For many, discovering They Might Be Giants is akin to finding a long-lost twin who understands everything about you in the most uncanny fashion.
Growing up awkward and smart in middle America breeds isolation and resentment. TMBG have attracted a rabid cult following by appealing to hyper-intelligent geeks looking for social affirmation from their musical tastes - if that sounds dismissive, the reader should keep in mind that I speak from intimate experience.
I can think of any number of TMBG songs that are the equal to Paul Westerberg’s best slices of midwestern melancholy, or Frank Black’s twisted surreality, but the band themselves have seemed at times almost to reject these aspects of their music in favor of accentuating the nerd-friendly goofiness that makes them so easy to dismiss. I would assert that in this regard They Might Be Giants - dual Johns Linnell and Flansburg - have repeatedly sabotaged their own best interests. (They even wrote a song about the Replacements, for goodness’ sake.) While these kind of bona fides may be enough to ensure the group a long afterlife in bar trivia contests, they hardly inspire the kind of fawning dedication reserved for indie legends like the Replacements or the Pixies, even if they’ve been around almost as long as the former and much longer than the latter. Their best-selling album, after all, was 1990’s Flood, absolutely filled with jokey weirdness like “Particle Man” and their cover of “Istanbul, Not Constantinople”, songs that will remain forever associated with Doctor Demento and Tiny Toons. Unfortunately, this is often (almost always?) obscured by the gimmicky trappings of the nerd-rock genre which the group practically invented. Even a cursory examination of their discography reveals a mastery of the pop songwriting form that would shame Rivers Cuomo. It’s being repressed and pre-orders are now being taken from the official TMBG store with shipping expected on the 28 February 2020.Anyone unfamiliar with the band’s output might be surprised to learn that They Might Be Giants are without a doubt one of the best pop songwriting duos in recent music history.
This picture disc was initially available on 15 January this year (the exact date of the anniversary) but quickly sold out in the UK due to a fairly low level of stock being available. It’s very clever and you can see how it works below. The A-side of the picture disc features the original Flood album cover art and the B-side is a brand new animated “psychedelic zoetrope image of TMBG ephemera” created by Paul Sahre. The band were then saved from a life in the glare of the mainstream when follow-up ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople)’ raced rapidly to #61 before disappearing to oblivion.īut Flood is a wonderful long-player (co-produced by Alan Winstanley and Clive Langer) and arguably the last of the early ‘classic’ era ( Apollo 18 which followed next, was the first of their albums not to be amazing). Brooklyn-based duo They Might Be Giants are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their third album Flood, with a groovy vinyl picture disc.įlood (released in 1990) was John Flansburgh and John Linnell’s first album on a major label (Elektra) and despite the band’s alt-rock indie appeal they scored an unlikely top ten UK hit single with ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’.
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