otoh it's cool that their b-sides aren't just dumping grounds. but some of the 12"s are just insane. They'll Need A Crane in particular... hard to imagine someone could be an album-buying fan of this band and never hear Nightgown of the Sullen Moon or It's Not My Birthday or I'll Sink Manhattan.
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 25 September 2018 13:00 (six years ago) link
I should say the worst songs are Flans-led - they credit everything to both of them, right? I wonder how much collaboration happens
Saw a recent interview with Linnell saying that they collaborate on writing more these days, but it seems to be giving each other a drum pattern or a bridge to play with, rather than sitting down in a room. One assumes (given the evidence of early versions of songs) that they do plenty of arranging together, but they've always talked of songs as being written by one or the other, despite the credit policy.
Given how much commissioned work they've done in the last 20 years, it could be that they write music and score and jingles together, and think of that differently from writing songs? I'd be interested in an interview that dug into their process.
For those who think Flans has lost it after 96 or whenever (I've never listened to Them picking out whose songs are which), it might support your theory that he's taken on WAY more additional work within the band in this century; with social media, curating and hosting the podcast, making videos on his laptop, etc.
― Betting Eighty Hams (sic), Tuesday, 25 September 2018 21:38 (six years ago) link
xxxpost the new one is their best album in many years, imo
― alpine static, Tuesday, 25 September 2018 21:45 (six years ago) link
when I first got into this band at the age of 11 or so I had no idea there were actually two singers. nowadays it's pretty easy for me to tell whose song is whose, even before the lyrics kick in. the one that baffled me for years was "Puppet Head", because it's very clearly a Linnell-style song but Flansburgh sings it - apparently he turned the lyrics over to Flans because he couldn't come up with anything and that's why he wound up singing it instead.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 25 September 2018 21:51 (six years ago) link
xp to sic I went digging to see if the Johns talked about their collaboration process after I posted that, found this bit in an avclub interview:
AVC: Has the collaboration process between you and John changed much over the years?JL: I think it’s always different. Everything we do, we try and come up with something new. John and I have come up with various ways of collaborating over the years, and it’s kind of pleasant and fun to have that possibility that we could come up with some completely new way of working together. In the past, we’ve done things where one of us cooks up a bunch of samples, or an instrumental track, or a lyrics sheet, and passes it to the other person. We’ve done a lot of different versions of that, and some of them have been successful. On Join Us, there’s some of that. There’s is a song, for example, where I had a chorus and verse, and I didn’t like the verse, so I erased the vocals on the verse and gave the whole thing to Mr. Flansburgh, and he cooked up a completely different melody and lyric for that section. That’s the one where one of us sings the chorus and the other sings the verse. That worked, I thought. That’s the song “Never Knew Love.” We’re always coming up with different ways of working together, and I was pleasantly surprised by Flansburgh’s new material. I think he’s changed in certain ways on this project. It’s this late in our lives, I can say his lyrics have opened up into a whole new interesting area that I don’t know whether I can define, exactly, except that I and other people are recognizing that this is a new way that he’s cooking up lyrics that is pretty cool.
JL: I think it’s always different. Everything we do, we try and come up with something new. John and I have come up with various ways of collaborating over the years, and it’s kind of pleasant and fun to have that possibility that we could come up with some completely new way of working together. In the past, we’ve done things where one of us cooks up a bunch of samples, or an instrumental track, or a lyrics sheet, and passes it to the other person. We’ve done a lot of different versions of that, and some of them have been successful. On Join Us, there’s some of that. There’s is a song, for example, where I had a chorus and verse, and I didn’t like the verse, so I erased the vocals on the verse and gave the whole thing to Mr. Flansburgh, and he cooked up a completely different melody and lyric for that section. That’s the one where one of us sings the chorus and the other sings the verse. That worked, I thought. That’s the song “Never Knew Love.” We’re always coming up with different ways of working together, and I was pleasantly surprised by Flansburgh’s new material. I think he’s changed in certain ways on this project. It’s this late in our lives, I can say his lyrics have opened up into a whole new interesting area that I don’t know whether I can define, exactly, except that I and other people are recognizing that this is a new way that he’s cooking up lyrics that is pretty cool.
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 01:58 (six years ago) link
Oh damn, I bet this is the interview you already mentioned whoops
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 02:00 (six years ago) link
It's not!
― Betting Eighty Hams (sic), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 05:41 (six years ago) link
Two ways running this poll has affected my behaviour IRL this week: giggling pointlessly at the opening titles for Vertigo on 70mm, and buying a ticket to go to another country to see They Might Be Giants in a few weeks.
