They Might Be Giants - C/D, S/D, OPO etc

I'm more interested in an overview of their ouevre/"schtick", their songwriting, and the issue of their "dorkiness" (particularly how that has limited their appeal and why that is). Also how, at least on their first three albums, they fit into that 80s tendency of nerdy white guys appropriating and using explicitly non-nerdy white guy idioms - folk, reggae, world music, dance music (see also David Byrne, Paul Simon - I wanna throw Pere Ubu's 80s records in here too for some reason).

I think they've written a lot of great songs, but have a tendency to retreat behind a wall of schtick that makes any kind of emotional connection with their music problematic. But some stuff, if you peel away the levels of forced irony and wordiness, is really quite bleak and despairing, genuinely moving even. (see "They'll Need a Crane", for ex.)

x-post um have you seen the movie about them? 100% "serious critical evaluation".

Look at cast list in link provided! Jon Stewart! Dave Eggers! Paul Simon! Sarah Vowell! Etc!

They Might Be Giants [Bar/None, 1986]
Two catchy weirdos, eighteen songs, and the hits just keep on coming in an exuberantly annoying show of creative superabundance. Their secret is that as unmediated pop postmodernists they can be themselves stealing from anywhere, modulating without strain or personal commitment from hick to nut to nerd. Like the cross-eyed bear in the regretful but not altogether kind "Hide Away Folk Family," their "shoes are laced with irony," but that doesn't doom them to art-school cleverness or never meaning what they say. Their great subject is the information overload that lends these songs their form. They live in a world where "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" and "Youth Culture Killed My Dog." A

Lincoln [Restless/Bar/None, 1988]
XTC as computer nerds rather than studio wimps--change for chord change and beat for irrelevant beat, they're actively annoying even if intelligence is all you ask of your art-pop. Except maybe on the antiboomer "Purple Toupee," side one's hooks begin and end with "Ana Ng," a beyond-perfect tour de force about a Vietnamese woman they never got to meet; until "Kiss Me, Son of God," which closes the album and could be anti-Castro if they let it, side two's are cleverness for cleverness's sake. And damned clever they are. B+

Flood [Elektra, 1990]
tunes, aarghh, tunes--please not more tunes ("Dead," "Your Racist Friend") **

Classic.

Lincoln
Flood
Apollo 18

OPO:

Tough call. I'll go with "Ana Ng" for now.

"I'm gonna die / if you touch me one more time
Well I guess that I'm / gonna die no matter what"

So these days, as a grown-up non-wacky non-fanboy, my picks would be:

Spiralling Shape. A very OTM song about novelty fixation and the race to hip, and the fact those things don't bring any happiness. "Nobody knows what it's really like, but everyone says it's great".

I Can Hear You. Recorded on an old wax cylider, it's just a small handful of two-line vignettes about different forms of communications technology, and the lengths people will go to to find new ways of just talking to each other. It can move me to tears. First time I heard it, I immediately ripped it to mp3 and emailled it to somebody, because that just made sense.

Four of Two. From the first kids' album, a little nonsense song which is in fact a sneaky allegory about how easy it is to think you'll one day meet your ideal partner, but then wake up one morning to realise that you're old and your life's flown by and it's too late...and yet to still think you're bound to meet them, soon.

She's An Angel. A very sweet and simple first love song, which is amazed and shocked by the way it feels, and is too shy to say "I really like you", so hides behind random tangents and adolescent surrealism...but doesn't manage to hide its real message very well, in the end.

Till My Head Falls Off. Drug addled suicide note. Which rocks.

Dr. Worm. Possibly their most archetypically TMBG sounding chorus ever, and the words are about a nice old man who's always wanted to be a famous jazz drummer and thinks he still can be, one day, if he just practices a bit more. Beautiful.

I could probably go on for a while, but I won't.

Nowadays, their childrens albums are about fifty billion times better than their "real" ones.

oy

"road movie to berlin," from "flood," was the first song my wife ever saw me sing in public...we've been married over 13 years now. I totally credit John and John of TMBG. Thanks, nerds!

