They Might Be Giants

I've got this theory that everyone, no matter what their musical taste, is a They Might Be Giants fan in some way. They may despise their approach to music, they may hate their albums and find their songs generally annoying, but there's always one or two songs that they would secretly go home each day and listen to on repeat until they couldn't stand it anymore. Taking their name from a play that took the name from that scene in Don Quixote where he attacks the windmills ("Why? Because they might be giants!"), John Linnell and John Flansburgh became friends in high school and formed a band in 1982. They might not have the greatest chops (well, Linnell is an accordion virtuoso if there ever was one) or be the best songwriters, but they make up for it in pure resourcefulness, using their quirky selves to develop music off of ideas that shouldn't work. The early They Might Be Giants is easily the most fascinating, being simply the best formation of the group. They were both vocalists, with Flansburgh playing guitar and Linnell playing accordion and keyboards, but besides that they didn't have much. They had no drummer, no bassist, no horn section, nothing fancy - what they did was try to simulate all that the cheap way, using synthesizers to cover the drums and most of the other parts of the songs. But this was where they were able to shine - between 1986 and 1992 the Johns were able to spin out the catchiest, most infectious, most perfect slices of pop music (and about a zillion other genres) almost on demand, and all their lack of equipment or playing talent only made the band more clever and resourceful. They actually had a huge hit in 1990 with their platinum Flood, where a kids show gave two of the catchiest tracks exposure and a single hit the top ten in the UK. They went to the Elektra label, where they developed a huge following among nerds, geeks, and music buffs who quite simply had never heard anything like it. You can tell Frank Zappa was definitely an influence but the Giants really didn't sound like anyone else - maybe they were sort of like a cross between Devo and the Barenaked Ladies, or maybe they just sounded a lot like Weird Al (the accordion confuses a lot of people who are familiar with Weird Al), but whatever it was, the listeners were drawn to it like no other, producing one of the greatest and most loved cult bands of all time.

Most definitely it had something to do with the lyrics - the Giants almost never wrote in a straightforward manner, resulting in a lot of lyrics that are either incredibly moving or just simply don't make a lot of sense. Sometimes they are just silly, but you can count on the fans to deliver complete interpretations, such as "Particle Man", which might be the most overanalyzed song in the world - even after the Johns said that the lyrics didn't mean anything, the fans kept trying to find a way to make "Triangle Man hates Person Man" apply to the real world in some way. But sometimes the lyrics had a painstakingly obvious message to them - the Johns have this really weird way with words, and can't even talk about the usual subjects with a straight face. I mean, just look at the majority of their love songs - almost every one of them is about a relationship that didn't work out or about people who can never be happy. They used plenty of strange references as well, namedropping some seriously obscure people and events. But the lyrics are plenty singable - along with Cake, they might have some of the most instantly memorable lyrics from the bands of today.

Unfortunately, they would eventually realize that they didn't need to remain as simply a songwriting duo - they formed a band comprised mostly of people named Dan, which quite frankly pissed off most of the fans. They Might Be Giants had finally gotten a real band, and truth be told they've spent the last ten years just figuring out what to do with it. Whereas early TMBG releases may have had songs that were boring, they were always interesting, whereas the filler on later TMBG was just boring. They dropped most of the accordion and drum machines and attempted to reinvent themselves as a more-or-less standard rock band that still had that odd twist to them. They weren't really a cult band anymore, and those who had followed the band from the beginning even started to part ways with them. Despite this, They Might Be Giants have never been bad...every album would have great songs on it, but they just weren't very original after they brought in the full band, which will probably come out in the future when the early releases start to appear on people's essential albums list and people will grossly overestimate the influence albums like Lincoln had. I mean, do you think that something like Absolutely Free or Joe's Garage was recognized as a masterpiece when Zappa was still on the scene? So here's my prediction that TMBG will leave a good legacy and Flood will still be recognized as a work of genius no matter what the Johns decide to do.

The Giants are still currently around, and even though they're certainly as prolific as they were before (all of the first five albums had at least 18 tracks on them), it's in a much different way, as they've been going down the Mark Mothersbaugh route of doing songs for commercials and TV shows. But unlike Devo, these guys are still continuing the band, releasing four albums in the last five years, even though two of those are kids albums, a weird kick that the Johns have been on lately. Oh, they're still touring, too. They played a whole bunch of shows each year, and I'd definitely recommend seeing them if they come to your town - their band is actually pretty talented these days, plus TMBG always makes sure to put on a fun show. They've still got their wits about them, something that a lot of bands that have been around that long lost years and years ago.

Anyways, the Giants discography is quite expansive and sometimes gets quite messy (the period from 1996-2000 that didn't have a proper studio album was especially weird), and while I can't recommend everything (although I'm sure a lot of fans will try to collect everything anyway), there's still a handful of albums that everyone should at least be exposed to at some point in their life. So away we go:

'84 Demo Tape (1984)

Best Song: Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head

Pretty rare, I'm told, but hardly worth it like the 1985 one is. The Giants back in these days were experimenting with only the basis of their later sound...very primitive sounding drum machines and MIDI sequencers. Only a few songs here have the lyrics added...it's mostly a collection of instrumentals, with only "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head", "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes", and "Youth Culture Killed My Dog" sounding anywhere near complete. As an added bonus, there's even an early version of "The Famous Polka" sans accordion and guitar! Worth looking into if you're a hardcore collector, but worthless besides.

'85 Demo Tape (1985)

Best Song: Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head again

Not that I should be listing high points and low points or even giving this a rating, because it's just something for the collectors. Sort of in the same vain as Hardcore Devo, but this includes only one song not available elsewhere (the disco parody "Hell Hotel"). These are all basement recordings, and while a good portion of the songs sound mostly like how they'd end up on the album, there are a lot of differences that some collectors might enjoy. "Cowtown" really sounds weird - it's way more normal now, like a typical synth-rock song! "Don't Let's Start" is a lot shorter and adds a lot of cool voice effects in the beginning. Then, of course, there's the awesome version of "Youth Culture Killed My Dog"...the reason why I wanted to seek this out is because I had heard that song through Napster and found that the album version was different (also a little weaker). Turns out that I had downloaded the demo version which uses electric guitar and a lot of cool horn effects. The songs do have that really cheap quality to them, but in a good way...although some of the parts do get a little annoying, such as the stupid vocal distortion used on "Hotel Detective". Anyways, the tape reaches quite far, all the way to 1992's Apollo 18 ("Which Describes How You're Feeling All The Time), but focuses mostly on the debut album of which it contains 14 tracks. There's also a couple from Lincoln, one from Flood, and a bunch that were either on Miscellaneous T or Then: The Earlier Years. So it's no necessity, but hardcore fans might want to track this down. And for the SUPER hardcore, there's also a 1984 demo tape that apparently hasn't surfaced anywhere! (good luck)

They Might Be Giants (1986)

Best Song: Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head for the hat trick

I can't imagine what people thought of this back in '86, although I imagine that this release went mostly underneath the radar, being released on the indie Bar-None label. Probably didn't sell more than 40,000 copies the first two years besides the fact that there was a radio hit on the album, "Don't Let's Start" - a guitar based rock song with happy music but really sad lyrics ("everybody dies frustrated and sad/and that is beautiful"), not to mention some of the most awkward ones ("D world destruction/Over and overture/N do I need/apostrophe T need this torture?"). Other than that, the album is a real rough patch the first few times through - granted, there's about seven or eight honest-to-God great songs on here, but even more than that there's a lot of short, under 2-minute musical excursions that really don't stick well the first time through, but soon reveal themselves to be minor gems in between the better songs. Like, remember how on Selling England by the Pound or Fragile they put shorter songs in between the prog epics to give some breathing room? This album is like that on a much, much smaller scale - only one of the songs even approaches three minutes, and the majority of them are barely past the two minute mark.

