Kill the Moonlight (2002)

Blame it on the crap economy--always a reliable indicator--but 2002 is shaping up as the most artistically bullish year for rock since O-Town finished preschool. And few deserve payback more than alt-lifer Britt Daniel, who launched Spoon in the mid-'90s as a familiar slash-and-sputter trio in the spirit of the Voidoids, the Pixies, and Wire. After years of public indifference and the requisite major-label screwing-over, he kept at it, guzzled '60s British Invasion rock like the Kinks and the Stones, and jerked heads with last year's hyper-tuneful Girls Can Tell. But this stripped-down song cycle about underachieving is his greatest achievement--all hand claps, tambourines, bargain-basement keyboards, hoo-oo-oos, muh-mow-mows, and melodies that stick in your head like a cheap-wine hangover. REASON TO BE CHEERFUL "Don't Let It Get You Down" is a come-on with the best stuffed-nose rock enunciation in memory. Could be the Strokes in 10 years--if they work hard.