Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Encyclopedia
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the sixth studio album by Austin, Texas
indie rock
band Spoon
. It was released on Merge Records
on July 10, 2007 to considerable critical acclaim. Its cover art comes from a portrait of artist/sculptor Lee Bontecou
, taken by Italian photographer Ugo Mulas
in 1963. The completed sculpture on the right is now in the collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts
.
The album's title is the former title for the song "The Ghost of You Lingers", which was meant to sound like the song's staccato piano part. The band changed the name to the song, but decided to adopt the name "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" as the album title, with Britt Daniel calling it a "great little Dadaist term."
An iTunes
-exclusive bonus track, "Deep Clean", was packaged with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. A limited edition copy of the album was released along with a bonus disc entitled Get Nice! The disc includes 23 minutes of mostly instrumental songs, and also a few demo tracks. Early buyers of the album also received a free 7" containing a demo of "The Underdog", and the B-side "It Took a Rumor to Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under", which previously appeared on the UK edition of the "Sister Jack" single.
The album debuted at number 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200
and number 1 on the Billboard
Top Independent Albums, selling 46,000 copies in its first week. This album was #10 on Rolling Stone
s list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. The album was also #7 on Pitchfork Media's top 50 Albums of 2007. As of January 2010, the album has sold 318,000 copies in the United States.
. The band practiced it "quite a bit" before the release of Gimme Fiction, but ended up shelving it for a year after unsuccessful attempts to work out an arrangement they liked. When it was recorded a year later, the drum part was recorded without toms
the first time. Drummer Jim Eno then recorded the toms separately with a drastically different microphone arrangement. This gave the toms a much more reverb-laden sound, as if "in a tunnel".
The track "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" was a song the band "really struggled with". This led them to record it three different ways, including a "space rock" version found on the bonus disc and heard distantly at the end of the album arrangement.
At the beginning of "Don't You Evah", Daniel can be heard asking "Jim, can you record the talkback
?" repeatedly. According to Daniel, he was asking Jim Eno to record to a separate track the talkback mic that was being manned by producer Mike McCarthy. McCarthy would make comments to Daniel over the talkback microphone at the studio desk as Daniel was singing, and Daniel and Eno considered McCarthy's comments to be ridiculous. As the intro continued, Daniel began singing along with the guitar line, which can also be heard on the final mix.
The vinyl version features no run-out groove on Side Two. Instead, it ends on a continuous loop of music that appears after the end of the song "Black Like Me".
, Jim Eno
and Mike McCarthy
, engineered by Jim Eno and Mike McCarthy, except "The Underdog" produced by Jon Brion
and Spoon
, engineered by Greg Koller.
), and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb". It also includes many previously unreleased instrumental tracks.
at 46,000 copies sold. In week 2, it fell to #35 with 19,000, then #55 with 12,000 on August 1, 2007. On week 4, it fell to #58, selling 11,000—a total of 88,000 copies in 4 weeks.
The song "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" was ranked #16 on Rolling Stone
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
band Spoon
Spoon (band)
Spoon is an American rock band formed in Austin, Texas. The band is composed of Britt Daniel ; Jim Eno ; Rob Pope and Eric Harvey .-History:...
. It was released on Merge Records
Merge Records
Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. It was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan. It began as a way to release music from their band Superchunk and music created by friends, and has expanded to include artists from around the world and records...
on July 10, 2007 to considerable critical acclaim. Its cover art comes from a portrait of artist/sculptor Lee Bontecou
Lee Bontecou
Lee Bontecou is an American artist who was born 15 January 1931 in Providence, Rhode Island. She attended the Art Students League of New York from 1952 to 1955, where she studied with the sculptor William Zorach. She received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Rome in 1957-1958 and the Louis...
, taken by Italian photographer Ugo Mulas
Ugo Mulas
Ugo Mulas was an Italian photographer noted for his portraits of artists and his street photography.Ugo Mulas began his studies in law in 1948 in Milan, but left to take art courses at the Brera Fine Arts Academy. In 1954 he was asked to cover the Venice Biennale, his first professional assignment...
in 1963. The completed sculpture on the right is now in the collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts
Honolulu Academy of Arts
The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an art museum in Honolulu in the state of Hawaii. Since its founding in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke and opening April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to over 40,000 works of art.-Description:...
.
The album's title is the former title for the song "The Ghost of You Lingers", which was meant to sound like the song's staccato piano part. The band changed the name to the song, but decided to adopt the name "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" as the album title, with Britt Daniel calling it a "great little Dadaist term."
An iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
-exclusive bonus track, "Deep Clean", was packaged with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. A limited edition copy of the album was released along with a bonus disc entitled Get Nice! The disc includes 23 minutes of mostly instrumental songs, and also a few demo tracks. Early buyers of the album also received a free 7" containing a demo of "The Underdog", and the B-side "It Took a Rumor to Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under", which previously appeared on the UK edition of the "Sister Jack" single.
The album debuted at number 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and number 1 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Top Independent Albums, selling 46,000 copies in its first week. This album was #10 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. The album was also #7 on Pitchfork Media's top 50 Albums of 2007. As of January 2010, the album has sold 318,000 copies in the United States.
Production
"Don't Make Me a Target" was originally written by Daniel while Spoon was producing its previous album, Gimme FictionGimme Fiction
Gimme Fiction is the fifth album from Austin, Texas indie rock band Spoon, released on May 10, 2005. It debuted at #44 on the Billboard 200. "I Turn My Camera On" has been released as a single, and garnered some radio-play. Some versions of the album also come with a bonus disc. "Sister Jack" was...
