Spiderland
Encyclopedia
Spiderland is the second studio album
by the American post-rock
band Slint
, released on March 27, 1991 on Touch and Go
. Featuring dramatically alternating dynamics
and vocals ranging from spoken word to shouting, the album contains narrative
lyrics that emphasize alienation. Spiderland was Slint's first release on Touch and Go, and the group's last record.
Although Spiderland was not widely recognized on its initial release, it eventually sold more than 50,000 copies and became a landmark album in underground music
after Slint broke up. The album has been highly influential on the styles of many bands in the post-rock
and math rock
genres, including Mogwai
and Godspeed You! Black Emperor
, and has been named a favorite of several indie rock musicians. In 2007, Slint reunited for a tour consisting of performances of Spiderland in its entirety.
from the remnants of the punk rock
band Squirrel Bait
; the founding members included Brian McMahan
(guitar
, vocals
), David Pajo
(guitar), Britt Walford
(drums
), and Ethan Buckler (bass
). The band's debut album, the Steve Albini
-produced Tweez, was released on the group's self-owned label
Jennifer Hartman Records and Tapes. The album's sound has been described as a combination of "scratchy guitars, thumping bass lines, and hard hitting drums". Buckler promptly left the band out of dissatisfaction with Albini's production, and was replaced with Todd Brashear. The band's second recording was for the instrumental
extended play
Slint
, which included a new version of "Rhoda" from Tweez. The EP, which would not be released until 1994, was a departure from Tweez' s sound and reflected the band's new musical direction.
After the band ended its brief tour in support of Tweez most of its members went to college. Around this time McMahan and Walford began writing together for the band's next record, creating six new songs which the band practiced throughout the summer of 1990. Slint entered River North Records in August 1990 to record Spiderland. At that time there were no vocals or lyrics prepared for the album, so the band wrote them while in the studio. The album's producer, Brian Paulson
, was known for his "live
" recording style in the studio, with minimal take
s. Paulson recalled "It was weird while I was doing [Spiderland] because I remember sitting there, and I just knew there was something about it. I've never heard anything like this. I'm really digging this but it's really fucking weird."
The recording sessions for Spiderland are reputed to have been difficult for the members of the band and were, according to Allmusic, "intense, traumatic, and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album." Rumors circulated that at least one member of Slint had been checked into a psychiatric hospital
. Walford later addressed these stories in an article in Select by saying, "[We were] definitely trying to be serious about things, pretty intense, which made recording the album kinda stressful." The recording was completed in four days.
shifts, and irregular time signature
s. McMahan's singing style interchanges between mumbling spoken word
and strained shouting. The lyrics of Spiderland are often written in a narrative
style. Influences on the record included Gang of Four
, Black Sabbath
, and Sonic Youth
. Will Hermes of Spin
summarized the album's sound as "mid-'70s King Crimson
gone emo
: screeching guitar chords and gorgeous note-spinning in odd-metered instrumentals speckled with words both spoken and sung".
The album's opening track, "Breadcrumb Trail", describes a day spent at a carnival
with a fortune-teller
. The song features a complex arrangement with sharp transitions, and the guitar fluctuates between a clean-sounding riff
with harmonic
s in the verse to heavy distortion
featuring extremely high-pitched notes in the chorus. "Nosferatu Man", the second track, is inspired by the 1922 German Expressionist
silent film
Nosferatu. The song's verse includes a dissonant
guitar riff, which uses high-pitched notes similar to those in "Breadcrumb Trail", and a drumbeat based on snare
and toms
, absent of cymbal
s. The chorus, featuring "jagged" distorted guitar and a thrash
-influence beat, segues into an extended jam
before the song ends with 30 seconds of feedback
.
"Don, Aman" features Walford on lead vocals and guitar. Delivered in a hushed tone, the song's ambiguous lyrics depict the thoughts of an "isolated soul" before, after, and during an evening at a bar. The tempo
quickens throughout, and then becomes loud and distorted before slowing back to the original tempo. "Washer", the album's longest track, features a "barely audible" intro with guitar and cymbals before the rest of the band comes in. The song builds tension until the final verse, which features loud distortion, and is followed by a lengthy outro.
