They Might Be Giants

So, the official unofficial band of the wiki (with all the weight that a title like that can hold when it's stated in an article on a wiki with relatively lax regulations) came out with a new album, "Join Us", about a month ago. Did anyone else give it a listen?

I bought it for about four bucks off Amazon. I'm particularly fond of "When Will You Die?" for its upbeat, exuberant pettiness and "Spoiler Alert" for its self-destructive irresponsibility, and for being a rare song where both Johns get roughly equal singing parts. What do other people think about the album, or indeed, about the band in general?

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No kidding? Those are my favorites on the album!

Here's what I think based on the good listen I tried to give it, track by track:

• Can't Keep Johnny Down: Fun little tune, uplifting even. The instrumental break reminds me of the theme from The Office.
• You Probably Get That a Lot: Love the riff.
• Old Pine Box: Kind of sounds like it could come from John Henry. Which is good since that's one of my favorite albums of theirs.
• Canajoharie: Solid. Like the nostalgic theme.
• Cloissoné: Seems like pretty classic TMBG. So, weird, but pretty cool.
• Let Your Hair Hang Down: Kind of reminds me of "Finished With Lies".
• Celebration: It's fun, but the words are kind of cryptic (I like the name-dropping of Hieronymus Bosch, though).
• In Fact: Pretty fun simple rocking about being a mess.
• When Will You Die: The funniest song I've heard in so long.
• Protagonist: I love how it's written as if it's a script. I'd love to see it acted out, actually.
• Judy is Your Viet Nam: Punchy little tune, but not my favorite. Rockin' though.
• Never Knew Love: Refreshingly optimistic. And the music is just awesome.
• The Lady and the Tiger: Lyrically, I like it. I'm always up for a reference to that story. Musically...eh. Not my thing.
• Spoiler Alert: Love the counterpoint vocals.

...the rest I need to give another listen, though I don't have the time right now.

EDITED AFTER AFOREMENTIONED OTHER LISTEN:

• Dog Walker: Certainly interesting, and definitely did not expect the helium-laden vocals.
• 2082: Reminds me a tad of "I Palindrome I", and I like the themes it explores, especially with the wise "ancient" man.
• Three Might Be Duende: I barely understand what it means, but it's certainly something.
• You Don't Like Me: Seems like it's written from the point-of-view of an antisocial teenager who dislikes "the herd", so to speak. Also, any song that can get in random references to baseball caps, Nirvana, and Terminator 2 has got my vote.

edited 19th Aug '11 4:06:58 PM by 0dd1

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I need to give this another spin or two - it sounded good while I was listening though. Right now I mainly like "When Will You Die" and "Spoiler Alert" (agreed about the counterpoint vocals, plus I like the general idea of having lyrics that are from the point of view of two different narrators but are ultimately connected).

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

I heard one person speculate that "Three Might Be Duende" represents the 'extra' three band members, in contrast to "They Might Be Giants", who are the two Johns. It doesn't really cause the song to make more sense to me, but I like the idea.

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Does that mean Dan, Dan, and Marty "might be Duende"?

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Indeed. I mean, it's only speculation, so those three only might might be duende.

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Gonna bump this back up with this:

...and since the embed isn't working, linky.

Basically, they have an iPhone app now, with a Droid version in the works.

edited 6th Feb '13 7:29:50 PM by 0dd1

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Need to get around to picking that up. In other TMBG news, Nanobots isn't really grabbing me as much as Join Us, perhaps because I didn't spend half a week making a music video for one of its songs. My only comment right now is that the bunch of short songs reminds me a bit of Fingertips. I need to give it another listen, but The Sunset Tree and the original Broadway recording of Sweeney Todd have been hogging up my eartime lately.

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I was at a TMBG show tonight. They're probably the band I've seen the most times live, yet I think the last time I saw them was 2009. They were playing all of Flood, which I've seen them do before, but with the twist that it was "out of sequence"; Basically, think of putting all of the album on a playlist, then hitting shuffle *

. Kind of an odd choice, but an understandable one if you've played a whole album in sequence tons of times and want some way to freshen it up somehow. The non-Flood parts of the set were a fairly good mix of new stuff, fan favorites and little-played older stuff.