. The band practiced it "quite a bit" before the release of Gimme Fiction, but ended up shelving it for a year after unsuccessful attempts to work out an arrangement they liked. When it was recorded a year later, the drum part was recorded without toms
Tom-tom drum
A tom-tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snare.Although "tom-tom" is the British term for a child's toy drum, the name came originally from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala; the tom-tom itself comes from Asian or Native American cultures...
the first time. Drummer Jim Eno then recorded the toms separately with a drastically different microphone arrangement. This gave the toms a much more reverb-laden sound, as if "in a tunnel".
The track "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" was a song the band "really struggled with". This led them to record it three different ways, including a "space rock" version found on the bonus disc and heard distantly at the end of the album arrangement.
At the beginning of "Don't You Evah", Daniel can be heard asking "Jim, can you record the talkback
Talkback (recording)
In sound recording, talkback refers to the intercom system used in recording studios and production control rooms in television studios to enable personnel to communicate with people in the recording area or booth...
?" repeatedly. According to Daniel, he was asking Jim Eno to record to a separate track the talkback mic that was being manned by producer Mike McCarthy. McCarthy would make comments to Daniel over the talkback microphone at the studio desk as Daniel was singing, and Daniel and Eno considered McCarthy's comments to be ridiculous. As the intro continued, Daniel began singing along with the guitar line, which can also be heard on the final mix.
The vinyl version features no run-out groove on Side Two. Instead, it ends on a continuous loop of music that appears after the end of the song "Black Like Me".
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
All songs produced by Britt DanielBritt Daniel
John Britt Daniel is the co-founder, lead singer and guitarist of the Austin, Texas, rock band Spoon.-Biography:Britt Daniel was born in Galveston, Texas, and grew up in Temple, Texas, in a household of five children...
, Jim Eno
Jim Eno
Jim Eno is the drummer and one of the founding members of the Austin, Texas band Spoon. He is also a record producer and a semiconductor chip designer.-Overview:Eno was born in Rhode Island...
and Mike McCarthy
Mike McCarthy (producer)
Michael McCarthy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 22, 1965. He is a record producer and has been recording music since 1984.McCarthy has worked with a range of acts...
, engineered by Jim Eno and Mike McCarthy, except "The Underdog" produced by Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
and Spoon
Spoon (band)
Spoon is an American rock band formed in Austin, Texas. The band is composed of Britt Daniel ; Jim Eno ; Rob Pope and Eric Harvey .-History:...
, engineered by Greg Koller.
Get Nice!
The first pressing of the Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga CD release included the bonus EP Get Nice!, which contains alternate versions of "I Summon You" (from the previous album Gimme FictionGimme Fiction
Gimme Fiction is the fifth album from Austin, Texas indie rock band Spoon, released on May 10, 2005. It debuted at #44 on the Billboard 200. "I Turn My Camera On" has been released as a single, and garnered some radio-play. Some versions of the album also come with a bonus disc. "Sister Jack" was...
), and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb". It also includes many previously unreleased instrumental tracks.
"The Underdog" (demo) 7-inch single
Pre-orders for the vinyl release of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga included a 7" vinyl single with a demo version of "The Underdog". The b-side of the single is "It Took A Rumor To Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under" a song which has been previously released under the name "It Took A Rumor To Make Me Wonder Now I'm Afraid I'm Going Under" on the UK release of "Sister Jack".Cultural references
- The songs "Don't You Evah" and "Don't Make Me a Target" were both featured on the NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
television series "ChuckChuck (TV series)Chuck is an action-comedy/spy-drama television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" named Chuck, played by Zachary Levi, who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working for the Central...
". - "The Underdog" was used in the movies 17 Again17 Again (film)17 Again: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on April 21, 2009 by New Line Records.-Track listing:# "On My Own" by Vincent and The Villains# "Can't Say No" by The Helio Sequence# "L.E.S...
, CloverfieldCloverfieldCloverfield is a 2008 American disaster-monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard.The film follows six young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city...
, I Love You, ManI Love You, ManI Love You, Man is a 2009 American comedy film originally titled Let's be Friends and written by Larry Levin before John Hamburg rewrote and directed the film...
and most recently Horrible BossesHorrible BossesHorrible Bosses is a 2011 black comedy film directed by Seth Gordon, written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, based on a story by Markowitz. It stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx...
. It was also used in the How I Met Your MotherHow I Met Your MotherHow I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 19, 2005, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays.As a framing device, the main character, Ted Mosby with narration by Bob Saget, in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting...
episode "Spoiler Alert", the ReaperReaperA reaper is a person or machine that reaps crops at harvest, when they are ripe.-Hand reaping:Hand reaping is done by various means, including plucking the ears of grains directly by hand, cutting the grain stalks with a sickle, cutting them with a scythe, or with a later type of scythe called a...
episode "What About Blob", and the Numb3rsNUMB3RSNumb3rs is an American television drama which premiered on CBS on January 23, 2005, and concluded on March 12, 2010. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes , who helps Don solve crimes...
episode "Chinese Box".
Release history
| Country | Date |
|---|---|
| Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
7 July 2007 |
| United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
10 July 2007 |
| Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
5 December 2007 |
Charts
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga debuted at #10 on the Billboard 200Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
at 46,000 copies sold. In week 2, it fell to #35 with 19,000, then #55 with 12,000 on August 1, 2007. On week 4, it fell to #58, selling 11,000—a total of 88,000 copies in 4 weeks.
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
10 |
| 2007 | Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... Top Independent Albums |
1 |
| 2007 | Australian ARIA Charts ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
57 |
Singles
| Year | Song | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | "The Underdog" | Modern Rock Tracks | 26 |
| 2008 | "Don't You Evah" | Modern Rock Tracks | 33 |
The song "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" was ranked #16 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...