Don't Let's Start
here come the TMBGs
This is the story of two guys named John who started a band at a Sandinista rally in Central Park and blossomed into a forty plus year career in popular music. (Not exactly the sort of path your guidance counselor can give you a pamphlet about in high school.)
John Flansburgh (stockier, glasses, occasional beard) and John Linnell (thinner, no beard, occasional glasses) were high school friends in the far Boston suburbs, with a shared passion for quirky music. Flans was an avid (left-handed!) guitarist with a penchant for both absurdism and earnest love songs, while Linnell was a keyboardist and woodwinds player with an ear for melody and harmony. A match made in heaven.
They kicked around the New Wave scene in New York City for much of the early eighties before signing a deal with newly created record label Bar/None. Their self-titled 1986 album, although not a commercial juggernaut, was a solid critical success. MTV picked up the three videos, significantly adding to sales numbers. In 1988, Lincoln was released to even more acclaim, attracting attention from major labels.
When most people think of a TMBG album, they think of 1990’s Flood. Elektra Records pushed it heavily on radio, television, and any other avenue possible. They even made cartoons in conjunction with Warner Bros. Flood was (and is) their most successful album in terms of units moved. 1992’s Apollo 18 was more subdued, but marked the beginning of using a traditional backing band rather than pre-recorded instrumentation or drum machines. John Henry, released in 1994, continued the trend. By the time 1996’s Factory Showroom arrived, the band had cemented their musical approach to include both a full band and the use of electronic instruments.
Unfortunately the promotion from Elektra had diminished with every subsequent album, and TMBG felt the need to transition away from the established musical industry. Instead, they released 1999’s Severe Tire Damage (a hybrid studio/live album) digitally through eMusic. TMBG also found themselves increasingly working on soundtracks and other venues for their music, including television theme songs for The Oblongs and Malcolm in the Middle. Their next full album Mink Car came out via more traditional means on Restless Records, but had the misfortune of being released on September 11, 2001.
This marks the end of the second wave of TMBG albums as 2002 saw the band maneuver into the children’s market with No!, sparking a career revival of sorts. From here on, they would release albums every several years focusing on both adults and children. Counting both live albums and studio albums, TMBG have put out 34 albums over the years.
With that short history, let’s get into the nuts and bolts of why you’re here: indoctrination into my cult. Wait, I mean the list of their ten best songs, as chosen by me at this moment. I’ve already written out the list and completely redone it twice. Let’s get started before I succumb to endless revisions.
10. Experimental Film
A song about unknowing pretension, “Experimental Film” was released as a single in the UK from the 2004 album The Spine. Originally, a full band video was going to be produced, but instead the Brothers Chaps (the masterminds behind Homestar Runner) created an animated video using their characters. The video is filled to the brim with references to art films both renowned and despised, and intentionally lapses into self-parody with abandon.
9. Doctor Worm
One of three studio tracks on Severe Tire Damage, “Doctor Worm” began life as a riff on the Gene Simmons magnum opus “Calling Doctor Love” but transformed into a meditation on self-improvement and the realization that sometimes you have to be bad at something before you become good at something. Surprisingly deep for a song that is about a literal worm learning to play the drums.
8. Twisting
“Twisting” combines an upbeat, sunshiny melody with relentlessly brutal lyrics. In this case, the lyrics talk about a nasty romantic breakup (up to and including oblique references to self-harm), while the music is a farfisa-filled chromatic homage to early Sixties garage rock. The resulting power-pop mélange is a hook-laden festivity worthy of the the dB’s mentioned therein.
7. Ana Ng
John Linnell continues the overall TMBG pattern of poppy music in conjunction with heartfelt lyrics. “Ana Ng” is a digression on star-crossed love: relationships that work over distance are fraught with difficulty in the best of circumstances, and it works very rarely indeed when one party is unaware of the other. The name, by the way, was picked at random from a phonebook.
6. Don’t Let’s Start
There are two schools of thought on this song, from TMBG’s debut album. On one hand, it’s a song about being tired of constantly fighting with someone you have a relationship with. On the other (and Johns-endorsed) hand, they wrote the music first, with nonsense syllables as guides. The lyrics were then selected solely because they fit, and have no deeper meaning. From the song itself:
The words I'm singing now Mean nothing more than "meow" To an animal
5. Pet Name
Speaking of animals, here is “Pet Name” from 1996’s Factory Showroom. Musically, this song is built around an undeniable bass groove and a hi-hat laden polyrhythm. Once the chorus comes in, the organ and guitar lines merge into the lockstep in a way that is not at all what TMBG usually sounds like. Lyrically, the protagonist describes in a relatively straightforward manner how a relationship of convenience disintegrates as a result of not sticking to the plan. The outro guitar solo is a nice touch.
4. Meet James Ensor
“James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life.” Perhaps the oddest singular subject for a TMBG song (and that’s saying something), “Meet James Ensor” is a tight angular ode to an obscure artist. It’s a perfect encapsulation of what TMBG can be: chromatic riffs, stuttering drumlines, quirky lyrics, and an accordion to glue the whole thing together.
3. She’s An Angel
TMBG doesn’t normally trade in sincerity and earnestness, or at least not without a skeptical eyebrow raised at some point. “She’s An Angel” is an exception. An exceedingly simple construction reinforces the honesty contained therein: Linnell’s voice, an accordion, a guitar, and a synth bass. When the Johns want to, they are capable of truly beautiful combinations of words and music.
2. Bangs
Basslines are incredibly important to the sound of the band, despite not having a bass player for the first decade of their existence. “Bangs” is a great example of merging a Motown-style walking bass with the prototypical accordion and jangly guitar that defines the TMBG experience. As to the lyrics, they are either a direct appreciation of a certain hairstyle, or a sly nod to body image issues and how hyper-focusing on a given trait makes you lose sight of the whole person. Either/or.
1. Birdhouse in Your Soul
The killer app of the TMBG discography. Their most popular and enduring song. (Excepting theme songs, of course. Many a young child has repeated the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse tune enough times to drive the adults around them completely bonkers, but that doesn’t count.) It is a remarkably atypical pop song, though. Eighteen key changes, a monotonous drum beat, and a trumpet/violin combo. The lyrics are both very uncomplicated and riddled with quirkiness: it’s explicitly about a night light plugged into the wall outlet. No more, no less. And yet, it sticks in your head like the finest of earworms. It’s fair to say that if you don’t like this song, you might as well skip the rest of their oeuvre. If you like it, even begrudgingly, there’s a wide world of TMBG goodness for you to enjoy.
And if you’ve liked what you’ve read, I implore you to…