― Betting Eighty Hams (sic), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 20:06 (six years ago) link
Flood Show 30/11/2000
I thought this was in Aus but I had to check my old old OLLLLD blog from 2001 and the show I saw was in Dec 2001, at which they did all of Flood (plus Fingertips, boss of me and a few other things). All this time I thought it'd been a spontaneous first time they'd done that! Bah.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 27 September 2018 06:13 (six years ago) link
favorite part of that show is how they forget the order of the tracks
― frogbs, Thursday, 27 September 2018 12:44 (six years ago) link
The released show was the first time they'd done it; your show was was the fifth total, but two of those had been by "Sapphire Bullets" as support act.
Until two weeks ago, they'd had a Reverse Flood Show up for free download for two and a half years, recorded either at the Corner in Melbourne or The Zoo in Brisbane in 2013.
― Betting Eighty Hams (sic), Thursday, 27 September 2018 17:28 (six years ago) link
I just spontaneously claimed out loud that "I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class". I got funny looks.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, 27 September 2018 22:00 (six years ago) link
That line's been playing in my head a lot these last weeks, too.
― Betting Eighty Hams (sic), Friday, 28 September 2018 01:17 (six years ago) link
This Mono Puff album is better than I remembered!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, 28 September 2018 15:04 (six years ago) link
Which one? I'm not a big fan of either but they each have a couple standout moments
― Vinnie, Friday, 28 September 2018 16:15 (six years ago) link
"Unsupervised, I Hit My Head" is the kind of fun energetic song that Linnell usually sings
― Vinnie, Friday, 28 September 2018 16:18 (six years ago) link
Unsupervised
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, 28 September 2018 16:34 (six years ago) link
The big one is The World's Address, written by Linnell but sung by Flans. I think there are more examples
― PaulTMA, Friday, 28 September 2018 17:39 (six years ago) link
I really liked Unsupervised at the time; listened to It's Fun To Steal yesterday for the first time, and it's really not up to par.
― Ah, the minty egg bits (sic), Saturday, 29 September 2018 18:23 (six years ago) link
Linnell on writing: "We write pretty independently, and we've had a number of tracks in the recent past where we've collaborated. There's one shining exception, which is the song "Mink Car" off of Mink Car we actually wrote sitting at a piano in this Leopold and Loeb sort of way. We don't really ever do that."
― Ah, the minty egg bits (sic), Sunday, 30 September 2018 23:02 (six years ago) link
Just sent my ballot off. Making the first pass I had 96 tracks, but ranking them was near impossible and I didn't think too much about it. The song that ended up being my #1 surprised me. I think this band's strength is their breadth and variety rather than their quality on single songs, so it's harder to rank songs above others
― Vinnie, Monday, 1 October 2018 05:26 (six years ago) link
recall interviews saying that they write a lot of uncredited stuff for TV and commercials, sorta as a 'day job')
Lots of ads and TV themes and such in the 2003-2018 list, but here are four ads they did for Diet Dr Pepper in 2001.
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/21591/chimps/diet-dr-pepper
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/21592/holland-globetrotters/diet-dr-pepper
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/28111/retirement-village-people/diet-dr-pepper
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/19921/xga/diet-dr-pepper
― Ah, the minty egg bits (sic), Monday, 1 October 2018 20:01 (six years ago) link
So I started this list because hell why not, I'm an actual sized TMBG fan and whatnot but I thought dammit I'll probably only be able to come up with 20 or 30 songs... oh crap theres heaps argh.
Luckily I tapped out after Mink Car so thats where I'll stop (and Im interested to note much of my faves are the LTW/Factory Showroom era!).
BTW sic - it occurs to me to ask if you had a hand in a certain ragey TMBG spesh on TeeVee in the early aughts? :) (I still have it all on video!)
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 October 2018 04:38 (six years ago) link
I just sent mine in - ranking 100 songs is tough, tbh after 40 or so I just started listing stuff. But I stand behind it
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 October 2018 12:56 (six years ago) link
I'm listening to lots of the 1988-94 B-sides for the first time rn and bemoaning the never-existed-ness of the Superfueled Freakcicle compilation
― Ah, the minty egg bits (sic), Tuesday, 2 October 2018 18:06 (six years ago) link
30 years since I first heard it and I still get goosebumps from "Don't Let's Start" every damn time
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 2 October 2018 21:40 (six years ago) link
oops I accidentally downloaded over 200 Dial-A-Songs from the 20th century, and now might need to extend this poll by a couple of months to see if they unlock any of the eligible songs for me
― Stab my hinge, get hit (sic), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 21:01 (six years ago) link
Gonna send soon, I would say the top 40 or so are ranked, then there's a group of "next 30" and a group of "next 20" which are pretty impossible for me to meaningfully distinguish
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 21:42 (six years ago) link
Are we just going to end up with a jillion tracks each with a couple points? :)
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 23:22 (six years ago) link
Sent!
