Spoon - ＂The Way We Get By＂

What this video is

Released in 2002 as the lead single from Spoon's critically acclaimed fourth album Kill the Moonlight (Merge Records), 'The Way We Get By' arrived during a pivotal moment for American indie rock, as post-punk revival acts gained critical traction before mainstream crossover. The song's lyrics reference Iggy Pop and The Stooges, grounding it in a lineage of proto-punk apathy and street-level hedonism. The video's…

Why it matters

A canonical document of early-2000s American indie rock's aesthetic economy: minimal production, maximum rhythmic tension, and anti-spectacle visual presentation. The video reinforces the album's ethos of restraint, reflecting Kill the Moonlight's stripped-down, rhythm-driven sound and helping…

The director

Steve Hanft (born May 3, 1966, Ventura, California) is an American music video and film director with an MFA in Experimental Narrative Film from CalArts. He has directed over seventy music videos for artists including Beck, The Cure, Primal Scream,…