biscuitdough wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 11:06 am I don’t think enough has been said about They Might Be Giants.

I tried a preemptive kerble, and I swear I've shared this quote before, but it's worth repeating. A date once told me (after being dragged to one of their shows by her friends),

"They have little white voices. If flaccid penises could sing, this is what they would sound like."

Yeah, that perfectly describes TMBG.

ChudFusk wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 2:18 pm Supertramp is worthy of a mention here.

Hard disagree. Love their keyboard playing. Breakfast in America has worn a little thin for me, but I love the three albums preceding it.

To each their own.

After reading all these posts I'm putting all my money on Kid606. Recycled Warp records ideas seemed to flow from him like a person relieving themselves in my coffee.. That's just one person though and not a band. Fuck it, Heinrich Himmler was just a one person too. While I'm on the subject Boyd Rice is as interesting as a pile of bricks.

Gosh shit posting on a forum feels kind of good. Rather cathartic in execution.

Lumping They Might Be Giants in with Barenaked Ladies is like lumping Yes in with Dream Theater.

[finger wagging emoji here]

DaveA wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 3:45 pm Lumping They Might Be Giants in with Barenaked Ladies is like lumping Yes in with Dream Theater.

[finger wagging emoji here]

I like hot dogs, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stand up for them when someone says they’re the worst food ever.

Point is, the two bands, at their best, are only superficially similar to each other. In reality there's a lot of daylight between them.

DaveA wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 3:45 pm Lumping They Might Be Giants in with Barenaked Ladies is like lumping Yes in with Dream Theater.

[finger wagging emoji here]

That's fair. I like TMBG okay, and I hate Barenaked Ladies. If someone told me a band I thought was really awesome sounded like BNL, I'd probably need a middle finger wagging emoji.

Barenaked Ladies and Dave Matthews must be American things. I had a friend in my teens who was really into BNL and then it was like a niche interest, I wouldn't have heard about them if not for him. He also liked Dire Straits and Spin Doctors and Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews so you know. Really fun guy to be around, just very dad-ish music taste.

A number of TMBG fans I've met would admit the Johns have had their share of half-assed songs over the years. But they've also done a lot of woodshedding with their craft and have been more musically resourceful than most bands (recording on a wax cylinder at the Edison Laboratory, having Robert Quine play guest guitar, employing unusual notes and chords, etc). They rose from within that vaguely bohemian Brooklyn milieu (pre-gentrification/tech bros), incorporated a lot of visual panache in their music videos and album art, and have touched on "dark themes" on several occasions. There is a self-conscious cleverness to their work, vaguely similar to that of Sparks or maybe even Steely Dan, which can be a huge turn off to some, in addition to whatever other residual nerdiness might be there. But their best work has had its place somewhere between "the underground" and "alternative" spheres and pop culture at large, even if it's not really "punk" in the usual sense.

Barenaked Ladies, from what I've gathered, have more in common with Smash Mouth or Umphrey's Mcgee. It's basically frat bar music, of the tiresome variety. None of my friends have ever cared for them.

DaveA wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:20 pm their best work has had its place somewhere between "the underground" and "alternative" spheres and pop culture at large, even if it's not really "punk" in the usual sense.

100% with you here, this is a crucial defining aspect of TMBG that is rarely ever mentioned or discussed that even some of their most ardent fans I've encountered online are sadly completely oblivious to. On their first four albums alone, I can clearly hear the influences of XTC and The Residents more than anything else.