They Might Be Giants

7.5/10

  Ah... They Might Be Giants.  This is another of my favorite bands from my high school days.  Surprisingly they're still chugging along, at least at the time of this writing.  This band consists of two guys named John from Brooklyn who have an interest in odd subject matter and have a knack for catchy melody.  I've heard this called "nerdy" music, but all I know is they've made me laugh quite a bit and they've lodged many catchy tunes in my head over the years.  Plus I'll take this over some whiny little emo bastard any day.

So this is their first album.  It's self-titled but I always referred to it as the pink album, since that was the color of the sleeve.  They establish much of their modus operandi on this.  The catchy hooky melodies and quirky subject matter are here in spades.  They've also always been very generous as far as the number of songs they include on each album.  This one's no different and features no less that 19 tracks.  Some of them are pretty short and some are just kind of throwaway jokes, but still.  A few of the songs on this album are a little weird even for my tastes, but there are also several fully formed catchy-as-fuck pop songs on here.

This album honestly starts off awesomely.  The first five tracks are all brilliant and catchy.  In a perfect world Don't Let's Start should have been a smash radio hit.  Number Three is perfectly and hilariously placed in the third spot following a very strong opening two tracks, it contains the joke that they only have two songs in them and this is the third one.  They quickly put a lie to the notion that they're only capable of writing two good songs as this album has at least a dozen of them.  Hideaway Folk Family comes in at track five and is catchy as all hell and features some weird fake backwards singing at the end.  Why?  Why not?

The first very slight misstep for me comes with 32 Footsteps.  It's not unlistenable or horrible or anything and it's even still sort of catchy.  It's just kind of weird and not particularly in a funny way.  I'm not really certain what they're going on about here to be honest.

It's followed by the very brief and quirky Toddler Hiway, which is honestly kind of a throwaway joke, but it's a catchy one.  I kind of wish they had developed the song more.

This is followed by another string of strong catchy songs.  Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes is pretty silly, but it's got a hell of a hook.  It's really hard not to get this stuck in the old noggin.  A couple tracks after that we get She's An Angel, an oddly sweet little love song that for my money might feature the catchiest chorus on the whole album.  Plus it has some really funny imagery of racing around in those little Shriner cars.

Have you noticed I've been using the word catchy a lot?  Aside from demonstrating an unimpressive diversity of my vocabulary skills, it's simply the name of the game when it comes to this band.  I'll probably be using that word quite a bit more as I review all their albums.  Catchy is one of my favorite qualities a band can have.  Yes, it can be used in service of really terrible annoying songs, but way too many bands couldn't write a catchy melody to save their lives.

Unfortunately the second half of the album kind of drops the ball a little bit in the catchy department.  There are still a few memorable hooks here, but there are also more of the quirky experimental throwaways that are just kind of weird without being especially funny or clever.  What the hell is Boat of Car about?  I don't have a clue.  It's not especially pleasant to listen to, but it's mercifully short.  I'm not super sure about Chess Piece Face either, but it's also quite short.

I'm re-listening to the second half as I write this and overall maybe the songs are actually a little better than I'm giving them credit for.  They just suffer in comparison to the awesome songs on the earlier part of the album.  There are still quite a few catchy melodies, they're just maybe not quite as catchy and the quirky stuff just seems odd instead of being all that funny.  The end of the album just feels like a slight letdown to me.  But really only slightly.

Overall this is an album bursting with quirky ideas and awesomely catchy hooks.  It's well worth checking out if you like memorable melodies and a slightly skewered sensibility.  It bodes of good things to come and things would soon get even better.