So if you've got a short attention span, this album is great! Lots and lots of musical ideas, performed with accordion by Linnell and some guitars by Flansburgh. Oh, lots of drum machines and synths too...fake drums, fake horns, even fake singers (I'm pretty sure that Johnny Cash, who is sampled on "Boat of Car" didn't have any idea why he was even put on here). Everything was put together on a Macintosh - there's virtually no production, but then again, how could this album need any? It works as long as the Johns are able to spin out infectiously catchy songs, which is precisely what a good half of this album is. There's a lot of great slices of pop, such as in the bouncy "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" and "Rhythm Section Want Ad" (using the line "laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank" that Modest Mouse later popularized), as well as a lot of weird practices in other genres. "Number Three" is almost a polka, "Toddler Highway" being a throwback to the 40's male quartets, "Alienation's For the Rich" a fake blues drinking song, and "Hotel Detective" a hilarious mockery of Cheap Trick (or arena rock in general - the chorus where they say "hotel detective" is so awkward that there's no way this isn't a parody). Not to mention a whole bunch of singalongs, like "Rabid Child" and "I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die", a song that uses so many drum machine effects that I'm guessing the Johns just got bored and decided to use all the settings.

They also show off their more sentimental side - "Hide Away Folk Family" is a gloomy ballad that's probably not really about anything, but it's very well written. Oh, and there's "She's An Angel", maybe one of Linnell's most sentimental songs, using a boring three synthesized bass notes for a while before exploding into a slow surf-rock song with one of the catchiest choruses the Giants have to offer. It's even moving ("I heard they had a space program/when you sing they can't hear there's no air/sometimes I kind of like that and/sometimes I think I'm already there"), if you can believe that. You have to give them credit for how resourceful they are - the contrast between boring and exciting makes this song great, and lots of other songs have weird touches too - Flansburgh's creepy vocals on "32 Footsteps" and especially "Rabid Child" make the songs stand up on their own. Oh, and did you know that the guitar solo on "Absolutely Bill's Mood" was recorded over the PHONE? Just some of the strange things you'll be exposed to when you listen to this album - one that certainly ranks high in trivia, if nothing else.

Lincoln (1988)

Best Song: Ana Ng

Certainly a little better than the debut, killing off most of the shorter excursions into random territory in favor of more structured and meaningful songs. While it's not as cutesy and it's certainly not as weird, the songwriting is better this time around, resulting in an all-time Giants classic, the amazing "Ana Ng" which for all you care could be the sole purpose to get this album. It features one of the coolest guitar sounds to come out of the band (using a gate effect) as well as some of the best lyrics (the famous opening lines "make a hole with a gun/perpendicular/to the name of this town/on a desktop globe/exit wound in a foreign nation" were ones I was singing for years before I understood that they meant something). Great accordion playing over an amazing chorus with one of their best vocal harmonies makes this easily one of the best songs they'd ever do, although it's not fair to call it the absolute best. The rest of the album ain't so bad either - "Cowtown" gets a lot weirder but still keeps its catchy-as-hell country twang, "Purple Toupee" is a great song about being a kid in the 60's, and the journeys into other genres are a lot more thought out. "Lie Still, Little Bottle" is a jazzy song with a little bit of the stick (I think), "The World's Address" being a Latin samba, an army march "Pencil Rain", and even a nearly fully blown orchestral song in "Kiss Me, Son of God". The time when it doesn't work is with the purposely ugly "You'll Miss Me" - it's not Flansburgh's growling, distorted vocals that bother me, it's the arrangement and the abundance of ugly tones - isn't the song supposed to be about how good looking Flansy is? As always, the songs are incredibly, impossibly catchy - never thought I'd ever be able to stop singing "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" or "Snowball in Hell".

Oh, it's lyrically top-notch too. Maybe the best TMBG album lyric-wise - some of the songs are incredibly sad, like the moving "I've Got a Match" or the story of failed wedding plans, "They'll Need a Crane". Not even typical songs about love that didn't work - not like the girl decided to leave all of the sudden, or someone cheated on someone or fell in love with someone else - these are just songs about people who got bored of each other, started arguing over trivial things and stopped seeing each other. I mean, what kind of line is "I've got to match your embrace to my collapse" anyway? So anyways, while a lot of the lyrics are subtle, they also make an attempt to make things painfully obvious, such as in the anti-corporation (or cult leader?) "Kiss Me, Son of God" - what great lyrics these are, so great in fact that one review I read quoted the whole thing. I will mention that "Now you're the only one here/who can tell me if it's true/that you love me/and I love me" is one of my favorite lines (TMBG or otherwise) in context of the song - they prove that they can actually spin out some heavy lyrics if they need to. I love the way the song is so happy sounding, the way the lyrics are proudly sung, like there's nothing wrong with what he's saying at all.

Even though the album's still pretty short, clocking in at about 38 minutes, there's still 18 songs here, but compared to the debut, only one of them is a throwaway like "Toddler Hiway" or "The Day" or something like that - they've spent time on each song, trying to give the album more of a fuller feel. The exception is the short "Shoehorn With Teeth" - a catchy but very minimalist song that's worthwhile if only for the line "people should get beat up for statin' their beliefs". Unfortunately, this sometimes works against them - songs like "Santa's Beard" or "Piece of Dirt" seem too much like B-sides that were extended and given better treatments, which makes the album a tad boring in some places - unlike the debut, which, while not always golden, at least was never boring, due to all the worst songs being so short. Still, a good 2/3 of Lincoln is absolutely genius, showing even better hooks and better lyrics than the debut - hell, in Prindle tradition, I'll even quote a bunch right here to give you a sense of what you're up against:

"Listen Ana hear my words / they're the ones you would think I would say / if there was a me for you"

"I remember the year I went to camp / I heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks / Somebody put their fingers in the President's ears / It wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax / I remember the book depository where they crowned the king of Cuba / Now that's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else / Way down inside me I can feel it coming back"

"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part / that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"

"Piece of dirt, that is all I'm standing on today / Piece of dirt, the whole world has slipped away / I find myself haunted by a spooky man named Me / I wish that I could jump out of my skin"

"Get out of the car / Put down the phone / Take off that stupid looking hat you wear / I'm gonna die if you touch me one more time / Well I guess that I'm going to die no matter what"

"Don't call me at work again / No, no, the boss still hates me / I'm just tired and I don't love you anymore / And there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go / I mean nice people -- baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare"

"Stand on your own head for a change / Give me some skin to call my own"

"Money's all broke, and food's going hungry / If it wasn't for disappointment / I wouldn't have any appointments"

"I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect / Between the only people left / who'd even look me in the eye / Now I laugh and make a fortune / Off the same ones that I tortured"

And to think, this is the band famous for "Particle Man"! Lyrically, this takes bands like Barenaked Ladies and Ween and blows them out of the water - there's an actual sincerity behind the accordions and glockenspiels, giving the album that extra depth to it that the Giants have been so well known for.

