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I just ordered Sasha a couple of Christmas presents (though the Hatrack Amazon link, your welcome sirs) of They Might Be Giant kids music. Am I correct in happilly saying this will be something that we can both enjoy? (I can only listen to Mary Had A Little Lamb so many times before going postal)
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"Here Come The ABCs" is released. I ordered it, and saw it at Borders (in the kids section) yesterday.
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Well if you've ever heard any of their "adult" albums and liked them then you will like the stuff they do for kids. They don't change their style at all they just do songs that are more accessible to the young ones.
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My daughter loves "Flood". And I don't mind it, either. Maybe I should add this to our Christmas list.
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Christy and I own "Here Come the ABCs" and "No!" -- and love both of them. We also strongly recommend Boynton's "Philadelphia Chickens."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I have their children's album "No!", and I'd say that while it's not as entertaining to me as their regular adult albums, I do actively enjoy many of the songs on it. If I had a child, I could definitely stand the many repeated listenings children subject their parents to.
This Might Be of interest; it's from their official website. "F", for those of you unfamiliar with the band, stands for John Flansburgh, and "L" for John Linnell.
quote:Do you think kids need music created specifically for them?
F: That's a good question. Except for obscenity or overt [sic] maybe that's your answer.
quote:Why couldn't they listen to their parents' TMBG? Or then again, why couldn't their parents listen to their kids' TMBG? What's with the segregation?
L: One of the reasons we got into kids' music is that parents had been playing our "adult" records for their kids, much of which they seemed to think was appropriate. However there's a raft of topics that we get into that I think are either over the kids' heads (divorce, alienation), uninteresting (midlife worries, obscure historical figures), or totally inappropriate (substance abuse, violent death, Edith Head).
quote:A lot of bands do a semi-unplugged folksy thing when they create for kids, but not you -- have you any regard for children's eardrums?
F: I suspect kids like the energy of all kinds of music, and it's only some parent's projection of what is "nice" for kids that makes it such a gentle genre. Danny our bass player's son responds very positively to the Ramones. Not softening our sound probably plays in to why kids respond to our stuff, but, you know, the listener really determines the volume, so that's kind of up to the kid. Somewhere Barney is probably being played at 130 db.
quote:Have you had any responses from your first-wave adult fans -- now parents?
F: It's generally positive. The only down side is that some people can't understand that we are actually doing two different things. Parents not down with that. Crowd surfing and piggyback rides are both fun, but they should never happen at the same time.
quote:What do you think makes your music appealing to children?
F: We might be the worst judges of that. We only think of how our songs are going to work with our audiences- young or old- in the most general way. There are some things about the way we make kids music, like we don't make it any more gentle than our adult music, that might help us get past some kids' intuitive "jive" filter. I do remember as a kid finding the hushed tones of "kids' music" kind of bogus, but I was a kid pretty in love with rock music.
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Start with two albums: Flood, and Apollo 18.
If you really want to just do songs, I can't help you 'cuz there are just too many, they're all different, and I wouldn't want to think that their stuff is all like one thing or another.
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I had to drive from NY to North Carolina with my son (we took two days, so as not to overextend ourselves) and listened to "Here come the ABCs" over and over again. I wouldn't suggest *that*, but the first three times was (were?) great. *G* My son (7 y.o.) particularly enjoys "C is for Conifer". I myself like "E eats everything".
I also bought the Veggietales CDs, but since Christopher thinks those are 'for babies', I only listened to them when he was watching movies on the portable DVD player with headphones. *G*
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My favorite off "No" is "I am not your Broom". I sing it every time I sweep anything. It is charming and wonderful. "I've had enough I'm throwing off my chains of servitude."
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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GaalDornick, start with "Ana Ng" (off "Lincoln") and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (off "Flood"). Those are two of the finest songs ever written, in my opinion, and best sum up TMBG's unique take on rock 'n roll- witty, often non-sensical lyrics about life, death, love, and whatever comes into their heads, set to some of the catchiest tunes ever written.
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Like I said, we only have "Flood", and Emma's favorite song on it? "Particle Man". (We like it, too. We all sing along to it on repeat when she's starting to get grumpy.)
