Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [MERGE]

Why you'll love it

This Merge pressing is remastered and comes with a full download code. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Independent Albums chart, and sold 318,000 copies in the US by 2010.

This edition

• Remastered
• Download card included
• Stereo mix

About the album

"Don't Make Me A Target" sat on the shelf for a year after Spoon couldn't crack it during the Gimme Fiction sessions, and the patience paid off. When they finally recorded it, Jim Eno added the tom-toms separately with a completely different microphone setup, which gave the song its cavernous, in-a-tunnel sound and set the tone for the whole album. Merge and Anti- issued it on July 10, 2007.

Britt Daniel's ear for space runs right through it. "Don't You Evah" opens with him asking Eno to record the talkback microphone, because producer Mike McCarthy kept chipping in from the desk and the band wanted the comments on tape. "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" was a struggle they recorded three different ways, and "The Underdog," "The Ghost Of You Lingers" and "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" show how much the band could do with very little.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga turned up on a stack of year-end lists in 2007. On vinyl, side two has no run-out groove; it ends in a continuous loop after "Black Like Me," so the record keeps playing until you get up. It's the closest thing we stock to a personal trainer.

Also at Kops: more Spoon on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Merge (cat# MRG295), a reissue of the 2007 album.