Flood (1990)

Best Song: Birdhouse in Your Soul

A whole boatload of stars for this one, the album that holds my record for most consecutive times played, on my car stereo or in my head, because this is a damn catchy album the whole way through, beating even Lincoln and the debut as far as great pop hooks go. Kind of akin to having some terminal disease that won't quit, once these songs get a hold of you they'll never let go until you've forced your family and friends to cut off your ears after being forced to hear "Whistling in the Dark" for the 400th time. It certainly doesn't hurt that the album starts with what's probably their best song ever, the catchy-as-hell, perfectly put together "Birdhouse in Your Soul" - a chirping synth line, a great chord progression, and of course Linnell nasally singing the lyrics "who watches oooover yooouuu!", somehow becoming one of the greatest songwriters on Earth for those two seconds. It was a single in the UK that actually hit the top ten, which, combined with the fact that the cover "Istanbul" and gleefully dumb "Particle Man" were used in that old kids show Tiny Toons (that I watched because when that was on I was a kid), propelled this album to triple-platinum, leaving those more 'intellectual' TMBG fans that don't think "Particle Man" should be representative of the band to clutch their copies of Lincoln and ask why the hell they album was selling so much. Certainly a good thing this was the big seller - the last two albums would have turned off too many people, and while there's no doubt that this album turned off a lot of people too, I'm sure a lot of those people would go home and listen the shit out of this one. True, it doesn't sound quite as grown up as Lincoln, showing Linnell and Flannel having a lot of fun above all else, resulting in a lot of songs that sound kind of silly but are still very well written. Hey, even Lincoln has ridiculous stuff like "Shoehorn With Teeth" - but I guess I can kinda see how you'd prefer that album to this one and cry "Floodite!" when you see a dude at the show who just wants them to play "Istanbul".

But I don't - in my opinion Flood's better than Lincoln, which, last time I checked, is the only thing that matters on MY MUSIC REVIEW WEBSITE. I mean, how many bad songs can you count here? Maybe that short choral intro that just gave the Giants something to do with their extra money? Maybe "Hot Cha" is a little ugly or "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" is a little short on musical ideas (and if you think that's bad, you should hear the 24 second version by Mahavishnu Orchestra)? Not a boring minute on the album, and certainly not one that you won't be humming sometime weeks after you'd thought you've put the album away for good.

Anyways, to describe the music a bit - standard genre switching as always, sometimes even within the song - "Your Racist Friend" has an unusually heavy guitar solo and an unexpected samba break, and the slow, somber closer "Road Movie to Berlin" has a confusing striptease interlude (well, not really a striptease, but I don't really know what to call it). Songs range from a capella ("Theme From Flood") to piano ballad ("Dead") to surf-rock ("Twisting", which perfectly encapsulates the genre), to reggae ("Hearing Aid"), to hoedown ("We Want a Rock") to power-pop ("Someone Keeps Moving My Chair") to pirate music ("Women and Men")...all of them end up working, none of them seeming out of place or pointless. I mean, it's one thing that the debut and Lincoln had some great songs on them, but this one is almost all great songs, which resulted in sort of an overdose effect for me the first time I listened to it.

In order to stop gushing about this album so much (it's not really my favorite album of all time), I'll point out that the lyrics aren't quite as good as they were on Lincoln, although they're still clever. Check out these lines:

"There's a picture opposite me / Of my primitive ancestry / Which stood on rocky shores / And kept the beaches shipwreck-free / Though I respect that a lot / I'd be fired if that were my job / After killing Jason off / And countless screaming Argonauts"

"She threw away her baby-doll / I held on to my pride / But I was young and foolish then / I feel old and foolish now"

"Confidentially / she never called me baby-doll / Confidentially / I never had much pride"

"I will never say the word / "Procrastinate" again; I'll never / See myself in the mirror with my eyes closed"

"I'll never know what you'll find when you open up your letter box tomorrow / 'Cause a little bird never tells me anything I want to know, she's my best friend, she's a sparrow / And I'll never never know what you never never never want to know when you know what you are-o"

"We were once so close to heaven / Peter came out and gave us medals / Declaring us the nicest of the damned"

Oftentimes the lyrics are just silly, although still pretty damn clever. I'm not sure how the guys came out with this album - since I was listening to this so long before I had heard any of their other material, this still stands as a singularity in their catalog to me. It was a creative explosion, if you like that term - the first two albums were great, and certainly hinted at something like this, but it was very likely that Lincoln would just be the peak. If you don't have this album yet, don't wait - the songwriting is amazing, and when you really get down to it, that's all that matters.

Istanbul (not Constantinople) (1990)

A single to promote the Giants cover of one of the most annoyingly catchy songs to ever be written...well, until they also wrote "Particle Man", at least. Okay, so I've got a number of these TMBG singles, and for the most part, they aren't all that great, because it's obvious when the band is spending time on their songs and when they're just making toss-offs. Not that the B-sides are unbearable or boring or anything, but they got cut from the album for a reason, okay? Actually, that really doesn't apply here, because only the short "Stormy Pinkness" is a throwaway, with "James K. Polk" and "Ant" being well thought-out songs that just wouldn't have fit on Flood. No worries though, as the former would be re-recorded for Factory Showroom and the latter would be reworked and appear on an EP way in the future. There's also a remix of "Istanbul"...if you've ever wished for an electronic/big beat version of "Istanbul", well count your lucky stars! Okay, it's not very good, as whoever remixed it obviously hasn't remixed songs before but is still trying. There's too many random samples, and not even samples in the typical TMBG fashion...like how the Russian parts of Kraftwerk's "The Robots" is just thrown in irks me a little.

Miscellaneous T (1991)

Best Song: Nightgown of the Sullen Moon

Since Flood had a couple of hits and ended up selling something like three million copies, Elektra decided to capitalize on this and release a compilation of unreleased material/remixes/single edits/telephone conversations for the more or less 'hardcore' fans of the group. Well, not really, because this is really a damn good collection of material, taken a little back by the fact that most of the good stuff was already released, making there really only a handful of great tracks as essentials. There's 13 new songs here, and out of those, four of them are really impressive - a single about a DJ who is supposed to propel the single to #1, only to leave town with his money ("Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal"), an accordion/guitar instrumental ("The Famous Polka"), a bouncy track reminiscent of works like "Don't Let's Start" ("Nightgown of the Sullen Moon"), and a tribute/parody of the Replacements which the Barenaked Ladies used as inspiration for their famous "Be My Yoko Ono" ("We're the Replacements"). The rest of the new songs are mostly throwaways, but they're still fun - lots of stuff from the early, early years, like the short "Hello Radio" or the stomper "The Biggest One". There's even a cover of a Broadway instrumental ("Lady is a Tramp"). Also there's perhaps the dorkiest TMBG song, Flansburgh's "For Science" which features some atrocious female vocals. The other songs consist of various TMBG rarities - there's a remix of "The World's Address" which is best when it starts borrowing from the actual song, because otherwise it's just random - plus, being over six minutes long, it's about 1/6th of the whole album, which takes away from the flow. There's two single mixes from the first album, a "Hotel Detective" with a fade-in intro, and a version of "Don't Let's Start" that sounds...exactly like the original. Oh, plus you get the unlisted Track 13, which is a phone message the Giants got...see, one of the more famous things they've done is their "Dial-a-Song" service, which was basically an answering machine with some TMBG song on it as a message (it's actually still running, the number is 718-387-6962) - apparently this lady called it and forwarded her call to someone else to get his opinion on it and forgets to disconnect the machine, resulting in a looooooong message for the Johns where the lady and some guy talk about what the hell the service is about. Interesting listen, especially when she calls one of the Johns a nut. Well, that about sums it up for this thing - certainly not a bad rarities collection, and definitely an essential for anyone who liked the first two albums a lot.