"For Dinner..." is an ambient
instrumental
track. Beginning with a quiet section of "brooding chords throb[bing] with the occasional rumble of muted toms and bass drum", the song cycles through sections of building and releasing tension. One guitar chord is repeatedly strummed for the last minute of the song before ending. The final song of the album, "Good Morning Captain", is based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge
poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
. The song features a two chord guitar structure, a "spindly, tight riff" from the rhythm section and a "jerky" beat. During the recording of the song's final chorus, McMahan became physically sick due to the strain of yelling over the guitars. David Peschek of The Guardian
compared "Good Morning Captain" to Led Zeppelin
's "Stairway to Heaven
", writing that "the extraordinary Good Morning Captain is [Slint's] Stairway to Heaven, if it's possible to imagine Stairway to Heaven bleached of all bombast."
The name Spiderland originates from McMahan's younger brother, who thought that the record sounded "spidery". The album's black-and-white
cover photograph, which depicts members of the band treading water in the lake of an abandoned quarry, was taken by Will Oldham
. An article in The Stranger
credited the cover for creating a mystique surrounding Slint, noting "[m]ost people only had seen Slint as four heads floating in a Kentucky quarry on Spiderland's cover. Listeners pondered the band's sparsely adorned black-and-white covers as if they were runes bearing secrets." Chris Gaerig of the Michigan Daily
wrote "the cover of Slint's masterful Spiderland captures the joyous fear and violence of the album so precisely it shakes souls. The group—submerged in a lake to their chins with deranged smiles—seems to be stalking you, hovering out of the black-and-white façade." Several other promotional images have been taken from the same photo session with Oldham.
A photo of a spider
taken by Noel Saltzman is used on the back cover, reflecting the album's title. The inside sleeve contains the message "interested female vocalists write 1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205". McMahan confirmed that this message was serious, and said "We did get some responses and we did listen to CDs and tapes. We didn’t end up doing anything immediately, so that idea of adding someone sort of fell by the wayside." The message "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" is printed on some compact disc
issues of Spiderland, demonstrating Slint's preference of analog
audio devices.
, producer of Slint's previous album Tweez, for Melody Maker
. Albini was highly positive about the album, awarding it "ten fucking stars", saying "Spiderland is a majestic album, sublime and strange, made more brilliant by its simplicity and quiet grace. .... Spiderland is flawless. The dry, unembellished recording is so revealing it sometimes feels like eavesdropping. The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener's nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room. .... Play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live."
Retrospective reviews of the album have been mixed. A review of the album from Dean Carlson of Allmusic praised the album as "one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena", despite describing it as "slightly overrated". Carlson also criticized McMahan's singing style, saying that he "too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy." Robert Christgau
gave the album a rating of C+, calling Slint "art-rockers
without the courage of their pretensions" and criticizing the album's lyrics. The Rolling Stone
book The New Rolling Stone Album Guide rated the album two and a half stars; while the reviewer Mac Randall favored the album over Tweez as an "easier listen, with longer, more developed songs", he wrote that "[t]he absence of anything resembling a tune continues to nag."
By contrast, music critic Piero Scaruffi
gave the album an almost perfect score, saying "Spiderland is a masterpiece in rock history. Leveraging from experiments of preceding years, Slint is now completing a more sophisticated search on rhythm and resonance, culminating in an almost transcendental quality [...] a monumental work, in its capacity to construct rock music without reconstructing the stereotypes of its genre, without recourse to iconic sounds or prefabricated codes, that have always constituted the principle channels of rock expression." Scaruffi also included Spiderland at the top of his list The Best Rock Albums of the 1990's.
Though largely ignored upon its initial release, Spiderland has attracted greater attention through time. This growth in popularity has been attributed in part to the appearance of the track "Good Morning Captain" on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Kids
. The album has sold over 50,000 copies, though Kory Grow of the College Music Journal
suggested that the album "has inspired countless bands (and therefore fans) far beyond its SoundScan
numbers". Spiderland has become a landmark indie rock album and is considered, along with Talk Talk
's Spirit Of Eden
and Laughing Stock, to have been the primary catalyst of the post-rock
and math rock
genres. David Peschek said that the album is "the ur-text for what became known as post-rock, a fractured, almost geometric reimagining of rock music stripped of its dionysiac impulse." Rachel Devine of The List called Spiderland "arguably the most disproportionately influential [album] in music history".
