OPO TMBG

I think the lede that gets buried in the John vs John talk, longevity talk, and general adoration, is just how FIRE some of their individual songs are. Usually a marriage of smart pop sensibility and scintillatingly sardonic, cutting, literate lyrics. What's your #1?

There is an extant sd/CD/OPO catch-all thread but I really want to hear what you guys rank

Kiss Me Son of God

it's particularly relevant in this age of despots and wanna-be despots:

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called the blood of the exploited working class
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"

haha yeah man I was singing that around the house yesterday and I was just like, shit this is alarmingly prescient

"that you love me... and I love me"

in particular

She's an Angel. Or Dead. Or about a half-dozen equally great other songs.

I basically don't care about anything after Flood. And even the good stuff can get a bit grating with the "quirkiness" factor, but when they are good they are very good, and unique.

like they have that Weird Al sort of thing going on where they are obviously very straight/normal people who gravitate to this kind of highly stylized "weirdness" that is nonetheless... pretty square? Not a knock on either, really, it's just a particular brand of strangeness that is quite different from, say, Sun Ra or Beefheart or various drug-addled folks.

My favorite is "She's an Angel". My favorite post-Flood is "Certain People I Could Name"

like, a childish kind of conception of what is "weird" that predates sex, drugs, politics, etc.

xp

hah if you wanna hear a song that's alarmingly prescient check out "When Will You Die?"

Kinda hard not to choose Birdhouse. Οὖτις OTM about their particular brand of twee-weirdness, but I think that's always been a key part of their aesthetic & appeal, especially in the way that they undercut it with lyrical themes that are genuinely dark/adult. I think its an approach that's very of its time (late 80s/early 90s) in a way that's hard for me to quite put my finger on...Nickelodeon-core?

(Ana Ng is a close second)

like they have that Weird Al sort of thing going on where they are obviously very straight/normal people who gravitate to this kind of highly stylized "weirdness" that is nonetheless... pretty square? Not a knock on either, really, it's just a particular brand of strangeness that is quite different from, say, Sun Ra or Beefheart or various drug-addled folks.

That is a good point about some of the people that some TMBG stuff resonates with: weirdness as a "normal people scare me" bumper sticker.

I'm thinking of some kinda neckbeardy nerds in my 90s social circle - NASA logo pocket protectors, Babylon 5 posters, shelves full of sci fi and comics - who loved "Why Does the Sun Shine" because it seemed adjacent to their interests. I don't know what they made of something like "a shoehorn, the kind with teeth," or for that matter "Purple Toupee."

Οὖτις have you read the 33-1/3 book on Flood? Because that's not far off from the thesis statement of that book but instead of "weird" that predates sex, drugs, politics, etc. it's (according to the book jacket)

Flood's significance to (geek culture) helps us understand a certain way of being: it shows that geek identity doesn't depend on references to Hobbits or Spock ears, but can instead be a set of creative and interpretive practices marked by playful excess―a flood of ideas.

Anyway, "Ana Ng."

Of course I don't mean that as an instance of criticizing an artist or band for the motives of their fans, which is generally not my thing*, just saying it's an interesting observation.

(* = Well, I think we can agree that when it's Dave Matthews all bets are off.)

Ana Ng. Although if they had written NYC, I would've said that.

I might go Purple Toupee, such a banger, but what it's "about" I haven't a clue.

Ana Ng obv

They'll Need A Crane, so dark
Where Your Eyes Don't Go, even darker

Yeah I love each of their first three albums, but Lincoln is by far my favorite. The "pocket-protector" aesthetic hadn't fully set in yet, and the lyric sheet is uniformly fantastic.

they undercut it with lyrical themes that are genuinely dark/adult.

they *do* do this and I don't think they generally get much credit for it because it's often pretty subtle and yr average music fan isn't going to care enough to notice

I might go Purple Toupee, such a banger, but what it's "about" I haven't a clue.

