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

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!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt1V5gD4GoE

lmao "gonna tell my kids this was Animal Collective"

Restreaming a previously subscriber-only concert from 2015 this evening on youtube, for pandemic party times.

The TMBG Watch Party goes up at 11pm London, 7pm Eastern US, 4pm Pacific US, 10am in Sydney, 8am Tokyo. We will be streaming a performance of a Brooklyn show from October 2015, and as it streams you can chat in real-time with other TMBGers.

For spoilers, here's the setlist for this "Horntoberfest"-themed gig.

whoa, that's an awesome setlist

saw them on this most recent tour where they were doing Flood in its entirely, one of their last gigs before they all got cancelled in fact. without coming off too fanboyish they really do seem to get better every time I see them. the wonky "Spy" improv included a sample of The Eagles "Take It To The Limit" which was one of the funniest things I've ever seen them do

I'll be watching the Steven Universe finale but will probably catch up with that later

Suspect it won't be archived, but should run longer than Steven Universe to join in when you get a chance.

For spoilers, here's the setlist🕸 for this "Horntoberfest"-themed gig.

guessing they’re starting with set 2