McMahan reflected on the album's success: "We worked really hard on Spiderland. I mean, I definitely felt much more personal about it. I thought it represented us as people, musically, a lot more than Tweez did. That's about it. It seemed like when we were around, and actively playing and stuff, that people's responses to us were fairly ambivalent. I thought it was funny when the press picked up on it. For an independent release, it had a strange sort of audience and kept selling three or four years after we recorded it; it still sells more copies than when it first came out." Touch and Go founder Corey Rusk said that Spiderland is "like an icon now. But when it came out, nobody cared! The band had broken up by the time the album came out, and it really didn't sell particularly well or get written about all that much in the year it was released. But it was a revolutionary, groundbreaking record, and it's one of the few instances where people catch up to it later on."
Post-rock bands Mogwai
, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Isis
, and Explosions in the Sky
have been influenced by Spiderland. Dinosaur Jr
and Sebadoh
member Lou Barlow
said of Spiderland, "It was quiet to loud without sounding like grunge
or indie-rock. It sounded more like a new kind of music." PJ Harvey
has named Spiderland as one of her favorite albums, and supposedly contacted Slint regarding the band's request for a female vocalist. Bob Nastanovich
of Pavement
and Mark Clifford of Seefeel
have also cited Spiderland as among their favorite albums. The album cover of Spiderland was recreated by The Shins
in the music video for "New Slang
".
Despite having plans for a tour of Europe to promote Spiderland, Slint broke up in 1991 for reasons that were not revealed. Members of the band went on to join other musical projects, including Tortoise
, The Breeders
, Palace
, and The For Carnation
. Slint reunited briefly in 2005 for an eighteen-date tour. Pajo said, "We don't want to be a reunion band that keeps reuniting. .... I know that this is going to be it." However, in 2007 Slint reunited again for a tour featuring performances of Spiderland in its entirety as part of All Tomorrow's Parties
' "Don't Look Back
" concert series celebrating classic albums. The tour included appearances at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival
and Primavera Sound Festival
. McMahan said in an interview at the Pitchfork Music Festival that performing the album live was "pretty cool. It moves a little slower than it does on the record, but it's all there. .... It took some getting used to, some revisiting the material and rehearsing."
Critical responses to Slint's reunion has been mixed, with detractors commenting on the music's unsuitability for a live setting. Chicago Sun-Times
music critic Jim DeRogatis
wrote that although "fans greeted [Slint's performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival] as manna from heaven. .... the musicians' fragile, intertwining guitar lines, mumbled attempts at poetry and uninspiring shoe-gazer personas were poor matches for the setting and the occasion, especially during the static, percussion-deprived 'Don, Aman' and the bloated anthem 'Good Morning Captain.'" According to members of The A.V. Club
, Slint's performance of "Don, Aman" at the festival "captures the band's greatness and its greatest weakness: Slint completely lacks stage charisma, and playing a deathly quiet, moody song on a big outdoor stage just doesn't work." Both DeRogatis and the A.V. Club review also noted that the band's performance was plagued by sound problems. A New York
review of a performance at Webster Hall
opined "the deeply brooding, fussily executed album finally sounded, sixteen years later, like the existential, cosmos-annihilating shrug it was envisioned as. Which is to say: It sounded fucking great."
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by the American post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
band Slint
Slint
Slint was an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan , David Pajo , Britt Walford , Todd Brashear and Ethan Buckler...
, released on March 27, 1991 on Touch and Go
Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
. Featuring dramatically alternating dynamics
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
and vocals ranging from spoken word to shouting, the album contains narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
lyrics that emphasize alienation. Spiderland was Slint's first release on Touch and Go, and the group's last record.