Really? It's about the narrator experiencing the upheavals of the 60s as nothing but a series of non-sequitur pop culture references devoid of context, only grasping the surface

Ana Ng was the first I ever heard, and it's hard to go past it

before opening the thread I already thought of She's An Angel as an alternative - their most simply emotional melody ever - but it was the Severe Tire Damage version that really revealed the song to me.

xp okay, i just don't understand what conclusion he comes to after processing these memory fragments. but it has to do with toupees

he didn't get anything out of the 60s, the only thing that changed was his hairstyle

btw no I have not read the 33 1/3rd book of Flood, didn't know there was one

xp

It really is impossible for me to do an OPO here. I guess it would have to be one of their early songs since I obsessed over those albums as a teenager. I remember "She's an Angel" being in my head for like, months at a time. Though I suppose "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" is possibly the better song. Just a really neat melody and it's really fun to sing even though it doesn't make a lot of sense.

kind of incredible how good they were at this in their early days. this song (possibly the first they ever recorded!) is so great - its sort of based around a gimmick (5/4 drumbeat played against a 4/4 song) but its also a very catchy song in its own right. I can't think of any band that could do it quite like them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzs9uJKs6kg

"Ana Ng" is very unique among their songs, I think. It's almost like their "Song 2" or something ... doesn't quite give you a sense of what you're in for. Kind of earnest and straightforward, no jokey parts.

I'd definitely vote in a TMBG poll. I don't think I've heard a single album of theirs post-Factory Showroom. There are a ton of them.

anyway if pressed I might buck trend and go with Flansy's "Narrow Your Eyes" here. kind of archetypical of TMBG's greatness where it passes you by the first nine times and then sounds absolutely brilliant on the tenth.

it might have been a decade before the meaning of Ana Ng dawned on me

What's it about

i don't want the world, i just want your half

yeah I kinda love how their songs manage to *sound* cryptic but are actually kind of...overly literal? like on Ana Ng he's actually saying "this girl lives on the other side of the world" but phrasing it in a very different way

I listened to their new album the other day and the meaning of "Push Back the Hands" just hit me...it's about the moments after a crippling car accident, wishing you could go just slightly go back in time. it's really grim. ditto for "When the Lights Go On" which I think is about the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust. hell, the whole album is really dark

So many great songs, but this is their last great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSkNnDbkGuY

on Ana Ng he's actually saying "this girl lives on the other side of the world" but phrasing it in a very different way

^^^ it's a fantasy of a romantic ideal, one that can't be reached/has never been met/may not exist

re: Ana Ng, I kinda think that Vietnam / SE Asia would have had some extra resonance for late-20th-century Americans, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

no I think that's def relevant

esp w the gun reference

Also something like "Shoehorn with Teeth" isn't the least bit absurdist either; clearly it's a lonely person who walls himself off from other people by having unreasonable expectations. "Birdhouse" famously about a night-light, etc.

Pretty much none of these songs are just piles of quirky words.

I was always irritated that Weird Al's style parody of TMBG really was just that, especially given how well he nailed Linnell's songwriting style

"Ana Ng" for sure, one of those indelible songs that I can't get out of my head on certain blue days. Probly "Don't Let's Start" in 2nd place.

I love the rhythmic inventiveness of "Ana Ng."

But I'm gonna be basic as fuck and pick "Birdhouse in Your Soul." It's pretty and surprising and it's also super catchy and popular and fun.

I remember hanging out in the card shop which put Flood on shuffle in a 5-disc changer with a bunch of other CDs, including one of the Simpsons soundtracks. Every time "Whistling in the Dark" came on I swore it was sung by Principal Skinner and was frustrated I didn't know what episode it was from.

Probly "Don't Let's Start" in 2nd place.

that's for sure my fav on the debut

like they have that Weird Al sort of thing going on where they are obviously very straight/normal people who gravitate to this kind of highly stylized "weirdness" that is nonetheless... pretty square? Not a knock on either, really, it's just a particular brand of strangeness that is quite different from, say, Sun Ra or Beefheart or various drug-addled folks.

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 3, 2018 7:39 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're definitely more about the strangeness of banal everyday life and objects than transgressive strangeness, retreating inside your own head rather than letting your freak flag fly. I think they've written some of the best ever pop songs about inanimate objects. They remind me of this David Byrne quote about love songs:

I try to write about small things. Paper, animals, a house…love is kind of big. I have written a love song, though. In this film, I sing it to a lamp.

they also something about them that remind me of David Byrne where everything is flattened out, people and inanimate objects small repeated physical movements etc? confusion between people and inanimate objects. I love the physical movements in the videos for Ana Ng and Birdhouse In Your Soul. They have lots of songs about a failure of communication, which I guess connects to the flattening out, because their songs tend to be a description of the world seen from one persons solitary point of view.

I think there's something earnest about their quirkiness, their music doesn't feel wacky or random

O Superman reminds me of TMBG, particularly "Hi. I'm not home right now/But if you want to leave a message/Just start talking at the sound of the tone", and "They're American planes/Made in America/Smoking or non-smoking?"

rhythm section want ad

love the physical movements in the videos for Ana Ng and Birdhouse In Your Soul.

otm, Adam Bernstein is for sure a huge part of their early success. always makes me happy when his name turns up on a good TV show.

