They Might Be Giants, but they're really two New York bohemian weisenheimers named John. One John (Flansburgh) wears glasses, plays guitar and sings with a grin; the other one (Linnell) plays accordion and looks edgy. A beatbox also figures in here somewhere. Their music is ... well, remember the Banana Splits? The Banana Splits were four guys in animal suits on Saturday morning TV, circa 1986, sort of like the Monkees retooled for six-year-old acidheads. Okay, imagine that the Banana Splits went to college, read lots of Kafka and Pynchon, got Ph.D.'s and went on rent strike. Then two of 'em died. That's kind of what They Might Be Giants sound like. This is a compliment.
You'll probably wet your pants laughing from their album cover alone, because the song titles are hilarious: "Rabid Child," "Youth Culture Killed My Dog," "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes." And a first listen to the merry dada-lyrics and peppy rhythms from forgotten game shows will make you think you've found a bona fide smart-boy novelty record: something more intelligent than Sparks (good) but not as stoopid as the Beastie Boys (bad).
Luckily, TMBG aren't entirely that wacky, even if they want to be. There's something else going on here and the first tip-off is that the funniest titles are generally the lousiest songs. The exceptions are "Youth Culture Killed My Dog," which is about exactly what it says it's about and which gets funnier and sadder each time I hear it; and "Alienation's for the Rich," which sounds like the Malboro Man after political enlightenment and a bad day. Overall, though, the songs that look the most promising are either jokey throwaways or surrealist let-downs, as if the two Johns got the laugh and lost interest.
What brings the album back to life, luckily, is that these guys have a knack for truly weird imagery ("Everything right is wrong again/You're a weasel overcome with dinge") and concepts ("Life's just a mood ring we're not allowed to see"—think about that one) that end up being funny in better, deeper ways. The glib goofiness of the first listen becomes the informed, wry mordancy of a record that eventually refuses to leave your turntable.
It helps that some of this stuff rocks reasonably hard for two art-boys with a box. "(She Was a) Hotel Detective" is a one-joke song ("Why don't you check her out?") but it crunches along just fine, and the anti-nostalgia "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" and "Hideaway Folk Family" are prime street hummers. Better still, "Don't Let's Start" is simply a great song, especially when you realize that this irresistible cartoon tune is about a lover's spat as Armageddon ("Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful ... I don't want to live in this world anymore.").
A year ago, They Might Be Giants released a cassette tape featuring most of the songs here, but this album's much better produced and the handful of new tunes show that these guys are moving along. One of them, "She's an Angel," is an honest-to-god love song, albeit a sweetly twisted one in which the singer discovers his girlfriend really is an angel: "Why did they send her over anyone else?/How should I react? These things don't happen to other people/They don't happen at all in fact."
The record's funniest cut is its last, "Rhythm Section Want Ad," in which John and John defend their no-drummer status against the Philistines (who ask "Do you sing like Olive Oyl on purpose?/You guys must be into the Eurythmics") by laying out a lickety-split boogie riff straight from an old Betty Boop cartoon. It makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it, partially because it's ingeniously arranged but also because it's funny from the heart, because the Johns are just pissed off enough to find the whole thing really silly. It closes the album with a nice little fuck you.
You can test-drive these guys by calling their Dial-A-Song at 718-387-6962.