TMBG
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I know that off of various topics, TMBG gets mentioned a lot. I took my son to his first concert today, a “family show” by the Two Johns, and had a blast. I haven’t seen them since ’93 (!), and I was impressed that, well, these guys don’t age. It was a great show, lots of fun, and full of musical twists, turns and talent. It makes me think of the question I submitted to Octoon for the JoCo interview: I was wondering if he saw a point in the future where he’d consider eventually going to an electric guitar and a full band. I’d love to see him have the playful musical stuff going on. We know he’s capable of it, with the Tandori-On and the ZenDrum stuff that has gone on lately.
My son went to bed tonight singing about Universe Man’s watch. I came back out to the laptop, and turned on my Why Does The Sun Shine? EP. It’s been too long. 😀
This is really mtgordon’s topic to bring up (and forgive me if you have brought it up already, but my cursory search didn’t turn anything up) — but on the subject of TMBG, why is it that so many JoCo fans like them so much, or that there’s such an overlap between the two fanbases? We were discussing this en route to Northampton a couple weeks ago, and as Mark noted, beyond “clever” and “nerdy”, there’s a lot of ways in which their respective music is not all that similar. (And that’s not a value judgment, I needlessly hasten to point out needlessly — different, not necessarily better or worse.)
We theorized that “geek” is a confounding factor (i.e., JoCo fans are mostly geeks, and the things that geeks tend to like include TMBG); I think Mark also tied it in to the birth years discussion, where we saw that JoCo does attract a lot of people of his own demographic, who would’ve been in college right around the time TMBG was first hitting it big. I can’t think of other theories at the moment, but I think we came up with a few.
(I know JC did an interview with the TMBG podcast Theynow, but I don’t really believe that had too much impact on introducing TMBG fans to Coulton-mania. Also, the Hodgman-Coulton attack ad [link to YouTube] was first aired on one of TMBG’s official podcasts.)
[Disclosure: I like TMBG a lot, but I like them best when they’re at their most accessible / “mainstream” — I really love their hits, but even when they’re not being “experimental” — as in “Fingertips,” not as in “…Film” — they tend to get a lot darker than attracts me.]
Edited to add: Oh, and I should’ve said to begin with: Mitch, great to hear the concert went so well! I’d love to see them live someday. (Every time I reread that, I parse it as “I’d love to see them live” short-i-sound. Deja vu.)
The biggest difference I’ve noted between JoCo and TMBG is that most JoCo songs paint a picture of a fairly consistent universe, even if it’s one that is rather different from ours, and maintain a sort of internal logic, (yes, it’s a love song about a heartbroken giant squid, but it still makes sense, even if you don’t bother reading it as a metaphor for someone who just isn’t very good at maintaining relationships) whereas typical TMBG songs are significantly more absurd at all levels (everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads). Both deviate from normalcy, but they have distinct patterns of deviation. Maybe both appeal to some people who are simply sick of normalcy.
Another TMBG-Hodgman link worth noting is “This American Life”, which has apparently led to an overlap of TMBG fandom and Hodgman fandom (though my evidence for this is anecdotal).
Well, for me the keyword that overlaps both acts’ musical styles is the one I use to describe my musical tastes nowadays: Fun. To people who I know wouldn’t “get” the geek humor or silly stylings, that’s the (oversimplistic) attempt I use to explain why I like it. I don’t know if I ever mentioned it here, but I often tell people my favorite CD is “Saturday Morning Cartoon’s Greatest Hits”, tunes from cartoons of (again the factor Bry mentioned) “our generation” covered by alt-pop bands. Spider Man by the Ramones, Scooby Doo by Matthew Sweet, stuff like that. I went through the angry metal phase, I went through the alt grunge depressing phase … nowadays what I want from my music is a smile on my face. TMGB delivers that. JoCo delivers that.
nowadays what I want from my music is a smile on my face. TMGB delivers that. JoCo delivers that.
For all that, it’s not as though JoCo’s songs are uniformly chipper and upbeat. The canonical primer has, among others, “4 Funny Ones, 4 Sad Ones, 4 Funny/Sad Ones”. He does a good job of tempering sentimentality with humor that make both that much easier to stomach.
TMBG is typically more silly, even when they’re silly in a somewhat dark way.
I guess both can reliably put a smile on your face. It’s probably easier for JoCo to write his funny/sad than for some of the more successful angry metal bands to write their angry, bitter, frustrated songs. What excuse do you have to be angry when you’re rolling in money? The Beatles already wrote a song in which they whined about paying taxes. I suppose Paul needs to write a song about a gold-digging ex-wife, if he hasn’t already.