Came to this band with "Ana Ng" and it's still probably "Ana Ng" but this is a near-impossible OPO for me and I would welcome a thorough poll including side projects and kids' albums.

I know this band almost entirely through the two disc 20th anniversary anthology “Dial-A-Song” given me by my middle school girlfriend when I was 13 or 14; with a different gift she introduced me to Tom Lehrer. I didn’t know “New York City” was a cover til a couple years ago. But that’s my pick anyway until further notice, fuck it.

Hard as hell to pick just one song. There's a whole bunch I can think of near the top, but let's go with "Mr. Me". I like the way the lyrics twist, was a treat to see them do it live. I also get "Number Three" stuck in my head a lot. A poll would be interesting

Ana Ng for all time

Dr Worm

Yeah fuck, Doctor Worm

I played Where Your Eyes Don't Go several times in a row recently. Even after all these years I'm just blown away but it's amazingness. I love the fact it turns into some Perry Mason Theme-esque instrumental for the second half, for no obvious reason

"No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful"

Love the first two albums and never thought of them as silly. There's sort of a whimsical meloncholy feel to me, like in some "happier" CURE songs.

Just played "Flood" inspired by this thread and man there are not many albums whose 10th-best song is this good

Snowball in Hell comes into my mind all the time, so that, I guess. Esp as I don't think it's been mentioned.

"Don't Let's Start"

love snowball in hell. thought they were saying "avalanche or robot" for a very long time. it's "avalanche or roadblock." kinda like my version better?

i’m partial to “Rest Awhile” from the Working Undercover ep. that and lie still, little bottle. but i can’t choose only one!

Weird timing for this thread - "Whistling in the Dark" came up on shuffle and my 3 year old is totally obsessed with a bunch of their songs, so we've been driving around listening to Flood and Apollo 18 constantly for the last two weeks. He loves and runs around singing Whistling, Particle Man, Hot Cha, They Might Be Giants, Dinner Bell, and Spider. I have fond memories of Apollo 18 because my cousin (who was way more into them than I was) and I listened to that a lot while super high 25 years ago.

I know the first four records pretty well but kind of got burned out on them because of that clever/geek thing mentioned above - friend who were into them were REALLY into them, and also into other "wacky" music like Ween, Zappa, and the Dead Milkmen (who I totally fucking hate for some reason).

There are tons of great songs by the one I've re-discovered and have been loving the most lately is "Hypnotist of Ladies"

Hypnotist Of Ladies might be their most disturbing song. "You won't remember why you liked him".

I've been trying to come up with a list of things that keep cropping up in TMBG lyrics

- misunderstandings/misidentifications
- death
- heads, especially heads that become detached from bodies, or spin around or have words written on them (and stuff about not being able to step outside of your own head? "I'll never see myself in the mirror with my eyes closed", "when you turn around to look it's gone behind you" etc
- difficulty telling the difference between a person and an inanimate object (is a dead body a person or an object?), difficulty telling the difference between a thing a representation of that thing, between the literal and the metaphorical

the Head Crusher from Kids In The Hall must be one of the most TMBG type things with no direct connection to TMBG

My 5-year-old is currently fascinated by Particle Man (and wants me to explain why Triangle Man manages to win all the battles in that song).
So that's his vote.

Triangle Man can fuck off

Fascist pig

ANA NG!

Triangle Man can fuck off

:D

great soref post up there!

TMBG are the Star Trek of music (and I mean that in a good way!)

Long running, huge universe, rabid, detail-oriented fans.

I'd definitely vote in a TMBG poll. I don't think I've heard a single album of theirs post-Factory Showroom. There are a ton of them.

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Saturday, August 4, 2018 5:53 AM (six days ago)

this is a near-impossible OPO for me and I would welcome a thorough poll including side projects and kids' albums.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, August 4, 2018 9:27 AM (six days ago

A poll would be interesting

― Vinnie, Saturday, August 4, 2018 10:59 AM (six days ago)

HEY FOLKS

If we were to do this, would people want to cut it off at some point, or break it down by eras, or suchlike?

Turns out I had a TMBG poll in the upcoming ballots thread, so I've been trying to prepare an eligibility list. I've just made it to the end of 2001 in the first draft of a long-list (so some re-recordings and remixes to be winnowed out, but more research still to do), and am sitting at over 450 songs, not counting side-projects.

