-length. (It's a neat trick.) On proto-glam opener "The Beast and Dragon, Adored," Britt Daniels channels the David Bowie of The Man Who Sold the World. Then there's slinky jam "I Turn My Camera On," where he conjures up Prince or Mick Jagger, circa "Miss You," by singing in a higher register. As indicated by the title, "Sister Jack" sounds like early Who (i.e. "Happy Jack"), while "They Never Got You" sounds like Plastic Ono Band-era John Lennon. Do all these different styles hang together? For the most part: yes. After the triumph of Kill the Moonlight, Spoon could have easily rested on their laurels and issued another album just like it, but Gimme Fiction proves they would rather evolve than stagnate. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Spoon make some of the catchiest, most confident rock 'n' roll of any group around. Their fifth full-length is nothing short of a dizzying, soulful masterpiece, easily the most expansive work in their career. "Gimme Fiction" is a sprawling, exhilarating, filler-free album of keenly focused artistic vision and ambition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gimme gimme gimme, May 13, 2005

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gimme Fiction (Audio CD)

Spoon is one of the best, and also the most underappreciated, bands in the wide world of indierock. And after the twin masterpieces of "Girls Can Tell" and "Kill the Moonlight," they had a lot to follow up on. They could have easily rested on their laurels, and produced a new album full of nothing new at all.

But they didn't. And the result is worth waiting for.

Their newest album, "Gimme Fiction," actually takes that kind of rock and builds on it. Nowherer is it more obvious than in the opener, "The Beast and Dragon, Adored," where lead singer Britt Daniels sounds eerily like John Lennon. If I didn't know that it was actually Daniels, I might have thought that someone found a lost Lennon song that happened to sound like Spoon.

It's followed up by a stream of slow-burning rock, with angular guitars and sharp percussion. But Spoon gets to experiment with those different styles too. There's a deep funk vibe in "I Turn My Camera On," but it instantly switches to some piano and drums in "My Mathematical Mind" and the blasts of guitar rock in "Sister Jack."

In other words, Spoon has taken the time to experiment. "Gimme Fiction" is more musically lush than "Kill the Moonlight," which was wonderfully stripped-down. But unlike many bands who try to evolve their work, Spoon hasn't lost their edge. There's still a lo-fi, angular sound to their music; it's not quite on the same level as their prior albums, but even "only good" Spoon is the stuff of retro-rock dreams.

Since it's Spoon, it's dark and rather dismal. But those lo-fi grooves are so much fun that it's virtually impossible to actually think of them as dark. The riffs are sharp and complex, with lots of little hooks to draw listeners in. They can burn slowly, then rev up into brief blasts. It's backed by unstoppable basslines, acoustic guitar and memorable percussion, with frontman Daniels' moody vocals over it all.

Daniels is still in top form in "Gimme Fiction," and it seems that his talents are not running dry. He seems very introspective and thoughtful this time around: "You've got the weight of the world/coming down/like a butterfly," he croons. He even feigns a Prince-like falsetto early on, but somehow the scratchy, flexible sound suits him better.

"Gimme Fiction" pokes into some new territory for Spoon, while keeping on safe ground. Dark and fun, catchy and rough, it's a must-have for fans of good rock.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So Good!, May 10, 2005

By 

yocorro - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gimme Fiction (Audio CD)

This album is a near-masterpiece, earning four stars in my book only because it does not quite reach the pinnacles of Spoon's undeniable masterpiece, 2001's "Girls Can Tell" (if you are new to the band, I might start with that one, but "Fiction" would serve as a good introduction, as well). "Gimme Fiction," like most of the band's other records, succeeds so well because you have that constant tension between the catchy pop of the melodies and the sexy, dangerous edge of Britt Daniels' voice (as well as the vicious drumming). It doesn't even matter what he's singing in a song like "I Turn My Camera On"......the song as a whole just sounds so f*cking amazing, you can get lost inside it. Also, I must give highest praise to the band for keeping the total run-time on this album mercifully short, in the style of, say, a classic Beatles album. Spoon clearly are craftsmen, recognizing that "less is more;" that just because a CD allows for 80 minutes of music doesn't mean you must utilize all 80. I look forward to playing this album all summer and singing along, loudly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Homage to the Forefathers, June 24, 2005

By 

B. Niedt (Cherry Hill, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gimme Fiction (Audio CD)

It appears that Spoon has jumped the fence over to mainstream success with this release. The band has borrowed liberally from the classic rock of the 70's and 80's (their formative years, I presume), from the ominous Bowie-esque glam-rock opener, "Beast and Dragon, Adored", to the falsetto Stones-funk of "I Turn My Camera On". The first half of this CD is especially impressive, laden with hooks, the catchiest being in "Sister Jack", an upbeat number that evokes so many "Jack" songs of yore (The Who's "Happy Jack"; the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", even Spirit's "Uncle Jack"). Once we pass that song, memorable tunes are harder to come by, though they're consistently competent and entertaining. Their pop-tradition sensibilities remind me of Fountains of Wayne, albeit with a harder edge. And now and then Britt Daniels' guitar cuts loose on a "noisy" solo that reminds us they still consider themselves an alternative band. Overall, it's a worthy effort, as Spoon joins groups like Modest Mouse and the Shins in gaining a well-deserved wider audience.