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

I like Mink Car! It has "Mr XCitement" on it!

"Mink Car" is possibly their third best, after the debut and "Flood". It's certainly my most-listened albums of theirs over the last ddecade (not counting the kids albums - I do have kids and TMBG is the only band they request by name). It just goes from strength to strength, I mean out of the gate with "Bangs" and "Cyclops Rock" they've got the humor AND the rock chops in spades. "Wicked Little Critta" is quite funny as I grew up with kids that talked like that, and the guest appearance by Mike Doughty is great. Not a skippable track on the whole thing.

ugh Mink Car has a few good songs but some real duds. like i said upthread, the recent albums have their moments but i feel like they're one of those bands whose studio output has dropped off to the point that pretty much all of the first 6 or so albums beat anything since then.

Not a skippable track? I dunno I like some of the album but it kills me how much better it could have been. If you were obsessed wtih the band and got the TMBG Unlimited + the web release you can hear a lot of the Mink Car songs in their original versions and a lot of them are much, much better. Especially "Cyclops Rock", "Older", "She Thinks She's Edith Head" and "Another First Kiss". Plus a lot of awesome material didn't even get used like "I Am 40". I really have no idea how they compiled that album. Kinda agree with the above though I feel like The Else is about as good as Factory Showroom was. The first 4 or 5 are untouchable though. Just spin tunes like "Puppet Head" or "Number Three" or "We Want a Rock" again...nobody else writes songs like that

yeah the Severe Tire Damage version of "First Kiss" isso much better. Mink Car seemed like it had way too long a gestation period because they weren't sure how to approach doing a new studio album post-Elektra and so they had time to fiddle with the songs too much and cast aside perfectly good ones.

Exactly, I mean they used different producers for each song and that really threw things off, I still think the album's alright in itself but it could have been one of their better albums had they used the better songs and the best takes.

From Facebook:

Huzzah! In support of our next album They Might Be Giants are planning a 45 city US tour starting in September. Two shows in England in July. Album preview ep on iTunes in April, LP later--release date not nailed down yet.

Well it's about time!!

Also, I just found out that Yukihiro Takahashi was the engineer for The Else. What a bizarre piece of trivia...how the hell did that happen? AFAIK he doesn't even engineer his own albums.

have you guys heard the new album yet?

it's pretty good - supposedly a return to the Flood era but most of the tracks are guitar/bass/drums which few of the early songs were

still, after a few listens, it's really growing on me. is almost definitely their best since, say, Factory Showroom, or maybe even Apollo 18

bought it, haven't listened yet. last one i heard (the spine?) was kind of awful, but i'm optimistic about this one. and anyway, they're a staple in my house because i have a little kid who likes the kids records.

I don't think there's any shame in abandoning the tired and stale grown-up records in favour of the fun & delightful kids records at this stage

yeah, there's a lot on those kids records that could've easily been on flood and no one would blink an eye.

yeah I don't think TMBG is anything more than "decent" as a real rock band. the kids albums are actually pretty good and play to their strengths a lot more. the ABCs album is a lot better for adults than I thought it would be. there's a lot of humor on there that's pretty subtle. that said, Join Us is definitely worth a few listens - it doesn't have the colorful, lush arrangements of the first few albums but the songs are pretty addictive. kind of sounds like a mix between The Else and the collection of Podcast songs that came with it.

btw Tyler - The Spine is definitely one of their worst so don't let it discourage you

"Can You Find It?" is such a great song. One of Linnell's very best. These songs used to be about unrequited love or the destruction of a relationship and now it's about finding letters on a graphic. But it sure is beautiful.

hate to triple post here but I have "Celebration" on repeat and it totally rules.
this new album is great.

haha was gonna post "rip frogbs" when i saw this thread was revived

my immediate favorite on first listen is "When Will You Die," which i have weird feelings about because it was obviously written before Osama Bin Laden's death but listening to it so soon after it's hard not to think of how it could easily be interpreted or appropriated as not at all ironic or comedic in that context

"2082" is working for me in it's subtle way.

i don't think "when will you die?" is about anyone in particular, but it fits so well with OBL, as people actually were celebrating on the streets when he was killed

also, i think it may be the best song here. can't get enough of it

Persevering with this. It might be too early to speak (The Else has only just grown on me ffs) but it really does seem like Linnell's songwriting is severely outpacing Flansburgh's, e.g. Let Your Hair Hang Down is one of my favourite TMBG songs of all time and Cloisonné is so self-conscious (even by their standards) that I can't stand hearing it.

