SPOON

Along with the record’s original 10 tracks – including all-time Spoon classics “Inside Out,” “Do You,” and “Rent I Pay” – ‘They Want My Soul: Deluxe More Soul Edition’ features 11 demos and alternate versions, almost all of them previously unreleased.

The reissue underlines the album’s vaunted place amid one of rock’s most bulletproof catalogs and offers a glimpse at the creative process behind a pivotal moment in ongoing the Spoon story. On a purely sonic level, ‘They Want My Soul,’ which also peaked at No. 4 on the charts, may be the most lustrous album Spoon have ever made. So it’s especially enlightening to hear the rough-and-ready demos included in this deluxe edition.

Daniel recorded some of these early versions on his own at his home studio, and a few were laid down with the full band at Eno’s Public Hi-Fi studio in Spoon’s hometown of Austin, Texas. Daniel’s solo piano version of “Inside Out” is a revelation, the song’s tender core fully intact. Across this ‘More Soul Edition,’ it’s thrilling to hear the evolution of “Do You,” which has stayed a staple of Spoon’s live sets over the last decade, from a lonely strummer called “The Way Love Comes” to a cymbal-crashing barnburner to the svelte single fans know and love. The demo of the album’s title track, a tongue-in-cheek rocker aimed at those trying to steal some of Daniel’s mojo, includes a few newly unearthed lines that rank among the songwriter’s funniest: “Nice young men on college quads/Sad cops in police squads/I’m not bragging I’m just saying, they want my soul!” These nascent takes, several of which include entire verses that were eventually rewritten, also reveal Daniel’s restlessness as a lyricist, always looking for a more potent turn of phrase to make a song burrow into the listener’s head.