-chadly con Queso

I wish no particular harm on TMBG. Flood is a nice album.

I'm conflicted about "Shoehorn with Teeth": either it's meaningless and infuriating or it's wonderfully oblique. I can't make up my mind.

Wonder if anyone's heard their newer records? The Else was surprisingly good. Very straightforward but just a good rock record. I actually kind of enjoy the kids stuff. I'm a dork.

I mostly bumped this to say that "Narrow Your Eyes" may be their best song ever. The lyrics on that one kill me - "I get off the bus/ride past our stop/and though I'm late/I can't get off/I just can't bear/to tell you some lies/so narrow your eyes" **shudder**

i've heard most of their later albums and while there are definitely some good songs here and there, the children's albums are by and large better than the 'regular' albums. also the bonus disc for The Else is more fun than the proper album.

but yeah "Narrow Your Eyes" is great, they can kill you with occasional sincere moments.

I'm a dork.

also this sentence is just kind of assumed when you're posting on a TMBG thread, no need to type it

Yeah I was surprised by the amount of effort they put into those kids albums. They remind me of the earlier stuff but with somewhat dumber lyrics. I don't know if they're better than The Else but some of it is very good. "Can You Find It?" and "C is For Conifers" are just oddly touching, I guess

the kids stuff is fun. for the most part, not all that diff (musically at least) from their regular stuff. and kids do indeed love it.

the bonus disc for The Else is more fun than the proper album

Oh, fer sher! "Why the Christ, why the Devil, Why did you grow a beard?!?"

Of the later stuff, "Mink Car" is brilliant but "The Spine" is their absolute nadir, just completely unredeemable.

Oh, and Tyler I wanna party with you, always find you on my fave threads. :-)

Really really liked "Brain Problem Situation", "We Live in a Dump", "Yeah, the Deranged Millionaire" and "Cast Your Pod to the Wind". I don't think it's better than the main disc but it's a great bonus. TMBG were really a band built for these types of podcasts.

Agree that "The Spine" is the worst. I mean it is fairly decent in spots but I really hate how every song on the first half sounds like every other song on the first half. I really liked "Broke in Two"

haaa right back atcha, gerald. and i agree about the spine -- i remember listening to that a bunch and deciding it really was *bad*. or just completely lifeless.

So these guys are releasing a new album this year and will be touring the US in September. Which is when I was thinking of visiting. They've already announced a few cities and SF and ATL are among them so now I am really really wondering I cant only get over but get to see the beloves Johns live again woo!

Here was my review:

"John Flansburgh, attempting to describe why "Sensurround" was left off of Factory Showroom: "For me, I think of every song as its own thing. I think it's interesting to see the shape of an album after it's put together; you can create a different listening experience depending on how you stack up the songs. The most discipline that we ever apply to an album sequence is avoiding like-sounding songs. If we have too many mid-tempo songs, we'll leave a couple of them off. Or if we have a better example of a song than another, we tend to leave the second-rate one off." Ignoring the fact that I find “Sensurround” to be perhaps the best song of the Factory Showroom era, I really do like the sentiment behind this statement. So it's a little disappointing to find them pretty much ignoring their old values - here comes The Spine, a disc that fills nearly the entire first half with mid-tempo rockers, of which only “Experimental Film” makes an impression. No, none of these songs are bad in isolation, but stacked one after another gives the album a really bland feel, completely atypical of what we’ve come to expect from these guys. The experimentation is toned down – there’s auto-tune on “Bastard Wants to Hit Me”, and one song that’s reminiscent of Flood but only about half as catchy (“Stalk of Wheat”). Other than that, they’ve almost fully transformed into your typical rock band, although the lyrical puzzles are still abound – Linnell sings about resignation from life (“Memo to Human Resources”), drug addiction (“Thunderbird”), and bizarre strings of cause-and-effect relationships (“Wearing a Raincoat”). The unfortunate thing is that the lyrics are the really the only interesting parts of them. I’m not exactly sure what happened here – maybe they purposely decided to write a more “adult” album to offset the kids’ one – but this group never really did the “mature adult rock” thing in the first place. The saving grace of the album is that side 2 has a few legitimately great tracks - “Museum of Idiots” gets by on a strong and punchy horn section, “Damn Good Times” is an energetic slice of power-pop with an accelerating guitar solo ending, and “Broke In Two” rides a wonky guitar line into the stratospheres of catchiness that this group was always capable of. But other than those tracks (and “Experimental Film”), there’s little on here you’ll want to hear again. So give it credit for those few great songs and making an album that’s at least listenable all the way through, but you know the band can do better than this. It's funny to hear them sing on "Stalk of Wheat" that they're "out of ideas", but less funny when it actually seems true."