I think there'll be a decent amount of conensus near the top but some surprise high placers! Basically because that's what happens in every poll!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 23:59 (six years ago) link
I mean never forget that the ILX REM poll had big canonical hits in positions 2-5 and "Harborcoat" won
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 4 October 2018 00:03 (six years ago) link
it was before my time but wasn't the REM poll done in some weird run-off format so that only two songs from each album could place?
been slowly putting my ballot together for this. i still find TMBG to be a kinda frustrating band because they're so good at writing off-kilter pop songs but a lot of the time they're much more interested in being way more off-kilter than i really care for so listening to a whole album is a strange experience
― ufo, Thursday, 4 October 2018 00:24 (six years ago) link
^ Agreed. I was surprised to find than even Lincoln, which probably contains some of their highest highs, contains more than a few tracks I just didn't want to sit through at all nowadays. (That said, I think I already remembered it as the patchiest of the first few LPs, so...)
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, 4 October 2018 03:30 (six years ago) link
yeah i fucked up with the REM poll by using the album poll thread results as the basis for a short list of eligible songs. it was kinda early in the days of these things, but not really early enough that i should have thought that was a good idea. the countdown is still a pretty dope REM playlist tho imho.
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 4 October 2018 03:49 (six years ago) link
even Lincoln, which probably contains some of their highest highs, contains more than a few tracks I just didn't want to sit through at all nowadays
haha yeah I now have "Cage and Aquarium" stuck in my head and I really dislike that song.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 4 October 2018 06:36 (six years ago) link
this is the dawning of the
― Stab my hinge, get hit (sic), Thursday, 4 October 2018 07:03 (six years ago) link
i think apollo 18 might be their most consistent album, but it doesn't quite reach the same heights as the previous ones
― ufo, Thursday, 4 October 2018 07:41 (six years ago) link
Flood is definitely most consistent for me, even the totally throwaway songs are great
― Vinnie, Thursday, 4 October 2018 09:39 (six years ago) link
finalizing a ballot now. ranking is hard.
― nba jungboy (voodoo chili), Thursday, 4 October 2018 14:50 (six years ago) link
he ended up sad!
I've got 70-some selected and not sure where anything goes after #1
― Stab my hinge, get hit (sic), Thursday, 4 October 2018 16:48 (six years ago) link
sent a 40+ track ballot
― nba jungboy (voodoo chili), Friday, 5 October 2018 14:27 (six years ago) link
oh shit this is today
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Friday, 5 October 2018 14:33 (six years ago) link
Back in 2001, I didn't have enough hard drive space to keep more than a couple of months of TMBG Unlimited, so I shared my login with another They-listener who burnt the 128kbps files as audio CDs. After finding a torrent last week, it took almost as long to work out which songs were still exclusive to the service, tag them and make Live and Studio playlists as it did to listen through everything.
Currently listening to State Songs for the first time ever. Doubt that I'm going to listen closely enough to the McSweeney's album or People Are Wrong! to add any of their pieces to my ballot.
― Stab my hinge, get hit (sic), Friday, 5 October 2018 16:11 (six years ago) link
the McSweeny's disc has some pretty good parts - lots of tasty instrumental bits and experimental stuff. "I Am 40" really feels like one of those great demos that should've become a proper single but somehow didn't. I also like the Doughty song a lot. not exactly something I wanna listen to in full anymore but every TMBG fan should hear it once at least
― frogbs, Friday, 5 October 2018 16:22 (six years ago) link
Sent in my ballot! 99 songs! This has been a hectic week with work stuff and getting a cold so I didn't give it my normal obsessive combing-over... but I feel like the stuff I like more is definitely towards the top and it's a great lineup of material, with room for some more oddball tracks that would never have even made it into my Excel sheet if I'd known I was going to be working towards a 20- or 40-track ballot. Woo!
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 6 October 2018 02:26 (six years ago) link
also surprised myself to realize that i rank apollo 18 below factory showroom. kinda figured the first four would be an untouchable bloc but looking at the tracklist, there's an awful lot i've never really gone for, like "the guitar" and "she's actual size" and "if i wasn't shy." maybe the moment in which the Flans I Dislike emerges. "space suit" and "i palindrome i" are fucking masterpieces though.
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 6 October 2018 02:36 (six years ago) link
i like the guitar
― nba jungboy (voodoo chili), Saturday, 6 October 2018 02:42 (six years ago) link
the lower reaches of my bracket are packed with some of the most novel of their novelties
― nba jungboy (voodoo chili), Saturday, 6 October 2018 02:43 (six years ago) link
You got mine, right sic?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 6 October 2018 02:45 (six years ago) link