Elektra also released this "Best of the Early Years" collection, which is only 8 or 10 tracks long (depending on what format you get it on), and is a pretty horrible selection besides. Much better is this release I also own, called Then: The Earlier Years. If you don't own much material from the Giants, or say you've only got Flood or something, I can't recommend this enough. For only $19.95 - still modest for a 2 CD set - you get not only the s/t album and Lincoln, but also Miscellaneous T and ANOTHER album's worth of rarities and oddities. Every song from the demo tape that didn't make it to Miscellaneous T is here besides "Hell Hotel", as well as a bunch of weirdities like a Greek "Number Three" and schoolchildren singing "Particle Man". Oh, and this tropical-themed song called "Weep Day" that I'm a big fan of. Get it already!

Apollo 18 (1992)

Best Song: See the Constellation

Really the last of the classic TMBG albums, which probably will make you a little sad until you realize that a lot of people who were fans of Flood don't like this album, and most hardcore fans only think the s/t and Lincoln were classics. But the truth is that musically, this is every bit as strong as the previous three albums - while it's true that a lot of the weirdness is toned down (although certainly not all of it), the songwriting is still incredibly solid so you're probably gonna like this one too.

I guess the reason why it's not as generally well-liked as the last three is because this is where the Giants start to lose their trademark approach - lots of session musicians on this one, with real live instruments replacing the fake ones. It starts with the barely-over-a-minute "Dig My Grave"...almost a punk song, with Linnell's growling vocals being backed by guitars playing a catchy riff and violins screaming all over the place. And so it sets the tone for the rest of the album - sure, there's lots of instruments, but they're playing damn catchy riffs ("My Evil Twin", "The Guitar"). The entire first half is actually really great - while there's no "Ana Ng" or "Birdhouse In Your Soul", the songwriting is somewhat more consistent. The semi-rocker "The Statue Got Me High" was probably supposed to be the single, which is a great song despite the fact that there really isn't a very good hook on it. "She's Actual Size" is a nice piece of swing music and a good follow-up to "Lie Still, Little Bottle", and while allowing Laura Cantrell to sing a space-age "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" right in the middle of "The Guitar" is a little bit silly, the song's ska-like feel and great guitar parts save it. The second half is almost as good, with two real catchy numbers - "Dinner Ball" is almost impossible NOT to sing along to, and the constant progression of the Giants instrumental abilities come out in the two-part "Hall of Heads". It also has my favorite song on the album, "See The Constellation", which not only uses a great guitar riff and samples a Dee-Dee Ramone four count better than anyone else could, but also culminates into a great ending, complete with a sitar and everything! My only complaint about the second half is the boring "Which Describes How You're Feeling All The Time", mostly because the demo version was a lot more alive-sounding and catchy than this keyboard-based version. Still, it's made up for in songs like "Hypnotist of Ladies" and "Turn Around" which help to fulfill the novelty quota of the album.

So what I'm trying to say is that, while not every song is 100% great (otherwise I'd give it 5 stars), the album still has all the songwriting quality of previous efforts (in fact, as a whole, almost more) as well as almost all the lyrical ability. And they haven't lost their quirks at all! How else could you explain the 50-second "Spider", which is basically a mockery of every Japanese B-movies, as well as the funniest thing the Giants have ever done? Not to mention what many Giants fans consider to be the main appeal of the album, the 'closer' "Fingertips", which is a bunch of tracks (21 to be exact) skewered over the end consisting of 15-second choruses to songs that were never written. Each one of these individual songs are pretty stupid - while a few of them are really catchy, most of them are just simple musical parodies with meaningless one-line phrases. Still, it's not like you're going to get bored through it - I'm amazed they got this down as good as they did, considering that they basically could have written an entire albums worth of material off of this (although it might not be a very good one). There's a lot of theories as to why they did such a thing, with the most prominent one being that they thought it would be cool for people to put the CD on 'random', making the album that much more bizarre. Some see it as a parody of those commercials that sell compilation CDs, playing only a few seconds of the chorus of each (that could very well be, as it does have the same feeling to it). And a few people even take a symbolic meaning behind it, saying that it's got something to do with the process of birth to death - I guess the beginning "Everything's Catching on Fire" and ending "I Walk Along Darkened Corridors" could suggest that, but most of the stuff in the middle doesn't have anything to do with that idea (save for "I'm Having a Heart Attack"). Me, I think it's just a takeoff of what Zappa did 25 years ago on that song "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", but that's just me. And hey, I guess it doesn't even end the album, as there's another extra track, the great instrumental "Space Suit". This gives the album more musical ideas than even Lincoln did, and quite honestly, even though this doesn't quite capture the true 'spirit' of the Giants, I usually prefer it to Lincoln anyway, because there's a lot more to listen to here in terms of instrumentation.

The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) (1992)

The first time I heard "The Guitar" I thought the song was pretty stupid. I mean, now, I love the guitar riff and Linnell's faux-dub vocals so much that I don't mind it, but the whole quotation of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" always seemed stupid to me. Especially with the talk of spaceships and all that. So then, I always thought, "man, they ruined this", but supposedly it's a re-write of the song, even though it didn't have to be. Anyways, this EP doesn't have the original on it, but the Williamsburgh mix basically is an extended version of the original, so it isn't needed. There's also two "Outer Planet" mixes that add a bunch of quotes from the people who were on the moon, with lots of synthesized bass and just enough of the original lyrics to qualify it as a remix. The only problem is they both sound so similar that there's no reason to hear them both. You also get three B-sides, but only "Moving to the Sun" is memorable - the others are too underdeveloped to really count. Still, not a bad EP anyway.

I Palindrome I (1992)

So I thought "The Statue Got Me High" was the big single of the album, but I haven't been able to find it. It exists, and it includes some demo material from the days of old (nothing new though), but I don't have it. Rather, I've got this EP with a few new songs on it, although it's easy to see why they got relegated to B-side status. Sure, "Cabbagetown" shows off the somber side of TMBG and "Siftin" shows off the peppier side, but neither of them really have good melodies so who needs 'em? The other song, "Larger Than Life" is another Joshua Fried remix, and, for the most part, it's the same as his remix for "The World's Address", this time using some weird reggae dub song as a sample, then alternating to the "She's Actual Size" lyrics. So, yeah, title track's easily the best thing here, even if it were only for the fact that they were able to come up with an entire palindrome verse where other bands would think it a stupid idea and quit.

Dr. Spock's Backup Band (1993)

Best Song: We Want a Rock

With four great albums and a pretty good rarities completion under their belt, you'd have to wonder with their live show sounds like. I wish I had more material from the 1986-1993 Giants, because besides this bootleg (while the official date is '93, the actual date of the show might have been '92, just an FYI for you), I only have this 1989 radio show with a lot of tape hiss on it. The early live performances were just the Johns playing to a taped backing, using their wit to carry the show. Really not a whole lot of wit here, as there's almost no stage banter whatsoever. While it is an audience recording making it awfully trebly and putting the cheers of the audience way too high in the mix (and they absolutely go nuts for the band...almost every song gets a great reception), the performances absolutely rock, making this a really hard to find but still essential bootleg. It's very rapid-fire...all the songs are more fleshed out, played faster than the studio versions. They focus mostly on their last two albums, and to a smaller extent the s/t one, pretty much snubbing Lincoln save for two songs. Anyways, I'm rewriting this review now because at first, I thought that there was a live band, but listening to later live recordings, I really don't think that's true. I know they worked with a bassist and I think another guitarist, as well as maybe a horn player or something, but I'm really not sure. The fidelity of the recording makes it really hard to tell, but the sound is a lot more like the early live recordings I have than the later, full-band ones, so I'll say that they were still using backing tapes. But they're still really proficient at what they're doing, with the show being more high-energy than pretty much any other bootleg I have, and there's really not a hitch to be found anywhere. Plus, you get a rendition of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" - if you've heard the original, you'd know how good it is, but this version doesn't disappoint.

