{"id":14281,"date":"2018-03-26T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14281"},"modified":"2018-03-24T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T14:07:15","slug":"they-might-be-giants-fans-phones-fun-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/26\/they-might-be-giants-fans-phones-fun-and-love\/","title":{"rendered":"They Might Be Giants: Fans, Phones, Fun and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"They Might Be Giants released their 20th<\/sup> album, I Like Fun<\/i>, in January. The two-time Grammy-winning group from Brooklyn established its clever approach to rock ‘n’ roll long ago, as showcased on hits like \u201cIstanbul (Not Constantinople),\u201d \u201cBoss of Me\u201d (the theme from the TV series Malcolm in the Middle<\/i>) and a highly popular sideline of kids’ music albums. I Like Fun<\/i> continues TMBG’s more than 30-year streak of making witty music that rocks.<\/p>\n

The group’s prime movers and songwriters, John Flansburgh and John Linnell have long been ahead of the curve when it comes to getting their music into the hands and ears of fans. In 1985 they began their long-running Dial-a-Song project, recording tunes onto their answering machines and then inviting fans to call in to listen.<\/p>\n

The group’s 2016 album Phone Power<\/i> was culled from those tunes, and for that release TMBG used a pay-what-you-want model similar to the approach Radiohead used on its 2007 album In Rainbows<\/i>. Flansburgh describes both Dial-a-Song and Phone Power<\/i> as \u201cbased in the idea of giving things to our audience directly. It\u2019s just their reward for putting up with us.\u201d The Dial-a-Song project has gone on hiatus twice, but is scheduled to resume this year.<\/p>\n

Another initiative designed to reach out more directly to fans was 2004’s Venue Songs<\/i> project. \u201cBecause we\u2019ve been on the road for quite awhile, we often come back to the same places,\u201d Flansburgh explains. \u201cSo we thought, ‘Wouldn\u2019t it be interesting to give ourselves the challenge of putting together a short song for every venue we played on that tour?’\u201d A CD+DVD release collected nearly four dozen ditties paying skewed tribute to concert venues from Los Angeles to Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Advance reviews for the band’s new I Like Fun<\/i> sometimes describe the album as \u201clo-fi.\u201d Flansburgh takes issue with that description. \u201cAs much as I like lo-fi records \u2013 and bands that are sort of identified as being lo-fi \u2013 we made the record in a pretty fancy studio with some pretty fancy musicians,\u201d he says. \u201cI think of it as being a hi-fi record.\u201d Describing it as a full-frequency album that avoids excessive sonic compression (sometimes known as \u201cbrickwalling\u201d), He says, \u201cI think what they\u2019re responding to is how unlike productions in 2017 it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But ultimately, They Might Be Giants are focused on the songs more than the sound. \u201cIt’s not important to us that we add that level of gloss to what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Flansburgh says. \u201cSo our music probably seems a little anachronistic by contemporary standards.\u201d He characterizes I Like Fun<\/i> as having a \u201craw sound. It sounds like a combo most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how TMBG has changed in the 32 years since they released their debut, Flansburgh is candid. \u201cWe\u2019re not as shy as we were about writing about love,\u201d he says. \u201cIf a song really clicks, it kind of takes on its own sensibility. And I think we’re more confident about that now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They Might Be Giants released their 20th album, I Like Fun, in January. The two-time Grammy-winning group from Brooklyn established its clever approach to rock ‘n’ roll long ago, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51,62],"tags":[2197],"class_list":["post-14281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","tag-they-might-be-giants","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14282,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions\/14282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}