Although Spiderland was not widely recognized on its initial release, it eventually sold more than 50,000 copies and became a landmark album in underground music
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
after Slint broke up. The album has been highly influential on the styles of many bands in the post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
and math rock
Math rock
Math rock is a rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock that emerged in the 1980s and that was very influenced by progressive rock like King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Henry Cow - and 20th century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage...
genres, including Mogwai
Mogwai
The word mogwai is the transliteration of the Cantonese word 魔怪 meaning "monster", "evil spirit", "devil" or "demon".-Mogwai/Mogui in Chinese culture:...
and Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994...
, and has been named a favorite of several indie rock musicians. In 2007, Slint reunited for a tour consisting of performances of Spiderland in its entirety.
Context
Slint formed in 1987 in Louisville, KentuckyLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
from the remnants of the punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Squirrel Bait
Squirrel Bait
Squirrel Bait was an American punk band from Louisville, Kentucky. They were in existence from 1983 to 1988. Squirrel Bait's dense, moody, melodic hardcore sound, featuring pronounced tempo shifts, foreshadowed the grunge sound of the late 1980s as well as math rock...
; the founding members included Brian McMahan
Brian McMahan
Brian McMahan is a guitarist from Louisville, Kentucky. He was member of the band Squirrel Bait and went on to create the seminal band Slint. He was both vocalist and guitarist for this band. After their breakup, circa 1991, he went on to play with Will Oldham on his project Palace Brothers...
(guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
), David Pajo
David Pajo
David Pajo is an American alternative rock musician. He has played a wide variety of music, loosely fitting into several other genres: hardcore, math-rock, post-rock, electronica, folk and indie-pop...
(guitar), Britt Walford
Britt Walford
Britt Walford is a drummer from Louisville, Kentucky. He was a founding member of the punk band Squirrel Bait, but was replaced by Ben Daughtrey when he decided to play in the band Maurice. After the breakups of Squirrel Bait and Maurice, some of the members joined to form the post-rock band Slint...
(drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), and Ethan Buckler (bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
). The band's debut album, the Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
-produced Tweez, was released on the group's self-owned label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
Jennifer Hartman Records and Tapes. The album's sound has been described as a combination of "scratchy guitars, thumping bass lines, and hard hitting drums". Buckler promptly left the band out of dissatisfaction with Albini's production, and was replaced with Todd Brashear. The band's second recording was for the instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
extended play
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
Slint
Slint (EP)
Slint, also known as Glenn/Rhoda or Untitled, is the first and only EP released by the rock band Slint.Released after the band had already broken up, it includes two songs that were recorded in 1989...
, which included a new version of "Rhoda" from Tweez. The EP, which would not be released until 1994, was a departure from Tweez
After the band ended its brief tour in support of Tweez most of its members went to college. Around this time McMahan and Walford began writing together for the band's next record, creating six new songs which the band practiced throughout the summer of 1990. Slint entered River North Records in August 1990 to record Spiderland. At that time there were no vocals or lyrics prepared for the album, so the band wrote them while in the studio. The album's producer, Brian Paulson
Brian Paulson
Brian Paulson is a musician, record producer and audio engineer from Minnesota, best known for recording albums by Slint, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt and Wilco....
, was known for his "live
Recorded live track
A recorded live track is a song or audio sequence recorded from live performances .Live song tracks typically have concert hall noise . Though often less precise than practiced, studio recordings, live recordings may offer a more exciting feel...
" recording style in the studio, with minimal take
Take
A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.-Film:In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup"...
s. Paulson recalled "It was weird while I was doing [Spiderland] because I remember sitting there, and I just knew there was something about it. I've never heard anything like this. I'm really digging this but it's really fucking weird."
The recording sessions for Spiderland are reputed to have been difficult for the members of the band and were, according to Allmusic, "intense, traumatic, and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album." Rumors circulated that at least one member of Slint had been checked into a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. Walford later addressed these stories in an article in Select by saying, "[We were] definitely trying to be serious about things, pretty intense, which made recording the album kinda stressful." The recording was completed in four days.
Music
The music of Spiderland is noted for its angular guitar rhythms, dramatically alternating dynamicDynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
shifts, and irregular time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
s. McMahan's singing style interchanges between mumbling spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
and strained shouting. The lyrics of Spiderland are often written in a narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
style. Influences on the record included Gang of Four
Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four are an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, and Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
. Will Hermes of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
summarized the album's sound as "mid-'70s King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
gone emo
Emo
Emo is a style of rock music and its associated subcultureEmo may also refer to:- Businesses :* Emo , an Irish oil company and filling station chain* Emo Speedway, a racetrack in Emo, Ontario...
