They Might Be Giants - Flood

It's Sunday. I promised you a happy album. So, surrealist absurdity it is. A brand new record for 1990, They Might Be Giants' brand new album Flood.

Greatest album ever recorded, g'night folks.

I'm kidding, i actually have too much to say to possibly construct a coherent essay; good thing it's nonsense already.

Two Johns from Brooklyn with synths, guitars, and a taste for absurdity. They are both serious composers who take being unserious very seriously. This nice A&R lady from Elektra was a big fan, so she negotiated a deal for them where they didn't get screwed. They got a budget, a couple producers who were more than willing to both go wherever the songs took them and prevent them from getting carried away and ruining their own songs. That's a surrealist daydream in itself. I mean, they blew 66% of their budget on 4 of the 19 tracks, forgot verses to songs, and had a few technological mishaps along the way, but the end result is spectacular.

It's another case of using a label for its intended purpose, professional level assistance in making your art, a rolodex full of professional contacts who can use your art in new and exciting ways, and a contract that gives you the freedom to do what you already know you want to do. Bottle's school of music business teaches only two rules: 1) if you aren't already making money by playing music, a record label can't help you, and 2) a deal that takes your money is a bad deal; their job is to expand your audience. All a record label does is play your music for people actively looking for new music; it helps a lot if you're agreeable to other synchronization projects like cartoons or jingles, etc.

Anywho, part of the magic is that it's just 2 guys with synthesizers and imaginations. They programmed all their music in midi so they could perform it, and that means you can just patch it to other things in the studio and go to town. I have exactly the same model of drum machine that they used to make this album. There are lots of real musicians too, but the core of the whole album is synths and samples that cost nothing to create.

There are two great things about TMBG music. First the music comes first and they jostle and shove words into it. That's a big part of how the nonsense gets made. Second, they aren't trying to be funny. If you try to be funny, it will get old quick and noone will come back once it loses it's punch. If however, you sing "minumum wage" in an overly grandiose manner followed by mashing 2 samples together to sound like a bullwhip, it will be hilarious for all eternity. A song written from the perspective of a nightlight? Fantastic. A song that compares your own trip to Berlin to a Bing Crosby/Bob Hope movie? Genius. A cover of Istanbul/Constantinople? Awesome. Unreliable narrators and unexpected narrative settings and creative misinterpretation of metaphors and being reincarnated as a bag of groceries? Comedy gold.

Not all my essays are good, and you the editor might say "scrap that one, or at least rework it" but the best ones are the same kind of freedom of thought you get on Flood. Ideas create new ideas, you just let them build themselves and pick out the ones you enjoy.

The secret to their success is that anyone can find humor in it. Absurdity is a nutritious snack for everyone. Here, i'll share some of mine.

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