The 1982 Listening Post - Spoons - Arias & Symphonies

 Reviewed by Allen Lulu / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Released: 1982 Spoons Arias & Symphonies Genre: Synth-Wave Rating: 4.75 out of 5 Highlights: Trade Winds Smiling In Winter One In Ten Words No Electrons No More Growing Up Arias & Symphonies Walk The Plank The opening salvo of “Trade Winds” and “Smiling in Winter” suggest that we are in for a synthesized treat. It has me wondering: how come we don’t talk about Spoons when we discuss 80s New Wave Synth Pop? This is easily as good, if not better than all the Depeche Mode I’ve heard from the era and it gives Upstairs at Eric’s a run for it’s money as well. Side One is relentless. I am imagining “No Electrons” played at an outdoor arena, with a light show mesmerizing 50,000 people and I want to go to there. I keep reading ratings that float this between a 3.5 and a 4 and, at the end of Side One, I am at a loss. So, let’s flip it over. The epic “Nova Heart” actually pales to the rest of what I’ve heard so far. And it’s the single. But, that don’t make it not good, as they say. This is one of the most fully realized spinners I’ve heard from a band whose previous album didn’t show signs of this grandiosity.

The 1981 Listening Post - Spoons - Stick Figure Neighborhood

 Spoons - Stick Figure Neighborhood

#565

1981 Housekeeping

Spoons

Stick Figure Neighborhood

Genre: New Wave

3.25 out of 5

Highlight:

Ice Age

Man….there are a lot of bands, aren’t there? Like, a fuck ton of groups and performers. And I’m often amazed. But what amazes me isn’t the vast expanse of bands and songs. Well, yes, the songs. I sometimes sit with my guitar and noodle with chord progressions or simple pentatonic riffs and I’ll play something I like and think, “that HAS to have already been played by somebody, right?”

Or, like yesterday, I’m driving on the freeway, music blaring and Apple Music is playing songs that it thinks I will like and a recent Ozzy song from his last album will come on and I’ll be air guitaring to the riff and thinking…”how is ANYONE writing new riffs after 45 MILLION songs have already been crafted.

And then I think about the fact that when you shuffle a deck of cards, the order of those cards repeating is nearly impossible to imagine because it’s a factorial of 52. Which means it’s 52x52, 52x51,52x50...The number you get at the end is 8×10^6730414093201713378043612608166064768844377641568960512000000000000 

How can that be?

That means that my Genesis/Waking the Trolls Magic the Gathering deck, which has 60 cards, has 8,320,987,112,741,390,144,276,341,183,223,364,380,754,172,606,361,245,952,449,277,696,409,600,000,000,000,000 combinations. And yet I ALWAYS get three freaking Genesis Ultimatums in my hand when it’s TOO FUCKING EARLY FOR THEM!

Speaking of MtG, did you know that John Darnielle loves it and plays it on the same platform as I do but I don’t know his user name so I don’t know if we’ve ever played but he does talk about it on Twitter. 

Or that someone claims that the most famous person they ever played against was Adam Driver before he was famous. Kylo Ren is a Magic player!!!

Or that Joe Manganiello is a HUGE D&D player?

Or that Deborah Ann Woll from Daredevil and The Walking Dead regularly appears on a Tabletop Gaming Series? I watched her play Wingspan.

Wingspan is a good game. It’s not as much fun as, say, Secret Hitler, which is the greatest game ever. Or Gloomhaven which has certainly become an Everest in my life. 

Spock once said “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”. That applies to just about everything. Including the factorial of playing cards. 

So, I guess it must to music as well. Because I am gobsmacked at how many songs there are that don’t sound like any other songs.

And yet, while those songs are constructed as actual songs with verses and choruses and instrumental solos many many many of them can be incredibly boring. Like playing against a Mill Deck. I love the game and I appreciate the deck’s construction but it makes the experience of playing so uninteresting for me to play against that I just concede and move on.

Stick Figure Neighborhood isn’t quite the Mill Deck of music but it’s close. All the songs are songs and the band is playing them but I am just so uninterested in the content that I ended up writing a dissertation about factorials and Magic the Gathering. 

Daniel Lanois produce this. It’s sound great. But the songs are not great. New Wave for New Wave’s sake. It’s Martha’s Muffin’s without Martha but a lot more energy. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/7JvUNkvrSuNsQWsSbLbIxg?si=VOXvMQrMQry4Oq4PUwZqyg