Review
Jon Spencer
Spencer Sings The Hits!

In The Red (2018) — Kevin Fitzpatrick

Jon Spencer – Spencer Sings The Hits! cover artwork
Jon Spencer – Spencer Sings The Hits! — In The Red, 2018

Garage rock is a term that no longer gets a lot of usage - dissipating into the ether after the resurgence and seeming demise of the genre around the mid-00s. The thing is, it never died. We just forgot where to look. And when it comes to unabashed, unapologetic garage rock, you need look no further than Jon Spencer. He of the Blues Explosion and Pussy Galore. He who started the fuzzy, fizzy guitar sound that contemporaries like Jack White seem to get all the credit for. But make no mistake - Spencer did it first, and Spencer does it better.

Listening to tracks like “Ghost” and “Overload”, it becomes evident that Spencer has no real interest in changing his formula but that’s all part of its charm. The garage is still his laboratory and Spencer Sings The Hits! has the formula to put a smile on your face, a swagger in your walk and a sway in your hips. What music does that anymore? Music that elicits that kind of response all but died with The Ramones. But bless Jon Spencer’s greasy ol’ truck-stop heart leading the charge for the next generation. 

Jon Spencer – Spencer Sings The Hits! cover artwork
Jon Spencer – Spencer Sings The Hits! — In The Red, 2018

Related news

Jon Spencer road dates

Posted in Tours on October 2, 2026

Jon Spencer & the HITmakers with two tours

Posted in Tours on September 17, 2022

Jon Spencer & The Hitmakers (& a Quasi connection)

Posted in Records on February 19, 2022

Recently-posted album reviews

Contention

Nuclear Summer
Daze (2026)

Contention, I would argue, has spent the last few years at or near the top of the heap of the return to 90's styled Straight Edge Metalcore. I am being specific because there is no mistaking Contention's influences nor their message. This is a STRAIGHT EDGE band that is far more indebted to Morning Again that anything that uses a … Read more

A Secret Revealed

The Ruin I Summoned Forth
Lifeforce (2026)

There are albums that use heaviness as an assault and others that use it to create an atmosphere. On The Ruin I Summoned Forth, A Secret Revealed manage to does both. The German quintet’s fourth full-length is an enormous, bleak piece of post-metal, but calling it post-metal only gets you part of the way there. Black metal cuts through its … Read more

Time Spent Driving

Lost Leaves
Thirty Something Records (2026)

There's a particular challenge facing bands that came out of the late '90s and early '00s emo scene. You can recreate the sound people remember and risk becoming your own nostalgia act, or you can abandon it entirely and risk losing whatever made the band matter in the first place. Time Spent Driving choose neither on Lost Leaves. More than … Read more