Why Does the Sun Shine? (1993)

Legend has it that after the Giants acquired a full band they were too excited to write songs for a while. I guess that's why they decided to release a 4-song EP with only one original on it, and even that original is "Spy", a song that would appear on John Henry. The title track is a cover of some old 50's song from an educational video called "Space Songs", basically telling all these facts about the sun and what not. The vocal melody is catchy enough, although I really can't say I liked this version after hearing what they would do to it live. The other two songs are a polka-like rendition of the Allman Brothers' "Jessica" instrumental, and an inferior version of "Whirlpool" by the Meat Puppets with lead accordion.

Back to Skull (1994)

Yet another EP in between the releases of Apollo 18 and John Henry, and as much as I'd like to go into detail about how this is the first official release with the full band, I already covered that in my John Henry review below, so I'll take the space to explain that this is just supposed to be a sampler EP for the next album, although it only shares one of that album's tracks. That one is the single, "Snail Shell", displaying the full power of the band as well as any song does, highlighted with somewhat industrial percussion effects. The next track, "Ondine" also uses the band (and pretty much foreshadows what too much of John Henry would sound like), but the other two new tracks are in the old style, using synths and accordions just like in the old days. "She Was A Hotel Detective" is nothing like the track from the debut - it's a full blown disco/spy tune, once again featuring Linnell's processed vocals. "Mrs. Train" is pretty much what the title suggests - the song is just like a train, starting slow, and chugging along (an effect provided with the drums), speeding up faster and faster until it stops. Only thing left is a remix of "Snail Shell", this time by someone who isn't totally obscure - the Dust Brothers (who produced Paul's Boutique) do it, and unlike other TMBG, it actually is focused enough to stand up. Basically takes the lyrics and superimposes them over a funk riff. Not terribly exciting, but fun to listen to anyway.

John Henry (1994)

Best Song: No One Knows My Plan

Quite simply the turning point in the band's catalog - many TMBG fans circa the early 90's hated this album, because it simply wasn't the same Giants they all knew and loved. The Johns decided that they had so much fun working with actual musicians on Apollo 18 and then touring with them, that they'd make them a permanent part of their line-up! Oddly enough, all three of the new members - a guitar player, a bassist, and a drummer were all named Dan, giving the band one of the goofiest lineups in rock history (too bad that "John, John, Dan, Dan, and Dan" doesn't have any sort of ring to it). What resulted is an album full of songs that were more-or-less normal - filled with enough of the standard Giants touch to make it somewhat compatible with the other albums. It's a move that the band knew the fans weren't going to like (hence the liner notes filled with pictures of kids holding "We Hate They Might Be Giants" banners and the skull with "They" on it on the CD itself) (not to mention the CD's title - John being the name of the members, John Henry being the man who triumphed over machine, you figure it out), but they figured that all the stuff that made the Giants so appealing - their ability to work with only a couple of real instruments, the drum machines, the corny synths and MIDI effects, and so on, was only making them weaker, so if they had an actual band, maybe they'd be able to churn out their best album yet!

Well, not quite, but it's not as bad as it could have been. See, their newfound obsession with instrumentation gives the Johns the idea that they should try to use the band more than they probably should, resulting in a lot of heavy guitar riffs and solos where they really shouldn't be. But to compromise with 'old' Giants, they decided to remain just as prolific and varied as they were in the past, but since their songs are a lot more complicated, they also became a lot longer than they needed to be, resulting in the longest Giants album on the market. Twenty tracks, nearly an hour long, and anyone who's read up to here can probably figure out that it's not all good, but the strange thing is that even though a lot of the tracks sound like the Johns just decided to sit down and say, "okay, let's write a rock song", a lot of those tracks actually work pretty well and end up holding the album together. A lot of tracks like "I Should Be Allowed to Think", with hooks that are too generic to really remember, but the lyrics and choruses make the songs good. There really are a lot of good songs here - as much as you'll find on any other Giants album, with cuts like the driving tune "Subliminal", the heavy distortion-based "Stomp Box", and the bass-driven "Spy" to make you think that they actually could use a full band to great effect. Oh, there's also "No One Knows My Plan", which is pretty much a standard samba-type track that's just so damn catchy that it's my favorite song on here. Speaking of catchy horn-driven songs, check out "Sleeping in the Flowers", which is basically "She's An Angel" part two, because it alternates between a boring verse structure to an exciting and bouncy chorus to great effect.

Of course for every great song there's one that doesn't quite work, like the almost-country "Unrelated Thing" which basically sits around and does nothing for a full three minutes, and the barber-shop number "O Do Not Forsake Me" that would be nearly impossible to make good. There's also a few songs that are just too boring or too forgettable, like "Dirt Bike" (the former) and "Out of Jail" (the latter). Fortunately, most of the album is memorable and doesn't stray far from the quality songwriting the Giants have given us all along, which is why I have to give it a good rating. Oh yeah, the single this time was supposed to be "Snail Shell", but I really don't see it - true, it's a good rock song with a great chorus, but it's just too generic to be graded as a TMBG-single.

Live NYC (1994)

Best Song: Well, it's a live album, so.....

I have no idea exactly how you would get this on CD, because it's really not available anywhere or even widely recognized as an official bootleg or anything. I think this was just for some radio program or something, which would explain why there's an announcer telling whoever's listening when TMBG is coming on, as well as some 5-second ad tacked on to the end of it. Anyways, this was the band's first real outing as a real band, and it's disappointingly flat. They haven't been together long, so they really don't know exactly what to do, but at least it shows that the band has been rehearsing. The tracklisting seems pretty standard, but has a few surprises - while all the big songs are performed (save for "Istanbul"), there's a few oddities, like "O Do Not Forsake Me" to lead off the show, as well as a "Chess Piece Face" using horns for everything. Some parts of the recording show that the band's really got it together - especially the part where they introduce the band, showing the guys get to do a few well-deserved solos. Performance-wise, it's very average - the band doesn't really try to pull anything fancy, meaning that the songs just sound like instrumentated (not a real word) versions of their studio counterparts (except for the John Henry songs, which sound exactly like they do on the album). I almost docked the album a half-point for the horribly off-key horn intro to "The Statue Got Me High", but I'll let it slide because they haven't been together long.

Factory Showroom (1996)

Best Song: Spiraling Shape

I wasn't going to give this the same rating as John Henry, seeing as it really isn't like a Giants album at all - there's a normal amount of tracks filled with pretty much normal compositions. Seriously, a lot of this would, with other singers, sound like it came from a different (but still similar, this isn't a total 180) band altogether. But even with the Johns writing more or less normal rock songs, paring down their traditional 19-song-an-album approach to a mere 13 (well, 14 really, because if your CD player lets you, you can rewind before the first track to find the minute-long hidden track "Token Back to Brooklyn" which is addictive enough...if you can't, don't worry, it's on a bunch of compilations after this), extending the length of their compositions to an average of three and a half minutes. This probably really upset long-time Giants fans who loved the old albums like Lincoln, because this is really as far removed from that format as they could get without trying to be something they're not. But there is a good part, which is that for a semi-normal rock album, this is actually pretty good, resulting in an album that may be a little short on spotlight songs, but is still pretty damn solid throughout nonetheless.