I stil havent got round to hearing some recent albums. I love "Sensurround", its a great song.

i've heard most of their later albums and while there are definitely some good songs here and there, the children's albums are by and large better than the 'regular' albums.

"The Spine" is their absolute nadir,

agree with all this

i covered "narrow your eyes" for a fan-assembled TMBG tribute album when i was like 16

At parties some of us have been known to break out into spontaneous acapella barbershop renditions of "Kiss me, son of god".

We've all known a few

one of my faves

has anyone ever written a review of TMBG (in recent-ish years, I mean) that basically says "Linnell still writes good songs, but Flansburgh does not"?

feel like it's been this way, more or less, for 20 years...just not sure if it's ever been acknowledged.

disagree! there have definitely been times where Linnell gets stagnant, as does Flansburgh, but they both eventually come back

hmm...if you can point me to some great late-era Flans songs, i'm all ears

IDK it's pretty much always been Good Linnell > Good Flansburgh > Bad Flansburgh > Bad Linnell for me. I can't think of a single album where John F. outshines John L., outside of Apollo 18? It's tough to compare the two since Linnell's songs usually outnumber Flans 2:1. Kind of a Patridge/Moulding situation. Though when you see them live, Flansburgh clearly comes off as the frontman.

As for great late period Flanses..."Judy Is Your Vietnam" (basically the perfect Flans song), "In Fact", "Darlings of Lumberland" (which I think succeeds in the area "Cloissone" fails in), "Let Me Tell You About My Operation" and "Impossibly New" are all pretty great to me. I like more than that but those are the big ones.

Good Linnell > Good Flansburgh > Bad Flansburgh > Bad Linnell

I've always thought of Linnell as having the better songs overall, but I also think he has the better voice, which certainly plays a hand in it

New album is pretty good - especially if you've gotten burned out on them recently, since this is much more an album proper. It's probably their darkest set of lyrics yet; compared to the "fight the power" message of The Else this is more of a "everything sucks and we're all gonna die soon" type of album. Only listened twice but I think "Last Wave" is gonna go down as one of their greatest songs - feel like this is their "Wheel and the Maypole"

also "The Greatest" has one of the best opening lines in TMBG history : "They call me the greatest/'cause I'm not very good and they're being sarcastic"

State Songs >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mono Puff

When I listen to Underwater Woman and Let Me Tell You About My Operation I get to understand how life sounds through the ears of people who hate They Might Be Giants when they hear their best material

what does that mean
those songs are great btw

this new album is pretty great, top to bottom. i'm kinda stunned.

fun fact about Last Wave - the lyrics were written to sync up to the Run DMC/Aerosmith "Walk This Way" video, which is why they make no sense in a vacuum

Had me in stitches.

https://vimeo.com/253025437

ok that's amazing

hilarious

oh damn I didn't know that was online

amazing how they can still manage to sound exactly like they did 33 years ago if they want to

Now that was hilarious. Thanks for making my morning.

omg

can't breathe

Beautiful

in case anyone missed it, but has a bookmark here, there's a great big ballot poll going on: Hope That I Get Polled Before I Die: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS 1982-2002 POLL - Voting, Campaigning, Discussing

too hard to decide for me. they have like hundreds of songs by now

The poll only covers 1982-2002, per the title, and excludes not-formally-released songs, so there are a mere 431 eligible.

