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#tmbg

1 post1 participant0 posts today
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Jon Hancock

"But there's been a weird new phenomenon, which is that amongst very young people, there's a lot of interest in this song that was a really dark horse, “Stuff Is Way.” It was never intended to be a single. It's just a very deep album cut from probably a number of years ago … There's some young person who made an anime video for it, which references some cultural things that I don't even really know about. And it just went viral for some reason. And now, if you go on TikTok, there are something like 14,000 dance videos to this song, which is not even really a dance track, and it is one of our most popular songs on Spotify … And this is just like a really oddball track, not a pop song, not anything we were ever thinking of promoting, but now we're being forced to learn it. So we're going to be playing in the live show, because we have to, apparently."

– John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, interview on wbur.org December 2024.

#TMBG#Music
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evilchili

Like many my age, the first time I heard #TMBG was on an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures; the show aired a musical episode that contained animated music videos for Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Particle Man. I loved the songs but didn't realize they were an actual band for quite a while. So when I heard Flood for the first time it was a revelation and I was instantly a lifelong fan.

Birdhouse in Your Soul is maybe the greatest opening track of any album ever. It relies on trickery: the volume increases when the drums kick in, making the song feel absolutely huge (a technique they credit to Elvis Costello). Dead is just two voices and piano but is a songwriting masterclass -- that descending chromatic line at the 2min mark gives me shivers. Your Racist Friend is a kaleidoscope of ideas, a sort of 80s Paul Simon meets metal meets mariachi thing? What even is happening? The record continues like this: bizarre, idiosyncratic songwriting, inscrutable lyrics, complex arrangements, non-traditional song structures, beautiful, blended harmonies often sung in close harmony...I mean holy shit. It's baffling.

Flood isn't perfect; Minimum Wage and Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love are more sketches of songs than actual songs -- which perhaps explains why they do such weird things to Sapphire Bullets when played live -- but it remains their biggest commercial success, and for many everything that came after was judged in its shadow. But the through line of the Johns' catalogue is an endless, restless creativity, a hunger to discover what's next This was a band that was never going to stand still.

#TMBGTime
Continued thread
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Gary Parker :party_porg:

Even by their own standards, the most bizarre point in the evening was them playing, and singing(!), Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love BACKWARDS

It was recorded, on video, then played in reverse on the screen at the back of the stage before they came back after the interval. It was surprisingly effective, and a testament to the skills of the band 😂

#TMBG
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