Not really a lot of genre-switching here, sans the opener "S-E-X-X-Y" (dedicated to those with the XXY chromosome?) which is straight up disco, and while a little grating at first, at least shows that the Giants can still pull off a few cool stunts. Lots and lots of instrumentation - guitars, bass, a horn section, and even violins all over the place. There's also the lounge-rock "Spiraling Shape" which is, by the way, the best thing on here and the next in a long line of addictive-as-hell songs in the Giants catalog. The spiraling keyboard line is cool enough, but after a couple of minutes the band jams out and pulls it all together. What really makes this album work is that it's just as lightweight as previous releases - for every longer, more normal rock song like "Till My Head Falls Off", there's a shorter, weirder one, resulting in songs like "Exquisite Dead Guy" that get pretty hard to describe. Basically, the Johns can still write good pop hooks, but instead of turning them into oddities like "Boat of Car" and "Stand On Your Own Head" they try to churn out actual songs like "Metal Detector" and "Your Own Worst Enemy".

Altogether a pretty somber affair, as only "S-E-X-X-Y", "Exquisite Dead Guy" and the history lesson "James K. Polk" are really upbeat. Well, maybe the closer "Bells Are Ringing", but I won't really mention it because it's about subliminal conformity. No, most of the songs are sadder and more reflective - this is really a great thinking album, if you don't like it otherwise. Still, I can't grade it as high as Lincoln, Flood, or Apollo 18 due to a lack of real highlights, as only two of the songs really stand out on the album. I mean, think of it this way - how many songs off the first five albums do people actually really like? That's right, about 13, give or take, depending on what you consider good. Meaning that you either have to prefer standard rock band Giants to the early Giants or like all of these tracks for it to be equal to any of the previous albums, song-for-song. And with not a whole lot of highlights (I guess the cover tune "New York City" could count, but it's not really too much different from the other stuff on the album), and even a throwaway track ("I Can Hear You" would be a good song, but was recorded on a wax cylinder making it sound so lo-fi that it's hard to tell what's going on), the odds of that happening are small. Still, the album is musically solid and sets a mood not really explored much in previous albums.

S-E-X-X-Y (1996)

A pretty obvious choice for single, "S-E-X-X-Y" shows off the band's adaptability at it's finest, and contains some pretty fine violin playing to boot. But there's another good reason to pick this up - the song "Sensurround", which really should have been on the Factory Showroom album, appears here, and it's one of the band's best songs from this period. Sounds a little like "Spiraling Shape", but that's good, isn't it? It's a highly energized rock song with lyrics that you really have to pay attention to - it's about a zygote who has no way of communicating and nothing to think about. The other two songs are probably covers - "Unforgotten" is a nice ballad, although a little boring, and "We've Got a World That Swings" sounds like something the Rat Pack would do, except this version uses a glockenspiel (or something like that). There's also some techno remix which is as unimaginative as possible, and pulls a double whammy by being almost as long as the rest of the songs put together.

Severe Tire Damage (1998)

Best Song: Dr. Worm

Since the Giants really didn't do anything for two years, they decided to release a live album (or maybe it was their label, whatever). An exciting prospect, considering how good their live shows usually are, and since it's been four years since Live NYC, maybe the band was honed and ready to put on a great show! And maybe they could - I can't tell! Because, you see, on this album, the Giants pretty much break every rule of live albums. First off, being a live album, there's three new studio tracks on here, but only one of them, "Dr. Worm", is any good. That song's pretty great though, being the next big single for the band (well, not big, but the fans liked it) - strong horns, catchy verse structure, weird lyrics, everything. But soon it'll get to the live portion, kicking off with an awesome, energized version of "They Got Lost", which wasn't released at this point, going into a definitive version of "Why Does The Sun Shine?" that kicks the studio version to the curb. But soon you realize the next downfall of this album, that these aren't all from the same show. Okay, that's no big deal, as a lot of great live albums are just compilations, but this is a little different. Some of these tracks aren't even recorded live. They're just "live-in-the-studio" songs that showcase how the band might do them live. I suppose the format of just picking and choosing live and studio tracks would give you a pretty good album, and that's half true, because the performances are mostly flawless, but they usually aren't very interesting otherwise. Oh, there's also a performance of "Ana Ng" which is pretty goddamn terrible, since not only do they not get the vocals right, but they can't capture the guitar effect either. The Live NYC version was bad too, but it's odd that they picked such a worn-down version of it for the live album. In fact, some of these songs are the same as the ones from Live NYC - and what I mean by that is that they're the exact same performances.

At least the "S-E-X-X-Y" and "Till My Head Falls Off" are done well, because after that there's a bunch of hidden Planet of the Apes tracks which were not only recorded directly to cassette tape, but also incredibly out of place (even on this Frankenstein's monster of a live album)...it's nearly impossible to tell what's going on. All this makes for a live album that's got a few good performances (really, only the first four tracks and maybe the peppy version of "She's An Angel" are worth listening to) but really isn't very useful. Disappointing, especially considering what could have been.

Long Tall Weekend (1999)

Best Song: Lullaby to Nightmares, or Rat Patrol if you don't like salsa

An MP3 only album that's available only from eMusic, but if you sign up now you can get it for free (you get like 50 free tracks, and they do have some rare stuff here, so it's worth it), and unlike those iTunes tracks you can download, this is even in a good bitrate, using variable bit rate technology a long time before I even knew it existed. This album may actually go down in the history books, seeing as it's the first MP3 only album from an established band. Plus, as of today, it's still #1 on the MP3-only album charts.

If you don't feel like using eMusic, don't worry, because as you might have guessed this really isn't all that good. Basically it gives the Giants an excuse to throw together a bunch of tracks they've been working on lately, resulting in an album that doesn't sound much like an album at all (plus, it's really short). There's a few good songs here and there - "She Thinks She's Edith Head" and "Rat Patrol" are great rock songs that give the Johns a chance to scream their hearts out, and the horn-driven "Lullaby to Nightmares" is a very upbeat samba that probably should have turned up on an album somewhere. Too many of these songs are too generic and not developed - maybe "Reprehensible" is pretty well-written, but it's still an underdeveloped showtune. Oh, "Older" is pretty cool, too. "You're older than you've ever been/and now you're even older" are the lines that lead this one, and as cool of a lyrical concept as it is, the music really doesn't do much for it. There's also a studio version of "They Got Lost", but it's nothing like it was on Severe Tire Damage - it's incredibly lazy and boring, almost hitting before five minutes before it's done.

Plus, you get to hear Linnell try his best to get on your nerves, with the a capella "On Earth My Nina" which is Linnell hearing the song "Thunderbird" (which would turn up later on) played backwards and trying to replicate what he heard. It all ends with "The Edison Museum", sung by "Nick Hill", which is also grating as hell, but the lyrics have that sort of creepiness to them that make the song worthwhile. Overall, there's a few good songs here, but unless you're getting it for free, it's really not worth it.

Working Undercover For the Man EP (2000)

Best Song: Rest Awhile

Another MP3-only release, which, understandably pissed off the fans, because they still hadn't released an actual album since Factory Showroom. This 10-minute EP is just another rarity in the Giants catalog, but as it turns out, the music's better than it was on Long Tall Weekend, since at least you can hear the band playing this time. While it's only available in 128 kbps (as far as I know), they did release a CD version that's heard to find due to it being a limited edition.

The title track isn't much to be excited over...a catchy horn part and it's easy to sing along to, but it's still underdeveloped, with a "sha la la la" part acting more like a placeholder than a chorus. The rest is mostly rock-based, with "Rest Awhile" and "On the Drag" being two catchy half-thrashers with some good guitar parts between them. "Empty Bottle Blues" shows the Giants doing instrumentals reminiscent of Spanish Fly, with a full arrangement of horns and allsorts of weird percussion. The rest isn't much to get excited about - "I Am A Human Head" is too toned-down to be notable, and the final four tracks are simply three short "Radio They Might Be Giants" tracks that are completely pointless, and the incredibly grating "Robot Parade" in its "adult version" (the original would show up later), which is entertaining but gets old quickly. Still, these tracks are more memorable than the ones on Long Tall Weekend, so if you thought there was some value there, pick this up.

