The History of They Might Be Giants. (Pt. 1) The early years.

In Brooklyn New York two men named John would go to form one of the best middle sized Rock 'n' Roll bands of all time. And their name was, "El Grupo de Rock 'n' Roll." Well that's not fair. The story was that they were playing in Central Park and knew they had a large Spanish speaking audience that day so they made up the name on the spot. They had a weird set up with John Flansburgh on Guitar and John Linnel on accordian and sax with a drum machiene of metronome keeping time.. Later they would settle on a better name, "They Might Be Giants."

But enough of me stealing information from wikipedia I'm here to talk about some albums damn it. The first five TMBG albums really make up the early year's style. The songs are short, don't over stay their welcome. The John's jokingly once said, "'Some record that come out today come with 10 songs or less.' 'This makes us angry.' 'But instead of cursing the darkness John and I decided to do something about it. We put out a record with nineteen song on it.' 'And that's why our record is better!'" Mind you these weren't double LPs these were regular length records with a lot of short songs on them. Their song typically defy genre conventions and subject matter being completely non traditional (i.e. songs about Night Lights, Cranes, Youth Culture Killing my Dog, A Peruvian boy who loves a girl in Vietnam, etc...) All of these elements create a kitschy atmosphere and 

In 1985 the their self titled album was released but I'm gonna us the affectionate name bestowed on to it by the fans as the Pink Album. The Pink album to me serves as a proof of concept for the band, you have songs like 'Don't, Let's Start.' and '(She Was A) Hotel Detective' that were more conventional but the song that early fans fell in love with was 'She's an Angel' a very Surreal song that to this day I'm still not sure what it's about. But it's bizarre lyrics and psychedelic feel are unique enough to attract certain types of people to them.  

The pink album also shows how important album structure is, the first two songs switch lead vocals between the two Johns which gives us proper introduction to both of them. The third song 'Number three.' Is a song about how they already ran out of ideas for songs and that they'll probably won't be successful, only for the next song to be the hit single. The final song, 'Rhythm Section Want Ad' is by far one of the best Album closers I've ever heard (and spoilers will be on the playlist this week.) This song encapsulates what the band is about, their influences, their aspirations, and their desperate need for a drummer. If their is a weakness for this band in the early years it is certainly their lack of a drummer. They used a drum machine in the early years and while it sounds great, in the future  their will be live performances with actual living drummers that sound even better. The early years have a lot of songs that use the drums as a guiding force and human being make flourishes really enhances some of the songs. I love the pink Album though it's one of my favorites as is worth the listen. Also you don't have an excuse to not listen to it. Their's a live version of the whole album released for free on their website that's even better then the studio version. I'll even link you to it. Listen to it. Now!

Now on the back of The Pink Album was a phone number, every week there was a new demo of a song on that answering machine. It acted as sort of a way to test out new songs. One of the earliest successes from this Dial-a-Song service was this song. And this would be the basis for next album on our little journey. Released in 1988 Lincoln was the second album, and arguably their best. Lincoln was able to hone on what made the Pink Album great. The previously alluded to 'Ana Ng' is a classic and is considered to be the band's best work. It's a very simple and sad love story. A boy loves a girl who he can't see ever again. It's a great little tone setter for the rest of the album and it's dark comedy themes. Songs like 'They'll Need a Crane' 'Snowball in Hell' and my personal favorite 'Purpel Toupee.' This album also marks a large achievement for the band, the first song they vowed never to play ever again. The song is called 'I got a match' it's a great song about a mediocre relationship and they had to play it a lot early on. Fans demanded the song so much early on and to this day they have (to my knowledge) have ever played that song ever again.

Two years later TMBG asked some questions and then gave us an answer. "Why is the world in love again? Why are we marching hand in hand? Why are the ocean levels rising up? It's a brand new record, for 1990 They Might Be Giants Brand New Album, Flood!"Flood is the album all TMBG fans recommend you listen to first. It is their best Album. To this day one of the most common set lists they'll do is play the whole album. Sometimes they play the whole album backwards (or even on occasion Lincoln and Flood back to back.)

Flood has the three songs everyone knows, 'Birdhouse In Your Soul' (which had been a big hit on Dial-a-Song),'Particle Man' and that infamous cover of 'Istanbul (not Constantinople.)' a song that they have been doing since they were El Grupo De Rock 'n' Roll. According to the Johns when they recorded it they didn't even listen to the original. But three hit songs a great album does not make, so it's a good thing that every song on here is still played and still listened to by fans. The Album feels 'cinematic' (to quote a critic I forget who.) The songs are filled with energy and images. Reincarnating as a sack of groceries. A man whose tall tale gets more and more realistic. Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love. The slavery that is working at fast food. Flood is the album that solidified TMBG's style. Another album you can listen to for free in live form. Go listen to this one as well. Do it! Do it now!!!

Now all the albums up this point had been pulling songs from an old demo tape that had been passed around New York City for a while. And at this point they have pretty much put all of them on the records at this point. So finally we reach an album that has songs explicitly written for it. Apollo 18 I consider Flood part 2. It's very much a continuation of the previous album. But there is something very unique about it. You see this album came out when CDs began to be more popular and so TMBG tried something. On the album is a song called 'Finger Tip.' When you play the album straight it just 21 really short 5-30 second songs that are largely non sensical. But if you put a CD version on shuffle suddenly it sounds a lot like a regular TMBG album. These short songs pop up through the album and creates and interesting infinitely re-listenable album. Seriously there are 38 tracks on the album and if you do the math there are ~5.230*10^40 possible way to listen to the album*.

The last album we'll talk about is the turning point album and the end of the early years. But first some back ground. TMBG have switched record label twice now and their current producer is skeptical of their future success. They feared that TMBG would end up like the B52s a band with some novel hits and nothing more. So the next album didn't have any of the bands trademark short songs. And so TMBG's first (and to my knowledge only) double lp came out in 1994, John Henry.

It's very clear that TMBG knew John Henry was a turning point, it's in the very title. As part of their producer's suggestion they finally started assembling a full band and so gone were the days of drum machines and synths for everything now welcome full horn sections and actual drummers (see why they chose to name the album after a man versus machine story.) But this new sound that is still distinctly TMBG. The lyrics and subject matter are the same but now the music is more complex somewhere between punk, alternative, and jazz. Song's like 'Sleeping in the Flowers', 'Snail Shell', 'I should be allowed to think', and 'NyQuil Driver', and 'Out of Jail' demonstrated this new style. But the last song on the album, 'At the End of the Tour', is beautiful send off to the earlyer the old version of the band isn't gonna tour again.

Welcome to middle years. 

*(On the math. First I figure out 38! Now modern shufflers aren't perfectly random. They do this in order to make it appear more random. For example some songs don't play consecutively because it's to similar to the album so I rounded the number to the nearest exponent that was an increment of 10 in order to compensate for the over estimation.)