They Might Be Giants - Flood - 1990

I still hold this album as their pièce de résistance of their entire career.  Every song is a masterpiece.  Every song can be sung out loud at the top of your voice.  Every song can be critically analyzed down to it's finite detail, and not a blemish can be found.

I got this one my senior year in high school, and I thought it was pretty good.  But, I didn't really fall in love with it until I drove to Mexico with my cousins a year later.  We drove for about 23 hours straight, and listened to this baby about 4 times.  We all sang it, we all laughed, we played it from the very first note to the last reverb.  We listened to other music on the way to and from, but for some reason, this was the only one I remember in detail.

I played it a couple years later when I was with my wife, who at the time was still my girlfriend.  Her mother seemed a little disturbed by We Want A Rock talking about a "prosthetic forehead on my real head."  She thought it was talking about something sexual.  My wife was like "No, Mom.  It's PROSTHETIC forehead, not PROPHYLACTIC."  Needless to say, I can only imagine what sort of images were going through her head when she thought otherwise.

They released a somewhat deluxe set along with Apollo 19, but I found a few extra tracks and the remixes.  Even with all of that and 27 tracks, it still comes in at just over an hour long.  Amazing.  It's because they packed so much goodness into every song, it didn't take long at all...

They Might Be Giants - Flood - 1990

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln - 1988

I'm going to make it through this post with trepidation, as emotionally, I am in a state of flux.  The woman I shared a cubicle with for the past two and a half years at work passed away in the night last night.  She suffered from what is called a hemorrhagic stroke and it killed her.  The guesstimate is that she didn't even see or feel it coming, and she was gone before she knew what was happening.  It's funny how you can be chatting and laughing and working with someone one day, and the next day they are gone forever, and you never even get to say goodbye.  She was only 53.  Well, goodbye, Cindy.  It was a pleasure working with you......

As I started the summer of 85, I remember seeing the video for Don't Let's Start by TMBG.  What a couple of weirdos, I thought to myself.  Not long after, Ana Ng was playing, and it definitely caught my attention.  But, the arrival of Flood was the turning point for me (and millions of others) that proved that TMBG were a definite talent force to be reckoned with.

Of course, as you all may well know, finding ALL of the material that these two gentlemen have produced is nothing short of impossible.  I would venture to guess that in their lifetimes, these two men have written and released more than a thousand songs.  I haven't done an accurate count, but my best guess would be possibly 1400-1600 songs.  If anyone has any more insight into this count, feel free to correct me on it.  I'd honestly like to know.

After Flood, I continued to listen to all of their material.  To this day, though, I find the Flood and pre-Flood songs to be the best.  

I feel that Lincoln is better than Flood in a number of ways.  The songs are written in a way that leads me to believe they were trying harder, trying so very hard to be that break-out artist.  The songs definitely seem more sincere.  I think that they knew they were on the verge of that major achievement and they wanted it bad.  They weren't desperate-sounding, just pushing themselves to the max to reach that goal.  And it shows.  The songs are all very heartfelt and full of energy and life.

Then, Flood gets released and it completely overshadowed all of their previous work.  I'm sure they didn't mind, it was growth and prestige and success.  Move on and carry on, as it is.

But, it's fun to listen to it all now....

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln - 1988