Linnell's songwriting is severely outpacing Flansburgh's

isn't this basically true of their entire catalog to different extents though?

It is, but on this album it feels like Linnell's at his peak and Flansburgh is just phoning it in, I mean a really really stark difference.

i actually thought Flansburgh was less annoyingly broad on this album than he'd been on the last few

Join Us is really holding up for me, definitely their best since John Henry or Factory Showroom.

yeah i;ve been enjoying it, haven't listened to it too much, but it seems pretty strong.

Have we done a TMBG albums poll?

nah...i always felt like the consensus on their best albums is so obvious that it'd almost not be worth it. maybe non-Flood or post-Flood only would make it slightly more interesting?

I was always about the gimmicky TMBG but John Henry completely flipped my perception. Such a surprise coming as it did after "Why Does the Sun Shine?" Now I'd rate The Spine above Flood. Yes I know.

(ironically I once flipped a car while listening to John Henry)

John Henry was the last of the early albums i heard and i've just never warmed to it

It's great! It's the first time they really allowed themselves to be properly melodic at the expense of silly noises. It even declines properly at the end like a real album </geir>

I remember buying it at launch (off the back of "Why Does etc etc" as mentioned above, so thinking "ugh this can't end well") and being completely blown away.

This week I read that Factory Showroom is Flansburgh's favourite album, which makes me warm inside because I absolutely adored it from start to finish.

yeah FS is much more my speed, the only album where i forgive them for not stuffing 18+ songs onto the record

The Spine is nowhere near as terrible as 'the worst evah TMBG album' should be

That's 'Mink Car's job

Now I'd rate The Spine above Flood. Yes I know.

Ugh, that's just crazy talk!! I mean, really... If you said "Mink Car" above "Flood", I'd be down with that, though. ;-)

John Henry was the last of the early albums i heard and i've just never warmed to it

It doesn't sit well in my mind, either - "Factory Showroom" has higher highs (but is a bit inconsistent).

The Spine is nowhere near as terrible as 'the worst evah TMBG album' should be

That's 'Mink Car's job

― Colin Allstations (PaulTMA), Saturday, 3 September 2011 11:20 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Mink Car always grated on me a bit because I read some early press touting it as a return to Flood. That's always dangerous, especially in this case because it pronounces just how hard the album is trying to be Flood. It's got some great songs, but as a piece it just doesn't hold up that well, and it really tails off at the end. Ending with "Working Undercover for the Man"? Seriously?

Absolutely. The Spine seemed to be a huge return to something resembling TMBG sanity after Mink Car, when even Linnell was writing drivel like Wicked Little Critta. Any album with 'Mr Xcitement' on it can only be the lowest of the low.

imo any of the first 6 albums is better than any of the albums since, they're kind of stuck in a perpetual chamber of diminishing returns

I suppose if you go there for the novelty you're going to be let down by the new stuff. Linnell's songwriting is sharper than ever imo.

Any album with 'Mr Xcitement' on it can only be the lowest of the low.

This probably contradicts what I just said but fuck it: That song I don't mind so much, probably because it's a new idea, and it's always a joy to see what these guys do with new ideas. The Spine is relatively bereft of ideas but my god is it a well-crafted album.

But yeah, Wicked Little Critta should have been a B side.

The Spine is not even remotely shit. It's good!

I suppose if you go there for the novelty you're going to be let down by the new stuff. Linnell's songwriting is sharper than ever imo.

i like a lot of the new stuff (and as said upthread am pretty into Join Us) fwiw, also way to go on being presumptuous AND condescending about me on liking the band for "novelty" songs just because i prefer the early stuff

The last song on the new album "You Don't Like Me" is stunningly good.

yeah that's great

"you like... cutting with a fork" is great. btw is there an albums poll? I can't find one.

some dude: I did make a wrong assumption and I'm sorry for that, I had no intention of hanging you out to dry. Some people do just want novelty from TMBG but that's cool too.

i think hardcore fans just tend to overreact to the band being widely seen as a 'comedy' act or 'weird' or w/e. i respect the songcraft and the subtleties and emotions of what they're doing but i think the humor and left field absurdity and kitchen sink instrumentation and sound effects are also an important and inseparable part of the whole package.

Yeah, and as TMBG fans I think we all get a bit tired of being seen as novelty chasers. I gave up talking up the depth of their music a long time ago.

You Don't Like Me initially struck me as a really weird closer, though I know appreciate the way the album winds down. It's very unlike other TMBG albums.

*now