They Might Be Giants vs. McSweeney's (2001)

Best Song: I Am 40

McSweeney's #6 may well be the first magazine (or literary journal, whatever) to have a soundtrack to it. I guess if you want someone to write 44 songs in a short time, John and John are your men, but don't quite expect a work of genius here. Surprisingly, I do like quite a few of these tracks, and the ones I don't like are either interesting or short. It seems pointless to mention any individual songs, but I think that "I am 40" is a great song that really should have been on Mink Car, using a nice and catchy keyboard/bass riff to create one of their best rock songs. "Art Mover" is a short but catchy instrumental that sounds a lot like "Spiraling Shape", which is in no way a bad thing. "Swimming Hole" is a banjo-based strum-along using a recording of woman singing and is really a beautiful piece. And the theme song is very cheap-sounding but still catchy as hell. Anyways, the rest is very much random...you really don't know what you're going to get, sometimes a short-synth based instrumental, a techno-sounding vocal manipulation, a piece of poetry (sometimes to reggae music!), or just a variety of noises. It also includes a few tracks that appear elsewhere, such as "West Virginia" from Linnell's State Songs, "She Thinks She's Edith Head" from Long Tall Weekend (as well as a new version of "Drinkin"), and an early mix of "Bangs" from Mink Car. This is a hard disc to find, but unfortunately for the collector is notable, as it includes a number of good songs that don't appear elsewhere, and for the first time, they finally sound a little bit like they did before they got the full band. Not necessary, but still worth seeking out.

Mink Car (2001)

Best Song: My Man

To the average Joe, it would seem that the Giants simply went into some inactive state for five years, which, unfortunately, isn't uncommon these days. But they obviously have been keeping busy - they released a live album with a new single, did the Dr. Evil theme for Austin Powers 2, the themes for the Daily Show and Malcolm in the Middle, put out the first popular MP3-only release with an accompanying EP, while Linnell put out a solo album and Flansburgh worked on his side project, Mono Puff, then released 12 EPs in 2001 for TMBG Unlimited. So, understandably, when it was time for them to actually release a real album, they had a LOT to pull from, and the resulting album could have taken some of the best tracks from what they've released so far, combined it with the best new tracks, and come out with a really great album. So they had the potential, and if I were in charge Mink Car would have been their best album since Apollo 18. But, just like with Severe Tire Damage, the Giants fucked it up, so what you're left with is a frustratingly inconsistent album that switches genre every couple of minutes. I mean, earlier albums did that too, but at least those had sort of a continuity to them...this really does sound like it was just pieced together from whatever they had lying around.

The first four songs are all pretty good, with the power-pop opener "Bangs" unfortunately not setting the tone for the rest of the album. The single off this was "Man, It's So Loud in Here", and it's a work of genius. Basically a mockery of people like Madonna and David Bowie who attempt to catch up to the youth of today by doing euro-disco or drum n' bass styled songs as their singles. Of course, it's a euro-disco in itself, but this time it works, thanks to them being able to figure out a chorus that actually compliments the song nicely. Next up is "Mr. Xcitement", featuring Mike Doughty. If you don't know who that is, he's the dude from Soul Coughing who makes up most of his lyrics as he goes along, resulting in raps that are half funny and half stupid. This song's got plenty of that, backed by a pretty nice blurred out guitar riff. There's another proto-rap later on in "Wicked Little Critta", which is catchy as hell, showing off that maybe the Giants haven't lost anything through the years. That's actually apparent in the song "My Man", which sounds like something off of Lincoln! And the lyrics are great as well!

The bad news is that a lot of the other songs are either unexciting and bland ("Hopeless Bleak Despair", "Hovering Sombrero", "Finished With Lies"), bad ideas (the title track), or otherwise ruined somehow. "I've Got a Fang" is one of those, with Flansy's terrible vocal style destroying any good the song might have had, but the real tragedies are the good songs that got re-recorded. "Older" replaces the guitar parts with REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING horns that'll have you reaching for the skip button immediately - the appeal of the last version was the lyrics, but with the music so horrible this time around it's hard to pay attention to them. "She Thinks She's Edith Head" is redone with absolutely NONE of its rock edge which made the song so appealing in the first place, the vocals reduced to mere mumbling which gives the song no power. "Cyclops Rock", which was previously released on one of the TMBG Unlimited's, loses its bouncy first verse which highlighted the song, and gains these terrible, terrible, abrasive as hell female vocals toward the end that pretty much ruin the song. And that's one of the good tracks! So I guess the album is good in parts, but not good as a whole.

They Got Lost (2002)

Best Song: Don't even remember if there is one

A rarities compilation that's probably supposed to remind you of something like Miscellaneous T, but I don't blame you if it doesn't. It's basically a way to re-release tracks from Long Tall Weekend, the McSweeny's disc, the Working Undercover For the Man EP, and "Token Back to Brooklyn" for the third time. The worst part is that the best songs from those periods don't even show up - "Lullaby to Nightmares" and "I Am 40" don't even show up. There's a few tracks here for real collectors that haven't appeared anywhere else, but they're mostly stupid. There's a pair of tracks about some website designer, and a sort-of-funny live track which is just Linnell explaining why the show was so bad. I guess if you don't have any of the released this is pulled from, it's okay, but if you do it's completely worthless.

No! (2002)

Best Song: Sleepwalkers

TMBG music has always been friendly to small children, so the Giants decided to release an album specifically for the kids. I guess the fans saw this as just another album to piss off the fans, backed by the fact that this and Mink Car were supposed to debut at the same time, but nobody wanted to release the kids album. But for the most part it's been well-received, so maybe they're forgiven. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this album...anyone who says "it's a return to the form of their first album" is retarded, because this really doesn't sound much like it at all. Sure, the Giants have gotten off their guitar-based rock kick for the kids, but for the most part I don't think this is anywhere near the early stuff. It's better than Mink Car, though. There actually are a handful of good songs here - it kicks off with a pleasant acoustic line that's totally un-Giants-like but provides a nice start - it goes on to rack up quite a few good tracks, like the catchy "Four of Two" and the keyboard-drenched semi-calming "Robot Parade". There's a lot of good moments - the bassist sings this great slice of pop called "Where Do They Make Balloons", "Clap Your Hands" is a great crowd-warmer, "John Lee Supertaster" is one of the best rock songs Flansy's written since Factory Showroom, "Bed Bed Bed" is a rousing stomper that achieves the opposite of its supposed goal, and the closing "Sleepwalkers" it's very pretty and wouldn't even have sounded too out of place on Flood (it sounds like a better version of "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love").

But there's a downside, which is that the album's for kids, meaning that those who were alive for the release of Apollo 18 might not find it as entertaining. But apparently kids love this album, so who am I to talk about its shortcomings? As you probably guessed, it's easy to become annoyed by the sections that are obviously for the kids - songs like "Violin", "I Am Not Your Broom", and "In the Middle, In the Middle, In the Middle" are a little clever but mostly just stupid (although that last one is actually a cover tune of something from the 50's, bet you didn't know that). Plus, with the exception of maybe "Four of Two", there really aren't any profound lyrical statements at all. Well, were you expecting any?

Indestructible Object (2004)

Best Song: Am I Awake?

