It's safe to say that all the co-authors are rather big fans of the band Spoon. And what's not to like? We can all get behind well-crafted songs with spastic guitar solos, I imagine. If one of us was to throw on a record like Kill The Moonlight in the car, not one of us would raise an objection--we'd sit there and nod, congratulating the fine choice. Spoon was even one of the better concerts I saw last year, even if they didn't play "Sister Jack" (I mean, how can you not enjoy a song that starts out "Always on the outside, always looking in/I was in this drop-D metal band we called Requiem"). But dammit if Spoon hasn't begun getting on my nerves.
That's because I'm beginning to hear Spoon everywhere these days. And oversaturation kills even the greatest creativity.
It started out innocently enough. Promos for the movie Stranger Than Fiction would feature occasional instrumental snippets, which made sense since Portlander Britt Daniel did the score to the movie. Plus, it helps that in retrospect that the it was a damn good (if overlooked) film. However, marketing executives seemed to pick up on the band, and began using their music in countless ads, most notably "My Mathematical Mind". If anything was in any way tangentially related to "math" or "science", you were going to hear that song as backing music, as it was done (most obnoxiously) for that recent shitfest, 21. I thought I was done being tormented by a formerly-loved song, but alas, it is now the background music to a nationwide car commercial.
The thing is, it's not even totally Spoon's fault. At this point, there are apparently session players that are being told by Marketing Execs to "give my that 'Spoon' sound", resulting in car commercials with music that sounds suspiciously like "I Turn My Camera On". I also can't fault Spoon for looking to get a little extra money through licensing--I'm not even sure if they've had a gold record, so I'm not going to hold it against a consistently artistically brilliant band to earn some well-deserved compensation for their efforts.
So I write this in order to just ask for a moratorium on the use of Spoon in commercials for the next 18 months, so I can go back to enjoying a band I love in the manner that it was meant to--through the album. But since I'm sure my request will fall on deaf ears, I'll just put a smile on the viewer's face with this 90's nostalgia throwback:
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