Spoon: ''Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga''

With a history of stellar, no-filler records, Spoon has somehow topped themselves with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, a consistently thrilling album recorded throughout 2006 in Austin by the band and Mike McCarthy (except "The Underdog," recorded in Los Angeles with Jon Brion). Spoon have been together over a decade, with one of the most unusual trajectories of any band in recent memory-and one of the best and most unique songwriters in the world. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga starts with "Don't Make Me a Target," a song that builds on Spoon's familiar minimal rhythmic piano/guitar vamp popularized on earlier Spoon hits like "Small Stakes" or "The Way We Get By." The album quickly moves into uncharted territory with the atmospheric "The Ghost of You Lingers" and moves through serveral different stylistic changes from the explosive (no pun intended) "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" to the wall-of-sound horns of "The Underdog." The Britt Daniel originals on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga comprise possibly his most heartfelt batch of songs since 2001's Girls Can Tell. It's worth pointing out that Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is comprised of ten songs (see Loaded, Fulfillingness' First Finale, Back in Black, The Queen Is Dead, The Charm of the Highway Strip, Nebraska, Nashville Skyline, Heroes, Unknown Pleasures, The Violent Femmes, The Woods, Sticky Fingers, etc.). We've also got it on good authority that 36 minutes is the ideal album length.