Actually, this is the first Giants release that I picked up the first day it was released. By that time I really didn't know much about them, having heard only the first five albums. Wonder what they are up to now? This 5-song EP really doesn't seem like it was released to feature any one song in particular, because it's the only one I can think of where the title isn't the name of a song. Regardless, the best song is the first one, "Am I Awake?" It was used in a documentary about insomniacs in 2001 and just might be one of the best soundtrack-type things they've done - it really shows growth in the Johns, creating an almost techno-like song while still maintaining their sound. Also included is a more fleshed out "Ant" that beats the original, and a cover of "Caroline, No" off of Pet Sounds that shows that Flansburgh giving one of his best-ever vocal performances. The other two songs are more bland, and unfortunately, the ones that would show up on the next album.

The Spine (2004)

Best Song: Broke in Two

I believe it was Flansburgh, who, in attempting to describe why "Sensurround" was left off of Factory Showroom, said, "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."

Seems like he completely forgot about this, because The Spine contains six generic rock-based mid-tempo songs in a row. The first one, "Experimental Film", is the single, and it's really not too bad, with all the "yeah"s in the chorus cementing it as a top-tier Giants song. But the sad thing is that after that, the album gets depressingly one-note, as the next five songs (I guess the 30-second "Spine" maybe shouldn't count as much) sound exactly like it. Not that any of them are bad... the worst one is "Wearing a Raincoat" which has annoying lyrics and no real hooks in it, but even with those songs you notice that the Giants are obviously experienced songwriters and the production is really good.

Thankfully, it switches gears after that, starting with the piano-driven vocodered-to-death "Bastard Wants to Hit Me". Call it annoying, catchy, bland, whatever, it's a decent song, and at the very least is distinctive. In fact, the second half has the best songs of all - three new TMBG classics actually. "Museum of Idiots" uses the horns to great effect again, using a strong horn time to back up some type of music that I don't know enough about to classify. Sounds kind of like a waltz, doesn't it? I don't know. "Damn Good Times" is actually a punk song, and a great one at that...they actually capture some of the punkish vibe (not the yelling and anarchistic vibe, but the fast guitars and rapid-fire vocals one), and it results in a great guitar solo (!) at the end...Dan Miller is a great, great guitarist, who does get a lot of time on the album, but only hear does he really get to show off. I remember hearing a bootleg from this tour, in which the band played "Istanbul", which they've gotten really good at lately. It starts with Dan strumming on his acoustic, even botching one of the parts up, but saving it by playing that guitar line over and over until it seemed like it wasn't even a mistake (and maybe it wasn't! who knows). So he's warming up, getting quicker and quicker, going to what I thought was the crescendo of his part, until suddenly he starts playing the same thing twice as fast for like twenty seconds until the song starts with him on lead. I could have sworn he'd burn his hands off. That's pretty much the same type of thing that happens in "Damn Good Times" with an electric guitar, except it's not quite as intense. Anyways, "Broke in Two" is another great song - the lyrics are about a guy who doesn't listen to his girlfriend, but the real treat is that guitar line! It features the wonkiest, but most catchy guitar line they've ever come up with.

The rest of The Spine is pretty much hit-or-miss, with the surf-rocker "It's Kickin' In" and possibly the closing ballad "I Can't Hind From My Mind" being more highlights. I mean, the rest certainly isn't great shakes, but there are nice parts here and there...certainly not the toss-off "Stalk of Wheat", which is strangely the most-Giants like track on here, which would be pretty bad except the lyrics are pretty cool. Especially when John admits he's out of ideas. But The Spine still has a few good ones, and the production, plus the fact that this is the only post-Apollo 18 album besides Factory Showroom that sounds like an actual album, makes me give it an extra half point.

The Spine Surfs Alone (2004)

Best Song: I'm All You Can Think About

An internet-only EP that was supposed to be a companion piece or something. If you bought The Spine online, you can get this for only three bucks, but even so it's only barely worth it, as this is barely over ten minutes in length. Seven tracks here, mostly trying to re-capture the over-dramatic feel of "Rat Patrol", but only "I'm All You Can Think About" comes close. "Fun Assassin" is a nice ballad with back-up vocals from Flansburgh's wife, I guess. The rest is pretty forgettable, except for "Skullivan" which suffers/benefits from overproduction. Well, "Canada Haunts Me" is kind of pretty, but it's not as though this song, or really any of the songs on here, were worked on enough to be important. The only real significance is that they sometimes play the title track live.

Almanac (2004)

Best Song: nope

They Might Be Giants' 2004 tour was a unique one, as they decided to record each and every show they'd do and release them online for only ten dollars each. Not a bad deal, considering that most of these shows were two hours long. But what if you wanted to just hear a good overview of what they sounded like live, in lieu of a whole show? Since there's, like, thirty shows for you to get, why not combine all the best tracks into one release? Now there's an idea! Considering that I've seen this tour AND have three shows worth of MP3s from it, I can say that this MP3-only release is certainly NOT a good representation of the tour...fitting it to one disc was probably smart, but not filling it all the way wasn't, especially when they missed some of the better songs. Not even a "Birdhouse in Your Soul", which they did like every single show. So what do you get? Slightly better than average performances, I guess, but nothing too spectacular. Oh, it kind of loses something by having no stage banter, but the performances are supposed to make up for that. As it is, it seems just like a bunch of randomly selected performances, meaning that you're much better off just browsing through the show selection on this website and getting the one with the most songs that you like.

Venue Songs (2004)

Best Song: Can't think of one

Another unique thing about this tour is that somewhere along the way they decided they'd write a new song for each venue they played. Not about to let this stuff so unreleased, they released it as an MP3-only album. About a quarter of the songs are live, with the rest from the studio, because maybe they weren't recorded well, or something? And sometimes they use studio effects to get the songs exactly right. Okay, I'm only giving it two stars because it's obviously not that good...I guess they just wrote all these songs on the tour bus, so what were you expecting? Plus, it isn't 1988, and any random song they write in an hour isn't going to be very interesting. It seems pointless to name individual songs, but there are a few interesting ones. "Santa Cruz" is a really strange punkish vocal assault, and Linnell makes this great reference to how it was going to be snapped up by Avril Lavigne, a reference to her horrible, horrible cover of "Chop Suey" (boot up your favorite file-sharing program and look for this, it's so horrible and hard to listen to that it can't help but be hilarious, and it won't be hard to find since it's all over the internet). I found "Dallas" interesting too, but only because it starts out a lot like "We Have Heaven" off of Fragile which is a Yes album. Okay, so the songs off here aren't so bad, in fact, it's a pretty interesting listen, since there's tons of references and genre-bending around. In fact, for a band that writes songs on the road and performs them at the next venue, this could be four stars! But compared to everything else, it's not memorable, and not catchy, so why bother?

Here Come the ABCs! (2005)

Best Song: Alphabet of Nations

TMBG's latest, another kids album, this time based off of letters of the alphabet. Unlike No!, which at least had a few songs I liked and that many TMBG fans would as well, this one really has almost nothing that I can get excited about. Kind of like the McSweeny's album, it's got this aura of, "okay, we have two weeks to come up with something", except instead of being clever about it, they just decided to just put together a bunch of stupid kids songs about the tendencies of certain letters. A few of them end up being a little bit listenable, as "Alphabet of Nations" is at least catchy, and "E Eats Everything" is a cute tale about cannibalistic letters over a nice rock n' roll background. But there's too much of this that simply shows NO effort on behalf of John and co., and too much that seems like it should be set to a video (which does exist, but the whole "THAT'S NOT A LETTER THING" seems utterly pointless to leave on the album). Adding theme songs to shows I've never seen as well as throwing on "Clap Your Hands" again makes this seem like more of a toss-off than it probably is...unlike No!, you really should skip this one.