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They Might Be Giants is the brainchild of John Linnell and John Flansburgh, a couple of huge dorks based out of Brooklyn. Starting in 1982, it was just the two of them for a while, using limited instrumentation and a drum machine, before evolving into a full-fledged band (with, like, real guitars and drums) by 1994.
Any nerd you ever knew in high school loved these guys. Known for their smart, surreal, abstruse lyrics and their extremely catchy song structures and hooks, TMBG became a quick cult favorite. Finding success on alternative rock and college radio stations, the duo quickly became one of the most well-known DIY alternative rock groups in an era dominated by R&B and grunge. They even wrote a few albums for toddlers that don’t suck.
One of their most innovative marketing campaigns is/was their Dial-a-Song service, where the Johns would record songs into an answering machine and advertise the phone number. Eventually it became an internet service, and many of these songs would get fleshed out and recorded for their albums proper.
The prime of their career is long over, but there are tons of goodies in the post-90’s discography that are well worth any long-term fan’s time. If you’re new, for the love of God please don’t start with Mink Car.
They Might Be Giants Official Website
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(1986) They Might Be Giants
(1988) Lincoln
(1990) Flood
(1992) Apollo 18
(1994) John Henry
They Might Be Giants (1986) – Rating: 9/10
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The Johns really went all out on their first try. This is one of the most diverse albums I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’ve heard every Mr. Bungle-esque album you can think of. A very ambitious debut, to be able to cram 19 varied songs into 38 minutes and pull it off splendidly with surprisingly little filler. Obviously, not everyone is going to like every song, but I can personally count the tracks on one hand that don’t land for me: “Rabid Child”, “Boat of Car”, and “Chess Piece Face”. That’s less than four minutes. 10% of the album. This is an easy 9/10.
For each song I dislike, there’s one that I love unconditionally. “Everything Right Is Wrong Again” is pop perfection, with Linnell’s nasally voice suited well to the ‘80s production. “Hide Away Folk Family” is perplexing in its subject matter (and weirdly-delivered horoscope during the bridge), but it wonderfully captures the creepy, foreboding nature of fear itself. Like something is going to leap out at any moment. “She’s an Angel” is an innocent — almost too innocent — story of love. But it might not be. It might literally be about God sending him an angel. It’s hard to tell with these motherfucking Johns, with their twisty, abstract lyrics and knack for wordplay.
Those three I love the most. Everything else is good to great, and I could go over each and every song, but what’s the point? Albums like these yearn to be listened to! Not read about! Just know going in that these cats are using a drum machine and whatever rinky-dink instruments they can scrounge up (including the most loathed instrument of all, the accordion). Just know that it’s always about the lyrics and always about the melodies, and these guys are so good at both that the extreme nerdiness is forgivable. I like my music smart, and you can’t get much smarter.
Lincoln (1988) – Rating: 7/10
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For whatever reason, I always get the feeling that this is slightly inferior to the debut. Structurally and thematically, it’s still the same type of album. 18 songs with 18 different styles. This time around, the music seems more mature, with some songs more fleshed out than anything off of They Might Be Giants. Even the smaller, simpler throwaway songs are more consistent than some of the weirdo genre-benders from the past. I think the consistency hurts Lincoln. It’s a very even record, with the highs and the lows not too far from one another. As a result, the filler-meter goes off.
That is not to say that Lincoln is subpar. Far from it. Delightful tunes abound! “Ana Ng” is one of the best songs they’ve ever done, a pre-internet love story about a woman that the man doesn’t know and will never meet. How’s that for romance? “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” seems to be an introspective thought-experiment about the subconscious with classic mind-bending lyrics (“Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn’t thinking isn’t thinking of”), but the music itself is unnerving. If you drift too far into the subconscious, you might not get out again! “The World’s Address” is one hell of an earworm structured entirely around a self-aware pun (“The world’s address/A place that’s worn/A sad pun that reflects a sadder mess”). “They’ll Need a Crane” is a a deceptively cheery tune about a couple falling out of love, and a contender for the album’s secret strongest melody. No frills at all on that one, but man is it good.
Now for the filler. “Lie Still, Little Bottle” is some lame Flansburgh lounge jazz . “Cage & Aquarium”, a semi-parody of “Age of Aquarius”, teeters precariously over obnoxious. “Piece of Dirt” is so forgettable that I barely know what to say about it. “You’ll Miss Me” is Lincoln’s clear loser of a song, where Flansburgh distorts his voice into this awful Bill Cosby/Louis Armstrong impression. Really, most of the album feels like filler, unfortunately. It’s like an album comprised entirely of really good B-sides.
The saving grace is that nobody was doing what They Might Be Giants were doing in 1988, so the originality alone is worth the trip. But if you’re looking for an album full of memorable tunes, Lincoln misses the mark.
Flood (1990) – Rating: 8/10
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This one is better than Lincoln, and the one that put TMBG on the map with the hits “Birdhouse in Your Soul” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. Flood is the band’s major label debut, but a bigger budget didn’t change the aesthetic. Still just the two performing most of the instrumentation, still the drum machine, but now they have a small handful of guest musicians providing virtuosity when needed. Flood is a return to the more obvious stylistic diversity of the first album.