: screeching guitar chords and gorgeous note-spinning in odd-metered instrumentals speckled with words both spoken and sung".
The album's opening track, "Breadcrumb Trail", describes a day spent at a carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
with a fortune-teller
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...
. The song features a complex arrangement with sharp transitions, and the guitar fluctuates between a clean-sounding riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
with harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
s in the verse to heavy distortion
Distortion (guitar)
Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of a musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones. The three principal types of distortion effects are overdrive, distortion and fuzz. Distortion effects are sometimes called “gain” effects, as distorted...
featuring extremely high-pitched notes in the chorus. "Nosferatu Man", the second track, is inspired by the 1922 German Expressionist
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
Nosferatu. The song's verse includes a dissonant
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
guitar riff, which uses high-pitched notes similar to those in "Breadcrumb Trail", and a drumbeat based on snare
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
and 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...
, absent of cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s. The chorus, featuring "jagged" distorted guitar and a thrash
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
-influence beat, segues into an extended jam
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
before the song ends with 30 seconds of feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
.
"Don, Aman" features Walford on lead vocals and guitar. Delivered in a hushed tone, the song's ambiguous lyrics depict the thoughts of an "isolated soul" before, after, and during an evening at a bar. The tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
quickens throughout, and then becomes loud and distorted before slowing back to the original tempo. "Washer", the album's longest track, features a "barely audible" intro with guitar and cymbals before the rest of the band comes in. The song builds tension until the final verse, which features loud distortion, and is followed by a lengthy outro.
"For Dinner..." is an ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
track. Beginning with a quiet section of "brooding chords throb[bing] with the occasional rumble of muted toms and bass drum", the song cycles through sections of building and releasing tension. One guitar chord is repeatedly strummed for the last minute of the song before ending. The final song of the album, "Good Morning Captain", is based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss...
. The song features a two chord guitar structure, a "spindly, tight riff" from the rhythm section and a "jerky" beat. During the recording of the song's final chorus, McMahan became physically sick due to the strain of yelling over the guitars. David Peschek of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
compared "Good Morning Captain" to Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
's "Stairway to Heaven
Stairway to Heaven
"Stairway to Heaven" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band's untitled fourth studio album . The song, running eight minutes and two seconds, is composed of several sections, which...
", writing that "the extraordinary Good Morning Captain is [Slint's] Stairway to Heaven, if it's possible to imagine Stairway to Heaven bleached of all bombast."
Title and packaging
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
cover photograph, which depicts members of the band treading water in the lake of an abandoned quarry, was taken by Will Oldham
Will Oldham
Will Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...
. An article in The Stranger
The Stranger (newspaper)
The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
credited the cover for creating a mystique surrounding Slint, noting "[m]ost people only had seen Slint as four heads floating in a Kentucky quarry on Spiderland's cover. Listeners pondered the band's sparsely adorned black-and-white covers as if they were runes bearing secrets." Chris Gaerig of the Michigan Daily
Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily is the daily student newspaper of the University of Michigan. Its first edition was published on September 29, 1890. The newspaper is financially and editorially independent of the University's administration and other student groups, but shares a university building with other...
wrote "the cover of Slint's masterful Spiderland captures the joyous fear and violence of the album so precisely it shakes souls. The group—submerged in a lake to their chins with deranged smiles—seems to be stalking you, hovering out of the black-and-white façade." Several other promotional images have been taken from the same photo session with Oldham.
A photo of a spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
taken by Noel Saltzman is used on the back cover, reflecting the album's title. The inside sleeve contains the message "interested female vocalists write 1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205". McMahan confirmed that this message was serious, and said "We did get some responses and we did listen to CDs and tapes. We didn’t end up doing anything immediately, so that idea of adding someone sort of fell by the wayside." The message "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" is printed on some compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
issues of Spiderland, demonstrating Slint's preference of analog
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
audio devices.