Nearly 200 are just from their insanely productive 2001, but is anyone bar frogbs going to vote for anything later than No!, the first childrens album?


(I'm already seven hours in on this, so cutting it at 1982-2002 feels reasonable - they have another twenty-four albums and EPs of original material after that, plus lots of stuff on compilations and subscriptions and streaming and new songs on live albums and so forth. I can't imagine too many people listening to enough of it during a voting period to be worth the effort when it's up against the better-known material.)

but then I can't vote for this

https://vimeo.com/253025437

(btw hearing TMBG in 2017 try to imitate TMBG in 1984 is a real trip)

I feel like cutting it at 2002 makes some sense for people's sanity but defeats the spirit of an artist poll. There are some real gems scattered in the albums (and non album tracks) past that point - in fact, I think Join Us is a better album than anything after Apollo 18. Yes, you're right that probably none of it would get enough votes to make the final list, but there's at least 3-4 songs that I totally love and would easily make my ballot

I'd say keep it open to everything, but don't kill yourself trying to listen to everything. The TMBG wiki has a song ranking page based on user ratings (http://tmbw.net/wiki/Special:Ratings); I like a lot of the latter-day songs they rank near the top

feel like a lot of artist polls involving huge discographies run into some form of that problem. TMBG poll would be a lot of fun but I have no illusions that the top tracks are gonna be anything other than Birdhouse, Ana Ng, Dr. Warm, Don't Lets Start, etc

anyway tbh I feel like the real dodgy period of TMBG is between Factory Showroom and Mink Car...both those albums are pretty good but in between you got all the eMusic stuff, the magazine soundtrack, all the demos and junk released on TMBG Unlimited, honestly there's not a whole lot there worth voting for. on the other hand everything from The Else on is pretty good and would probably make up half my ballot.

Yep agree that the stuff in between those albums is a waste of time, of what I've heard. I think the Else-Join Us period was excellent - lots of cool songs even past the albums

artist polls should be as open as possible imo, allow votes on anything

yea that Cast Your Pod to the Wind comp has a lot of really good tracks on it

the one I like to rep for is Phone Power, it doesn't really feel like an album but it has a lot of really great tracks on it. I realize I'm kind of alone on that though.

I might as well admit that I am one of those people who feels warmly towards but is highly unlikely to vote for anything after Factory Showroom -- but I too feel we should poll everything, it's impetus to listen to more and to learn from all of your impressions of the later stuff!

particle man is such a good song, remember the tiny toons video for that - dope

Join Us - Nanobots I though was the relatively recent peak, but Glean/Phone Power was a massive plunge back to Mink Car levels of pointlessness. New one miles better.

if you took the best 15-18 dial-a-song tracks from 2015 you'd get a hell of an album though

2015? I don't think i've called it since 1993.

they have Dial-A-Song on the internet now, Morbs.

don't kill yourself trying to listen to everything

I'm not seven hours into listening, I'm seven hours into making the list

anyway tbh I feel like the real dodgy period of TMBG is between Factory Showroom and Mink Car...both those albums are pretty good but in between you got all the eMusic stuff, the magazine soundtrack, all the demos and junk released on TMBG Unlimited

see I was on Unlimited and have super-fond memories of that period and the wealth of stuff in different styles from different eras. whereas I never got to the end of December 2015 in Dial-A-Song, let alone started this year's. Half or more of No! came out on Unlimited!

artist polls should be as open as possible imo, allow votes on anything

i) when the main artist has this much material, some structure can be helpful
ii) an eligibility list is also a helpful roadmap for ppl who tapped out at some point, and a prompt for discussion and campaigning
iii) if I'm gonna tally hundreds of votes I want to know if they're for real songs, not Napster fakes or typos
iv) your massive solo Beatles thread eligibility lists were great on that thread for these reasons!

is anyone bar frogbs going to vote for anything later than

on the other hand everything from The Else on is pretty good and would probably make up half my ballot.

― frogbs, Saturday, August 11, 2018 1:13 AM (one hour ago)

the one I like to rep for is Phone Power, it doesn't really feel like an album but it has a lot of really great tracks on it. I realize I'm kind of alone on that though.