A list of what was played from what albums, from memory:

Flood: Everything, of course
Nanobots: Lost My Mind, Call You Mom, Nanobots, Tesla
Miscellaneous T: Hey Mr DJ I Thought You Said We Had A Deal
Lincoln: Mr. Me
Mink Car: Drink, Drink
Severe Tire Damage: Dr. Worm
The Spine: Damn Good Times
Join Us: When Will You Die

edited 3rd Apr '13 10:35:50 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Huh, they didn't play anything Else?

*rimshot*

I haven't actually gotten around to getting Nanobots yet, though I've been buying tons of CDs lately anyway and need to slow down. Still, I should make this a priority.

Always wanted to see them live, but I've always missed them whenever they were in the area.

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Nope, The Else, Apollo 18, Factory Showroom, self-titled, the first album, and all of the kids albums were ignored. It wasn't that long of a set, and it was the first of two nights at the same venue - maybe they were saving some of that stuff for the second night, since there were probably fans who bought tickets for both.

Oh yeah, I neglected to count it as a "song", but they also did this:

edited 4th Apr '13 11:06:53 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

Back when Lincoln was released, I remember reviewing it for my college's newspaper. If memory serves, I approved wholeheartedly.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

Lincoln rocks.

Looove people are there, the smeeeelll of loooove is eeeverywheeere!

You can not go to Utah again after you have eaten Utah and have not eaten.

Lincoln and Apollo 18 are kind of tied for my favorite TMBG album. Though I personally started through Flood and didn't hear the first two albums until that Then box set came out.

edited 14th Apr '13 10:47:07 AM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

I feel like nearly every TMBG fan, no matter when they came to know them, started with Flood. Hell, why else would they perform it in full in concert so often?

Personally, I've always preferred Apollo 18 and Mink Car out of all their albums, but Flood is still very good. Very flawed, and maybe somewhat dated at times, but very good.

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Funny, Flood is the only album I really like.

Well, that and the Wow! Wow ! Wubbzy! song.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

They did a song for Wow! Wow ! Wubbzy! ?

...well, of course they did, nevermind. They have a song for every children's show there is.

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Preferably sung in this guy's monotone.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Funny, I didn't listen to Flood until a year or two after I had gotten Lincoln, which was the first TMBG album I got. :P

You can not go to Utah again after you have eaten Utah and have not eaten.

I never purchased a TMBG album until The Spine, but I first heard of them through Tiny Toon Adventures, which was definitely Flood-era. A friend of mine introduced me to their other works years later. In the end, I settled for the Dial-A-Song compilation and later received Flood as a gift.

While I enjoy Flood, I get a higher enjoyed-song percentage from Apollo 18, counting "Fingertips" as a single song. (For one thing, I can't stand "Hearing Aid".)

Yeah, Hearing Aid is a pretty boring song.

The first time I heard of They Might Be Giants, i was listening to Radio Disney back in 1998 or so, and they played Why Does The Sun Shine?, and I thought "They Might Be Giants" was just the neatest band name I had ever heard.

edited 17th Apr '13 1:38:24 AM by Fuzy2K

You can not go to Utah again after you have eaten Utah and have not eaten.

Now that I think of it, another part of my early TMBG exposure was through one of those Disney Mania! compilations, which had them covering "Baroque Hoedown" on it:

(I have no idea what the hell this video is supposed to be, but this is the only upload of the song I could find that was in stereo.)

RE: "Hearing Aid"—I'll admit, that song wasn't one I took a liking to right away, but it really grew on me a lot. Just something about it strikes me as sonically interesting.

Now, when it comes to songs on Flood I can't stand, that would have to go to "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love". I just...something about that song grates on me. "Your Racist Friend" is a song I can take or leave. I used to dislike the, or at least what I perceived to be, holier than thou tone of the song, but I got over that a while ago. More so I just think it's really awkwardly phrased lyrically. That aside, though, I do like the line "Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

edited 17th Apr '13 1:55:13 AM by 0dd1

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"Road Movie to Berlin" was a bit dreary.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

All the main songs that I might expect a non-fan to know are on Flood, certainly: Birdhouse, Istanbul, and Particle Man. I have to say I frequently haven't felt inclined to listen to many albums front-to-back repeatedly before absorbing them into my big playlist of most everything I listen to on shuffle, so I don't have a great idea of how I'd compare a lot of the albums to each other.

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