They Might Be Giants

They're going to have to create a whole new category of weird to contain They Might Be
Giants. After all, what other group around these days would release an album with
nineteen songs that incorporate genres from art pop to country to polka, all operating
under titles like "Youth Culture Killed My Dog"? Weirdest of all, in context the results don't
seem at all perverse. In fact, beneath the jokes, They Might Be Giants might be th... More >

Two catchy weirdos, eighteen songs, and the hits just keep on coming in an exuberantly annoying show of creative superabundance. Their secret is that as unmediated pop postmodernists they can be themselves stealing from anywhere, modulating without strain or personal commitment from hick to nut to nerd. Like the cross-eyed bear in the regretful but not altogether kind "Hide Away Folk Family," their "shoes are laced with irony," but that doesn't doom them to art-school cleverness or never meaning what they say. Their great subject is the information overload that lends these songs their form. They live in a world where "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" and "Youth Culture Killed My Dog." (Grade: A)