September 12, 2022

1990 - January: They Might Be Giants “Flood”

35 minutes

They Might Be Giants is an alternative rock band that formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. They are known as an absurdist, surreal alternative band popular on modern rock charts and college radio. They are also known in the DIY music genre and in children’s music. Flood is their third studio album and has been certified platinum. It is their best selling album, and considered their signature work.

During the 80’s Flansburgh and Linnell started recording their songs onto an answering machine and advertised the phone number in The Village Voice and other newspapers as “Dial-A-Song.” The answering machine would play one track at a time, sometimes uncompleted work, sometimes mock advertisements. It became quite popular, but it was an answering machine, so the quality wasn’t great. One of their slogans was “Always Busy, Often Broken.” It was a local Brooklyn number, so long distance fees applied. The band advertised it with the line, “Free when you call from work.”

TMBG have released 23 studio albums, 10 compilations, 10 live albums, 8 EP’s 7 videos and 11 singles. They have also released five children’s albums – Tiny Toon Adventures exposed them to a younger audience, and they leveraged it to expand their career. They made heavy use of the internet since the early 90’s, creating one of the first artist-owned music stores in 2004, and have made podcasts on a monthly basis from 2005 to 2014.

Bruce brings us this unusual album.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

This is a cover originally written in 1953 on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. Lyrics are by Jimmy Kennedy, music by Nat Simon, and performed by the Four Lads. The TMBG version was featured in the first season of MTV’s Liquid Television and in an episode of "Tiny Toon Adventures."

Your Racist Friend

In discussing this song, John Flansburgh told Songfacts, “You can’t confront every person who’s making an ass of themselves. But there are times when you want to. So it’s really about a subtler idea than over-the-top expressions of race hate. It’s more just about the culture.”

Somebody Keeps Moving My Chair

I think we can all identify with the premise of this song, that there’s a lot of unpleasantness that we have to deal with, and we can do that for the most part. But when somebody keeps moving your chair that is beyond the pale.

Theme from Flood

This brief piece starts off the album and leads into “Birdhouse In Your Soul.” It seemed like a good addition to include, since most of the songs are short.

Birdhouse In Your Soul

This is the lead single from the album, and is their highest charting single in both the US and the UK, hitting number 3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 6 on the UK singles chart. The lyrics are narrated from the perspective of a blue nightlight shaped like a canary. We found it fascinating that there are 18 key changes in this song!

ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:

"The Simpsons Theme" by Danny Elfman (from the television series "The Simpsons”)

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie made their TV series debut in this month in 1990, though they had shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show prior to that.

STAFF PICKS:

I Remember You by Skid Row

Brian starts off this week's staff picks with an acoustic/power pop hair ballad from the band fronted by Sebastian Bach. Bassist Rachel Boland and guitarist Dave “The Snake” Sabo penned this song which was their third single from their debut album. It is about the girl from days gone by that you just can't forget.

Fly High Michelle by Enuff Z'nuff

Rob's staff pick was inspired by a tragedy caused by a drug overdose. Donnie Vie wrote this song in remembrance of a friend who had passed, and it was the biggest hit of the group's career. The band takes their name from their bassist, Chip Z'nuff.

Pure by The Lightning Seeds

Wayne features this track from Liverpool's The Lightning Seeds. The group is the product of producer Ian Broudie, and is really more of a solo project with musicians brought in to create a touring band. The name comes from a misheard lyric from Prince's “Raspberry Beret.”

Girl Like You by The Smithereens

Bruce's staff pick is the first single from the Smithereens third album, appropriately (?) named 11. Madonna was supposed to sing the harmony vocals but didn’t show up for the recording session. The band got Maria Vidal to do the vocals. It hit number 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the US Mainstream Rock charts.

NOVELTY TRACK:

Swing the Mood by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers

This mashup of swing and early rock songs was on the charts in January 1990.

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**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.

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By Rob Marbury, Wayne Rowan, Bruce Fricks, John Lynch

4.9

4747 ratings