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The quick answer is "They wrote the theme song for 'Malcolm in the Middle' and the only song of theirs that sometimes gets played on standard radio is 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)', both of which, like their other music, are maddeningly addictive."
The long answer is really, really long, but Tarrsk did a nice capsule summary.
[ December 05, 2005, 03:32 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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"Someone in this town Is trying to burn the foreheads down They want to stop the ones who want prosthetic foreheads on their heads"
Anyway, along with Flood and Lincoln, you must get the Pink Album. It's the one just called "They Might Be Giants", but the cover is pink, so it's known as the Pink Album.
I have a 2 CD set called "Then and Now", which has Pink and Lincoln and lots of bonus tracks. It's amazingly good.
"In the morning hours, 'round seven o'clock The parking lot fills at Toys R Us And my little girl, she will get away Drive her bike down Toddler highway Save your Close n' Play Toddler highway"
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Speaking of kids' songs, there's a great radio show from a local college station, WERS (Emerson College radio) called The Playground. 3 hours each on Saturday/Sunday, 5pm-8pm (Eastern Time). They play new stuff, obscure stuff, cheezy stuff, classic stuff. I've heard Weird Al, TMBG, MAry Poppins, VeggieTales, you name it. If you are in the Boston area, it's at 88.9FM, but they also have a live stream at their site. They also have past playlists, and hopefully soon they'll have archived shows.
ketchupqueen, on the aforementioned Then and Now 2 CD set (which includes TMBG's first 2 albums, plus extras, including their EP "Miscellaneous T" [The section in music stores their albums were usually filed under early on in their career ]), they actually have as the last song on CD 2 (the one with Lincoln), a version of Particle Man done by some 2nd or 3rd grade class. It's straight from a tape they received from the teacher.
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Thank Bokonon! Just moved to the Boston area and have kids who like music, The Playground sounds perfect.
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My wife and I (we don't have kids currently) listen to it whenever we can. You get random surprises like the Gummi Bears or original TMNT cartoon theme songs sometimes, which is always fun.
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Any other things I should know about in the Boston area Bok? (I realize that's quite a question but sometimes when you don't even know what to ask, you have to start somewhere?)
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Don't worry Dan. Both of those albums are Floodesque in their creativity, execution, and wit. The fact that I can listen to them with all my kids is just dang awesome.
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There's a show on Disney called "Higglytown Heroes" that my daughter is totally addicted to. The theme is sung by TMBG.
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My son and I love to listen to it together (he's a teenager). He taught his five-year-old cousin "Doctor Worm", and it was a big hit.
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"No one in the world ever gets what they want And that is beautiful Everybody dies frustrated and sad And that is beautiful."
I'm not 100% sure why this is considered a child friendly TMBG song. That's from "Don't Let's Start". "They'll Need a Crane" has these:
"And there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go I mean nice people -- baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare."
"Lad looks at other gals Gal thinks Jim Beam is handsomer than lad"
I mean, I love TMBG. But if you're picking out songs that are kid-friendly, a better job can be done, no?
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That bridge from "They'll Need a Crane" consists of my favorite TMBG lyrics of all. Somehow, Linnell takes that awkwardly realistic sentence and makes it extraordinarily tuneful- and soulful.
Other favorite lines:
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders What the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of -from "Where Your Eyes Don't Go," off "Lincoln"
------- Never to part since the day we met Out on Interstate 91 I was bent metal you were a flaming wreck When we kissed at the overpass
I was sailing along with the people Driving themselves to distraction inside me Then came a knock on the door which was odd And the picture abruptly changed
At the end of the tour When the road disappears If there's any more people around When the tour runs aground And if you're still around Then we'll meet at the end of the tour
The engagements are booked through the end of the world So we'll meet at the end of the tour -from "The End of the Tour," off "John Henry"
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Uh, guys? That "two line maximum" rule doesn't just apply to our lyrics game, you know. There are legal reasons we have it, and it covers the whole board.
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Maybe I should add this to our Christmas list.
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We also strongly recommend Boynton's "Philadelphia Chickens."