Reception
Spiderland received minimal attention from major publications upon its release. One of the first major reviews of the album was written by Steve AlbiniSteve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
, producer of Slint's previous album Tweez, for Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
. Albini was highly positive about the album, awarding it "ten fucking stars", saying "Spiderland is a majestic album, sublime and strange, made more brilliant by its simplicity and quiet grace. .... Spiderland is flawless. The dry, unembellished recording is so revealing it sometimes feels like eavesdropping. The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener's nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room. .... Play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live."
Retrospective reviews of the album have been mixed. A review of the album from Dean Carlson of Allmusic praised the album as "one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena", despite describing it as "slightly overrated". Carlson also criticized McMahan's singing style, saying that he "too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy." Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album a rating of C+, calling Slint "art-rockers
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
without the courage of their pretensions" and criticizing the album's lyrics. The 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...
book The New Rolling Stone Album Guide rated the album two and a half stars; while the reviewer Mac Randall favored the album over Tweez as an "easier listen, with longer, more developed songs", he wrote that "[t]he absence of anything resembling a tune continues to nag."
By contrast, music critic Piero Scaruffi
Piero Scaruffi
Piero Scaruffi received a degree in Mathematics in 1982 from University of Turin, where he did work on the General Theory of Relativity. For a number of years he was the head of the Artificial Intelligence Center at Olivetti, based in Cupertino, California. He has been a visiting scholar at...
gave the album an almost perfect score, saying "Spiderland is a masterpiece in rock history. Leveraging from experiments of preceding years, Slint is now completing a more sophisticated search on rhythm and resonance, culminating in an almost transcendental quality [...] a monumental work, in its capacity to construct rock music without reconstructing the stereotypes of its genre, without recourse to iconic sounds or prefabricated codes, that have always constituted the principle channels of rock expression." Scaruffi also included Spiderland at the top of his list The Best Rock Albums of the 1990's.
Legacy
Kids (film)
Kids is a 1995 drama film written by Harmony Korine and directed by Larry Clark.The film features Chloë Sevigny, Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Harold Hunter, and Rosario Dawson, all of them in their debut performances...
. The album has sold over 50,000 copies, though Kory Grow of the College Music Journal
College Music Journal
College Music Journal, commonly known as CMJ, is a music events/publishing company which hosts an annual festival in New York City, the CMJ Music Marathon, as well as a weekly magazine of and for the music industry and college radio stations in the United States and Canada. It publishes top 30...
suggested that the album "has inspired countless bands (and therefore fans) far beyond its SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
numbers". Spiderland has become a landmark indie rock album and is considered, along with Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....
's Spirit Of Eden
Spirit of Eden
Spirit of Eden was the fourth album by the English band Talk Talk. The songs were written by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, and performed by numerous musicians using a diverse combination of instruments. In 2008, Alan McGee of the Guardian wrote: "Spirit of Eden has not dated; it's remarkable...
and Laughing Stock, to have been the primary catalyst of the post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
and math rock
Math rock
Math rock is a rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock that emerged in the 1980s and that was very influenced by progressive rock like King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Henry Cow - and 20th century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage...
genres. David Peschek said that the album is "the ur-text for what became known as post-rock, a fractured, almost geometric reimagining of rock music stripped of its dionysiac impulse." Rachel Devine of The List called Spiderland "arguably the most disproportionately influential [album] in music history".
McMahan reflected on the album's success: "We worked really hard on Spiderland. I mean, I definitely felt much more personal about it. I thought it represented us as people, musically, a lot more than Tweez did. That's about it. It seemed like when we were around, and actively playing and stuff, that people's responses to us were fairly ambivalent. I thought it was funny when the press picked up on it. For an independent release, it had a strange sort of audience and kept selling three or four years after we recorded it; it still sells more copies than when it first came out." Touch and Go founder Corey Rusk said that Spiderland is "like an icon now. But when it came out, nobody cared! The band had broken up by the time the album came out, and it really didn't sell particularly well or get written about all that much in the year it was released. But it was a revolutionary, groundbreaking record, and it's one of the few instances where people catch up to it later on."