Maybe it’s because of the delivery, maybe it’s because of the wordplay or clever phrasing, but the “Sad Ones” still bring a smile to my face, though. I’m Your Moon and I Crush Everything just bring a different kind of smile than Shop Vac or Big Bad World One, and even more different than Code Monkey.
Taxman was written by George, btw. He wasn’t making as much as John or Paul. 😀
Nowadays, of course, the Beatles wouldn’t sing about taxes. They’d be dodging them just like all the other rich people in this country.
What would you guys recommend as a TMBG primer? People keep saying I’d like them. But the songs I’ve heard so far (basically the ones that are available for free) are pretty weak in terms of both music and lyrics, it seems as if they think that by being funny they can forget about actually being good. Which does in fact suffice for me, because I’m a humour junkie, but still, I’d like to hear their ‘good’ stuff, if they have any. The best I’ve heard so far is Why does the Sun shine?, which is just a cover of a song previously sung by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans.
Why Does The Sun Shine? is actually my favorite TMGB song. I was very happy to hear them play it Sunday (though nowadays it’s become a much more distinct rock version than the original cover).
The issue may be that their most well known, addictive songs are not necessarily known for lyrical content (Istanbul, Not Constantinople and Particle Man being the obvious two), even though I do recommend them both for entertainment purposes. Particle Man in particular is actually very subversive in how clever it is (and a constant source of debate about what it means amongst casual fans).
If you’re looking for quality lyrical content to go with good music, some of the bigger hits I’d recommend are Ana Ng, Birdhouse In Your Soul, and Don’t Let’s Start (and as I look at It Might Be A Wiki, I’m not surprised to see them listed as the three most popular amongst fans). Doctor Worm is a concert jam favorite, and for a kid’s song, I like the structure of Alphabet Lost And Found (the only song featuring the drummer on vocals). Oh, and for recognition factor, there’s always Boss Of Me (the Malcolm in the Middle theme song).
Keep in mind that JoCo and TMBG are not the same kind of subversive. Jonathan takes geek topics and makes genuine statements about them. They Might Be Giants takes made up topics and makes geek statements about them. Compare The Presidents by JoCo to James K. Polk by TMBG and you’ll see what I mean. I’m not the huge fan of them as I once was, but being at the live show reminded me how enjoyable it is to crank them up and pogo in place for a while. 🙂
My personal favorite TMBG track is “Memo To Human Resources”, but that may just be because I can identify.
Of the TMBG songs that have gone unmentioned so far, my favorite is “They’ll Need a Crane,” which is (in my limited experience of TMBG) the song I find lyrically / thematically most similar to JoCo. Well, I suppose there might be a parallel between “Twisting” and some of the bitterer songs along the lines of “Someone is Crazy” / “Brand New Sucker”. I’d recommend both to JoCo fans. I have a very limited playlist of TMBG, because listening to an unfamiliar TMBG song is a lot like reaching into a grab bag — sometimes I find something I really, really like, sometimes I get a severed head.
[Mitch mentioned the This Might Be a Wiki “Song Ratings” page, which is probably worth a look.]
It’s probably easier for JoCo to write his funny/sad than for some of the more successful angry metal bands to write their angry, bitter, frustrated songs. What excuse do you have to be angry when you’re rolling in money? The Beatles already wrote a song in which they whined about paying taxes. I suppose Paul needs to write a song about a gold-digging ex-wife, if he hasn’t already.
I could start up an entirely different discussion on this point — linking JoCo’s recent “trying to write a happy song” Twitter to his admiration for Paul McCartney’s musical craftsmanship as far as writing songs like “I Will” (which he covered for TAW, of course), and “Good Day Sunshine” (a verse or two of which he performed live at Johnny D’s last October) — and of course “When I’m 64”. I’ll skip it for now, but it might be worth bringing up in the future
I rarely like a TMBG song on the first listen. I think they need a little time to grow on you. That said, Flood and Apollo 18 are my favorite albums of thiers, that I HAD to listen to over and over and over and over until it drove everyone crazy.
But then, my favorite song of theirs, Ana Ng, is on Lincoln, their second album.
What Gina said.
However, I would listen to them chronologically so as to follow their musical progression.
Lincoln, Flood, Apollo 18…all solid albums from start to finish.
And, then John Henry which has some GREAT stuff.Yeah, good point. I love all their early work (was just trying to narrow it down a little), and almost all of their later stuff too. Of their more recent cds, Mink Car is the best IMHO. Although not really a real album, Cast Your Pod to the Wind is quite disappointing. Sounds like a couple of people trying real hard to imitate TMBG and not doing a very good job.
I had to buy “Here Come the ABC’s” for my son. If he was going to learn the ABC’s, who better to learn them from? next lesson for me, not ending with a preposition.
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