Rejoice! After a long exile at SXSW, we're back with another installment of "Music My Parents Don't Know They Like," the place where the once-hip (or in some cases, the still-hip) can come have their minds blown by the fact that kids nowadays are putting their mp3s and mp4s and XYZs up on their weblogs for any old fogy to hear. This time around, we're going to take a look at Spoon, the foursome who have helped immensely in bringing Austin, TX, to the indie-music forefront since the late 1990s.

A standard-bearer not only for their hometown, but also for their venerable record label (Merge), Spoon were making taut, clever, stinging indie-rock way back before skinny ties threatened to strangle the soul (and skinny jeans, the you-know-what) out of the genre. Spoon has been one of the most remarkably consistent bands on the indie scene, putting out an average of one kick-ass album every two years over the past decade. At once soulful and buzzing with emotion, Spoon's sound incorporates a wide range of influences -- from garage-rock and punk to pop and R&B -- and is sure to please anyone looking for an interesting new slant on classic rock (as opposed to all the bland, homogeneous "modern/alt rock" being propagated by those shit-peddlers at ClearChannel).

Recommended if you like: The Kinks, Exile on Main St., The Modern Lovers

Track picks: "My First Time, Vol. 3" | "Everything Hits At Once" | "The Way We Get By" | "I Summon You" | "Don't You Evah"

If you like Spoon, check out: The Virgins, French Kicks, The Horror The Horror

Photo by pneyu via Flickr.