Post-rock bands Mogwai
Mogwai
The word mogwai is the transliteration of the Cantonese word 魔怪 meaning "monster", "evil spirit", "devil" or "demon".-Mogwai/Mogui in Chinese culture:...
, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Isis
Isis (band)
Isis was a Los Angeles, California-based post-metal band, founded in Boston, Massachusetts, with a career spanning from 1997 to 2010...
, and Explosions in the Sky
Explosions in the Sky
Explosions in the Sky is an American post-rock band from Texas. The band has garnered popularity beyond the post-rock scene for their elaborately developed guitar work, narratively styled instrumentals, what they refer to as "cathartic mini-symphonies," and their enthusiastic and emotional live shows...
have been influenced by Spiderland. Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr. is an American alternative rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984. Originally called Dinosaur, prior to legal issues that forced the group to change their name, the band disbanded in 1997 until reuniting in 2005...
and Sebadoh
Sebadoh
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band, formed in 1986 in Westfield, Massachusetts by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr bass player Lou Barlow. Along with such bands as Pavement and Guided by Voices, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music, a style of indie rock characterized by low-fidelity recording...
member Lou Barlow
Lou Barlow
Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
said of Spiderland, "It was quiet to loud without sounding like grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
or indie-rock. It sounded more like a new kind of music." PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
has named Spiderland as one of her favorite albums, and supposedly contacted Slint regarding the band's request for a female vocalist. Bob Nastanovich
Bob Nastanovich
Robert "Bob" Nastanovich is a member of the indie rock band, Pavement, as well as former member of 1990s bands Ectoslavia, and Pale Horse Riders...
of Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
and Mark Clifford of Seefeel
Seefeel
Seefeel are a British electronic/post-rock band formed in the early 1990s. They are currently signed to Warp Records.-Biography:Seefeel formed during 1992 in London, England; with Mark Clifford on guitar, Mark Van Hoen on bass, Justin Fletcher on drums and Sarah Peacock on vocals and guitar. During...
have also cited Spiderland as among their favorite albums. The album cover of Spiderland was recreated by The Shins
The Shins
The Shins are an American indie rock band comprising singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Mercer, guitarist/bassist Dave Hernandez, Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats, drummer Joe Plummer and bassist Ron Lewis. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative rock, indie rock,...
in the music video for "New Slang
New Slang
"New Slang" is a song by The Shins. It was released as a 7" single in 2001, and subsequently appeared on their album Oh, Inverted World. It achieved mainstream popularity after its inclusion in the soundtrack of the film Garden State and its appearance in a McDonald's television commercial...
".
Reunion
Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1990.-Music:Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies easy categorization, and the group gained significant attention from their early career. The members have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in...
, The Breeders
The Breeders
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 by Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. The band has experienced a number of line-up changes; the current line-up consists of Kim Deal , her twin sister Kelley Deal , Jose Medeles , Mando Lopez Todd the Fox...
, Palace
Will Oldham
Will Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...
, and The For Carnation
The For Carnation
The For Carnation are a post-rock band from Louisville, Kentucky who formed in 1994. The band was formed by Brian McMahan, who is the only constant group member. McMahan's previous band Slint hinted at the distinctive sound and sombre aesthetic he would create in The For Carnation...
. Slint reunited briefly in 2005 for an eighteen-date tour. Pajo said, "We don't want to be a reunion band that keeps reuniting. .... I know that this is going to be it." However, in 2007 Slint reunited again for a tour featuring performances of Spiderland in its entirety as part of All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
' "Don't Look Back
Don't Look Back (concert series)
Don't Look Back is a yearly series of concerts in which London based promoters All Tomorrow's Parties ask artists and bands to play one of their seminal albums live in its entirety...
" concert series celebrating classic albums. The tour included appearances at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival
Pitchfork Music Festival
The Pitchfork Music Festival is an annual summer music festival organized by Pitchfork Media and held in Union Park in Chicago, IL. The festival, which is normally held over three days in July, focuses primarily on artists and bands from alternative rock, rap & hip-hop, electronica, and dance...
and Primavera Sound Festival
Primavera Sound Festival
San Miguel Primavera Sound, commonly known as Primavera Sound or simply Primavera, is an annual music festival which takes place in Barcelona, Spain in late May and, in some years, early June...
