Review: They Might Be Giants, "Join Us"

Join Us
They Might Be Giants
Idlewild
07.19.11

"They're going to have to create a whole new category of weird to contain They Might Be Giants," said Rolling Stone way back in 1986, struggling to describe the debut album by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. And create a new category they did, even if no one but the Johns ever occupied it. Still atop a field of one (well, two), TMBG gladdened many a geek heart with the release of Join Us, coming as it did after a four-year hiatus from the adult world, one in which the group won tons of Grammy gold as a children's act, ruled Radio Disney, and, in the process, became your 8-year-old daughter's favorite band. But does that make the world a more hipster place? Or does it just make you old?

It's funny to watch the critics immediately declare Join Us the "return to form" album, especially since their forerunners used to routinely slam the Johns -- and Cake -- as so achingly ironic they had no heart. Wrong on both counts, as it turns out, but the soft bigotry of low expectations doesn't do the Johns any more of a service than it does Metallica or Dylan. Certain people need a They Might Be Giants operating at full capacity in order to have the world make sense. But Lincoln this is not.

Yes, it's a game the Johns can't win. If they'd still be trying to write piano ballads that compare dying to expired milk, or swing tunes about world domination, or whatever the fuck "Boat Of Car" was, they'd be written off as some sort of bad '90s joke no one gets anymore. And God knows the Giants made very little concessions on the way to the mainstream. But it's hard to tell who met who halfway at this point, and that leaves loyal fans doing just what Metallica and Dylan fans do -- searching desperately for signifiers. Suddenly, in the middle of what sounds like a perfectly acceptable pop-rock record, you hear the trumpet-and-rhythm-box opening of "In Fact," or the way Linnell's signature whine arches up in eighth notes during the bridge of "I Bet You Get That A Lot," or the low doh doh doh's and goofy march of "There Might Be Duende," and you get a thrill all out of proportion to what's actually happening. They earned the wacky -- hell, they invented it -- so it's never totally self-conscious. But it is fleeting these days.

The good news? Like a lot of maturing artists, the Johns' lyrics are less self-conscious than ever. That keen eye for emotional detail that surfaced occasionally on "Narrow Your Eyes" or "Son of God" is more or less a constant thing now; "Judy Is Your Viet Nam" and "Old Pine Box" and "Protagonist" are all excellent character sketches -- adult ones, dealing with failure, which is probably not a coincidence. "Never Knew Love" is probably the finest song in years about the terrifying journey that is new romance. And both the sci-fi fantasy "2082" and the kiss-off "When Will You Die" are two of the funniest, darkest jokes they've ever told. Your daughter probably won't get most of these lyrics, which I guess brings us full circle. But if you want to stay ahead of her on the odd music curve, go back to Animal Collective.

Graded using the Third Eye Method:

Impact: 62. Subtle, but there. And subversive in a way. It's nice to think Radio Disney might accidentally program a song like "Celebration."

Invention: 70. Mostly lyrical. The musical inspiration left around the time of Mink Car.
Integrity: 80. Intelligent pop still has a way with They Might Be Giants.