This is TMBG’s best-selling album, going Platinum in 2009. Like many, this was my entry point into the band, and after binging on most of the discography for more than 20 years, I can say that there’s no better record to start the journey. It takes the weirdo kitchen blender of styles from the self-titled They Might Be Giants and the toned-down maturity of Lincoln and combines them into perhaps the most accessible record they have ever made. Admittedly front-loaded that it may be, Flood is packed with sublime melodies. “Birdhouse in Your Soul”, the most well-known of TMBG tracks, presents the point of view of a child’s night light. The infamous accordion-driven “Particle Man” tackles the heady topic of existentialism with petty human emotion (“Triangle Man hates Particle Man/They have a fight, Triangle wins/Triangle Man”). Try to get through the anthemic “Twisting” and the Irish folky “We Want a Rock” without humming along. When I first heard Flood, I kept “Twisting” on constant repeat. That song single-handedly turned me on to The Young Fresh Fellows!
Side Two is not nearly as engaging, but there’s nothing here I find unnecessary except the industrial noise last half of “Hearing Aid” or the short, pointless spaghetti western “Minimum Wage”. Highlights are the bombastic “Whistling in the Dark”, the sea shanty “Women & Men”, and the synthesized crystalline fury of “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” (a literal sonic representation of the title). The rest is just enjoyable filler. I don’t find much to write home about with “Letterbox”, ironically, or “Hot Cha” or “Road Movie to Berlin”. “They Might Be Giants” is even a little annoying. But I like them in the moment, and Flood is full of moments.
You want the quintessential They Might Be Giants? This is the album to have.
Apollo 18 (1992) – Rating: 10/10
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This is the one. All the good stuff about the band’s knack for melody, bizarre lyricism, developed song structures, and humor can be found right here in a tight-ass package. Eclectic, yet oddly thematic. I don’t know what it is, but all of these songs just seem to flow. Consistency is at an all-time high. Side A is just as good as Side B. I have no complaints.
It’s amazing what these guys can do with a drum machine and a few instruments. The sound is rich and full, even if the instrumentation itself seems to be stripped down compared to previous efforts. This is far from lo-fi, though. The Johns, for the first time, opted to produce an album entirely on their own and the results are immaculate. I love this album’s sound! It matches the vibe of the vacuum of space… without all the fighting sea creatures.
If you want to hear a bit of TMBG’s aggressive side, that which only comes out once in a blue moon, look toward the opener “Dig My Grave” with its chunky mild thrash and adorable distorted vocals. Then it’s just one banger after another: catchy “I Palindrome I” with inscrutably twisted palindrome wordplay, catchy “She’s Actual Size” with Flansburgh’s penchant for lounge jazz ramped up to 11, catchy “My Evil Twin” with its jangle-pop guitar, catchy “Mammal” with its child-friendly charm, and I could could literally go through the whole tracklist this way. No stinkers.
To add even more flair to this already stellar album, the Johns put in 21 tiny songs thematically linked as “Fingertips”. Although there isn’t really a reason to listen to all these in a row and grasp any sort of conceptual continuity from it, you can hella put this album on shuffle and have a completely different experience each and every single time! Innovative! Way better than tacking on a bonus track song after 47 minutes of silence on your last track. Who hasn’t done that bullshit?
My favorite TMBG song is on this one: “See the Constellation”. Some may find those yelps on beats 2 and 4 throughout the song annoying… and I do, too! Still love it, though.
John Henry (1994) – Rating: 9/10
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John Henry, the Steel-Driving Man! John and John named their fifth album after John Henry as an allusion to their transition from two guys and a drum machine to two guys with a real human drummer and a real human bass player. Strange, I know, that it took them this long to get a real band, and a lot of people didn’t like it! For some, this is where they hop off the wagon. Fuck them, this album is great. They didn’t lose their quirkiness, their knack for strong melodies, nor their command of strange lyrics. They just have a real drummer now, you insufferable virgins. Get over yourselves.
Bloated with 20 tracks, there is surprisingly little filler on here even though I used the term “bloated” and I apologize. Each song has an identity and no musical idea is reused. Some don’t land for me at all, such as the slow, mournful country of “Unrelated Thing”, the long, rambling solo vocal “O, Do Not Forsake Me” or the somewhat superfluous one-minute “Window”, but I find everything else worth at least, you know, 20 or 30 listens! Favorites include the bouncy accordion-driven opener “Subliminal” (a melody which will root itself into your brain) with it’s phony-backmasked nonsense at the end; “Sleeping in the Flowers” which alternates crunchy, sinister guitar sections with poppy ska sections as Flansburgh pines over a girl; “Why Must I Be Sad?” and its tribute to SAD GOTH ICON Alice Cooper; the delightful earworm of “Destination Moon”, which is fancy-free considering the narrator is likely dead; and the closer “End of the Tour”, which may or may not be about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.
Even some of my gripes are tempered by humor and pacing. “Spy” has an extended free jazz section that may go on too long for some, but the bleating and squonking are quite funny in the right mood. “Stomp Box” is so outrageously distorted and aggressive that it sounds like a couple of nerds trying to play hardcore punk through a blown speaker. And maybe the lounge jazz of “Dirt Bike” might not be your cup of tea, but how about the visual of some lovesick creep boning their dirt bike? Hilarious!
I feel like the Johns wanted to really go all out with their first full-band album. The whole thing clocks in at nearly an hour, but there are just so many great ideas packed into this thing that I don’t even notice. You might notice, though. But you might also notice that this is probably their very best effort in their post-drum machine years. Savor it now, because they’re going to start getting spotty.
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