. McMahan said in an interview at the Pitchfork Music Festival that performing the album live was "pretty cool. It moves a little slower than it does on the record, but it's all there. .... It took some getting used to, some revisiting the material and rehearsing."
Critical responses to Slint's reunion has been mixed, with detractors commenting on the music's unsuitability for a live setting. Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
music critic Jim DeRogatis
Jim DeRogatis
James "Jim" DeRogatis is an American music critic and co-host of Sound Opinions. DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as Spin, Guitar World and Modern Drummer, and for fifteen years was the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.He joined Columbia College Chicago as a full-time...
wrote that although "fans greeted [Slint's performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival] as manna from heaven. .... the musicians' fragile, intertwining guitar lines, mumbled attempts at poetry and uninspiring shoe-gazer personas were poor matches for the setting and the occasion, especially during the static, percussion-deprived 'Don, Aman' and the bloated anthem 'Good Morning Captain.'" According to members of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
, Slint's performance of "Don, Aman" at the festival "captures the band's greatness and its greatest weakness: Slint completely lacks stage charisma, and playing a deathly quiet, moody song on a big outdoor stage just doesn't work." Both DeRogatis and the A.V. Club review also noted that the band's performance was plagued by sound problems. A New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
review of a performance at Webster Hall
Webster Hall
Webster Hall is a nightclub located at 125 East 11th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues, near Astor Place, in Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1886, its current incarnation was opened by the Ballinger Brothers in 1992...
opined "the deeply brooding, fussily executed album finally sounded, sixteen years later, like the existential, cosmos-annihilating shrug it was envisioned as. Which is to say: It sounded fucking great."
Track listing
- "Breadcrumb Trail" – 5:55
- "Nosferatu Man" – 5:35
- "Don, Aman" – 6:28
- "Washer" – 8:50
- "For Dinner..." – 5:05
- "Good Morning, Captain" – 7:38
Personnel
- David PajoDavid PajoDavid Pajo is an American alternative rock musician. He has played a wide variety of music, loosely fitting into several other genres: hardcore, math-rock, post-rock, electronica, folk and indie-pop...
– guitarElectric guitarAn electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker... - Brian McMahanBrian McMahanBrian McMahan is a guitarist from Louisville, Kentucky. He was member of the band Squirrel Bait and went on to create the seminal band Slint. He was both vocalist and guitarist for this band. After their breakup, circa 1991, he went on to play with Will Oldham on his project Palace Brothers...
– guitar, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Britt WalfordBritt WalfordBritt Walford is a drummer from Louisville, Kentucky. He was a founding member of the punk band Squirrel Bait, but was replaced by Ben Daughtrey when he decided to play in the band Maurice. After the breakups of Squirrel Bait and Maurice, some of the members joined to form the post-rock band Slint...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, vocals, and guitar - Todd Brashear – bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Brian PaulsonBrian PaulsonBrian Paulson is a musician, record producer and audio engineer from Minnesota, best known for recording albums by Slint, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt and Wilco....
– engineering - Will OldhamWill OldhamWill Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...
– photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film... - Noel Saltzman – photography
Accolades
The information regarding accolades attributed to Spiderland is adapted from AcclaimedMusic.net.| Publication | Country | Accolade | Year | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alternative Press Alternative Press (music magazine) Alternative Press is an American music magazine based in Cleveland, Ohio. It generally provides readers with band interviews, photos, information on upcoming releases, and music charts. It was founded in 1985 by Mike Shea, who is the current president.... |
United States | The 90 Greatest Albums of the 90s | 1998 | #34 |
| Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock... |
U.S. | Top 100 Albums of the 1990s | 1999 | #34 |
| Melody Maker Melody Maker Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody... |
United Kingdom | All Time Top 100 Albums | 2000 | #55 |
| NME NME The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles... |
UK | 100 Best Albums | 2003 | #53 |
| Pitchfork Media | U.S. | Top 100 Albums of the 1990s: Redux | 2003 | #12 |
| Spin Spin (magazine) Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard... |
U.S. | 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005 | 2005 | #94 |
External links
- Spiderland at Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....