― frogbs, Saturday, August 11, 2018 2:20 AM (twelve minutes ago)

see

but I too feel we should poll everything, it's impetus to listen to more and to learn from all of your impressions of the later stuff!

see what I was thinking was: after the First Twenty Years Poll (or whatever), we could have a 21st Century Giants listening thread. giving me an extra month to put the rest of the list together, and then over the remainder of the year or so, ppl can work through chunks and mini-eras and chat & learn & enthuse and low-key campaign for a future poll

I am now listening to the 9th December 2015 Dial-A-Song. Only four more to go before I've given ONE LISTEN EACH to 52 songs I started listening to in the first week of January 2015!

i) when the main artist has this much material, some structure can be helpful
ii) an eligibility list is also a helpful roadmap for ppl who tapped out at some point, and a prompt for discussion and campaigning
iii) if I'm gonna tally hundreds of votes I want to know if they're for real songs, not Napster fakes or typos
iv) your massive solo Beatles thread eligibility lists were great on that thread for these reasons!

the two biggest polls I've run so far were the P-Funk poll and the solo Beatles polls - in both cases, huge discographies from multiple artists were involved. My Beatles list was riddled with errors, and I didn't even bother making one for P-Funk cuz it really was just too impossible to catch everything. But I think the overriding goal should be not giving people a comprehensive list of things to listen to, but allowing people to vote for whatever they want, because the latter is what produces interesting results. Also good to avoid ppl getting butthurt or refusing to vote because something they love has been disqualified.

just my 2cents

that being said, as the pollrunner the biggest headache (by far) is standardizing songtitles and tallying the votes accordingly, because people *are* going to misspell/be inconsisten with names no matter how hard you try to make them stick to a pre-developed list

now that I think of it the other big headache poll I did was the VU + solo careers poll, because those were *combined* and that was a lot of songs

people still bitched about how I did it, what can ye do

see

look I can't be the only one here that's kept up with them. they just don't want to admit it!

I do think the idea of splitting their career in two around say Mink Car is interesting. even though ppl know and like the earlier stuff better I could probably write down the Top 10 in an envelope right now and get it mostly right.

see I was on Unlimited and have super-fond memories of that period and the wealth of stuff in different styles from different eras. whereas I never got to the end of December 2015 in Dial-A-Song, let alone started this year's.

I get that, I mean I was 14 when the Unlimited stuff came out and I owned like a dozen CDs total, compared to now where my tastes have changed a lot and I have access to the entire history of recorded music. but the 2015/2018 stuff is way better than Unlimited

Shakey:

But I think the overriding goal should be not giving people a comprehensive list of things to listen to,

it's not so much this

but allowing people to vote for whatever they want, because the latter is what produces interesting results.

sure but when even the two people who want to vote for things from that era agree that none of them will rank, the results aren't likely to be (made any more) interesting! and a latter-era listening thread seems like a better way for more of us to actually engage with that stuff. and might get as many as five or six people voting in a further poll, not two

I had at least three physical TMBG CDs from the '00s, and can't name & hum a single song from any of them. Can't Keep Johnny Down's chorus I do remember from the video though.

that being said, as the pollrunner the biggest headache (by far) is standardizing songtitles and tallying the votes accordingly

yeah this is the thing

frog:

I do think the idea of splitting their career in two around say Mink Car is interesting. even though ppl know and like the earlier stuff better I could probably write down the Top 10 in an envelope right now and get it mostly right.

yeah, the top 30 is likely to include everything off the first three albums before the fun really starts.

I was thinking No! as the cutoff rather than Mink Car because
a) most of the songs on the two are from the same writing & recording period anyway
b) the success of No! really kicks off a different phase in their career, with major-label kids albums as the day job that Hollywood had been in the previous one, while being even more prolific running their own indie label for "grown-up" songs.

Dial-A-Song 21st December 2015: man, I Love You for Psychological Reasons is just the melody of Spiralling Shape but boreified by about 36%

Please tell me your stand out tracks from Glean and Phone Power. I've listened to them plenty times but generally found the experience to be bland and forgettable, with a couple of songs (Underwater Woman, Let Me Tell You About My Operation) veering towards painful self-parody. The quality of I Like Fun suggests they might have just spread themselves to thin during 2015, though.

from Glean:

Erase, Music Jail, Unpronounceable, All the Lazy Boyfriends, I'm a Coward, Aaa

Phone Power:

Apophenia, ECNALUMBA, Impossibly New, I'll Be Haunting You, Shape Shifter

To poll TMBG you'd need to do a "when did you get off the bus?" poll first then do the big poll just for everything that includes maybe 75% of respondents.

The eligibility part is not hard with this band - the wiki I linked is pretty meticulous about cataloging the songs

Ballot poll OPEN: Hope That I Get Polled Before I Die: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS 1982-2002 POLL - Voting, Campaigning, Discussing

birdhouse in your soul. everything else by them can be deleted.