Wipers - Over the Edge
Greg Sage had a lot of great records right around this period but this one to me is the peak. It's extremely dark music and it's sort of hardcore but it's also undeniable pop songs. I remember driving around Austin with some of my hardcore friends from Temple and they were really into The Misfits, The Dead Kennedys. They weren't into my silly pop music, let me just put it that way. They were not Julian Cope fans. They put this record on they were like 'this is too gloomy. It's creeping me out.' It's a record that has classic song after classic song. At one point I covered 'No One Wants an Alien' just on my four track. I used to cover songs a lot just as an exercise because it was fun and to figure out how songs were put together. It was my process for figuring out how to become a recording artist. 

Is that heavy but still pop template something that inspired Spoon? 

I think so. There's something about that that appeals to me. The juxtaposition of those two things. When I was a kid the very first record that made an impression on me was the theme to 2001 - A Space Oddity. The reason it made such an impression was because it scared the fuck out of me. It was powerful and scary and I wanted my dad around. He wasn't allowed to leave the room once he put this record on. I still feel like that gloom and fear is a real thing that works in music. Any emotion works but that's one I never wanted to shy away from.