(It says 430 in the thread, but somehow I missed Stomp Box from John Henry.)

An all too easy one to forget about though now I'll surely be made a fool of when it hits top 10.

like hundreds of songs by now

They have released at least 170 songs just in the last six years; only 22 of them are for children.

Results rolling out: YOUTH CULTURE POLLED MY DOG: They Might Be Giants (first 21 years) POLL RESULTS

anyone who liked last year's album should really check out My Murdered Remains, a 16-track collection of outtakes and Dial-a-Song tunes that's basically I Like Fun 2. maybe even a little better actually. TMBG seem to do this thing a lot where they write two fairly similar songs and chuck one out for the album, often booting out the better song. if you've listened to ILF a lot you can definitely tell which ones those were here. either way despite not getting much fanfare, it's basically a brand new TMBG album, and a quite good one in fact.

My Murdered Remains has its own outtakes album, More Murdered Remains

^ it's essential for the "Starry Eyes" cover alone, which I'd somehow forgotten about

Roky or The Records?

The Records

The Records: http://tmbw.net/wiki/Starry_Eyes

Cool. One time I struck up a conversation with a guy on the subway because his headphones were leaking that.

Never heard this cover version before. Pretty good.

this song is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvteQ8kW41A

sic's campaigning/voting thread (linked above) is probably (still) the most, um, encyclopedic such thread I've seen. Bless.

and it only covers the first 20 years (which I think now was a good call). and they've only been MORE prolific since then, I'm pretty sure

its hard to tell, they weren't able to release outtakes albums every 3 years or so like they are now

didn't they put out like 3 albums last year not even counting the John Henry demos

Three studio albums plus an outtakes disc plus a live album plus the remastered John Henry Demos

weren't able to release outtakes albums every 3 years or so like they are now

I didn't track '80s and '90s Dial-A-Songs that never turned into released tracks in that poll, though. Balance may have been more even with those in.

Even with things like releasing a song a week in 2015 and 2018, writing and performing a new song at every venue on a 2004 tour, my feeling is that the eMusic era is still their most consistently prolific:

The first 17 years of this poll saw about 280 songs released; the next four see another 130 or so, not counting dozens of cues and miniatures for Malcolm In The Middle.

The cascade of music this year (2001) included 75 new songs. Lennon/McCartney wrote 121 in a decade.

Once or twice a month I open and poke at the spreadsheet for a 2003-2019 listening thread, and all of a sudden it's seven hours later and I'm A-B-C-D-E-ing two people's rips of Clock Radio tracks against a tape transfer and a streaming rip of the same song in Dial-A-Song form and the ParticleMen upload, and making notes in ID3 tags on which ones are different or more listenable and my hips hurt

(quick count looks like 78 songs in 2004, including covers and TV themes and Homestar Runner collabs. Only 44 new songs last year, plus one they wrote for the third album but ran out of time to record.)

Picture disc 30th anniversary reissue of Flood.

The A-side features the original Flood album cover art and the B-side is a brand new animated psychedelic zoetrope image of TMBG ephemera created by Paul Sahre. You will need a phone and a glass hookah to experience it in its full psychedelic glory! (Viewing instructions are included on the LP jacket.) Buy two and sell the second on eBay for the price of both!

ok that is p cool

In the series "lyrics snippets that haven't aged all that well":

Why is the world in love again?
Why are we marching hand in hand?
Why are the ocean levels rising up?

ok yeah I had to order that

The free download of FLOOD LIVE IN AUSTRALIA has been reposted on our website’s Downloads page but it leaves on February 1 (for something else free!). https://found.ee/freedownloads

Thanks!