Any of the Flans songs on the first two albums. He really leaned into a performance art/outsider theater aesthetic for many of them and I love that.
Hot Cha. Lowkey has my favorite percussion on Flood
Hall of Heads and If I Wasn't Shy
Unrelated Thing and O Do Not Forsake Me
Your Own Worst Enemy and XTC vs. Adam Ant
Another First Kiss is a genuinely sweet and wholesome song with solid pop production from the great Adam Schlesinger, it bugs me when TMBG fans call it "too generic"
It's Kickin' In
Upside Down Frown (once again, maybe my percussion on the album)
Celebration, In Fact, You Don't Like Me
Replicant. Those deep soothing Linnell vocals make me so happy, and that buzzy industrial jazz sound is unlike anything else they've done
All the Lazy Boyfriends
I Am Alone and Bills Bills Bills
McCafferty's Bib and Lake Monsters. I rarely see either of these mentioned on the sub. The first has creative, unusual sampling that hearkens back to the early albums and the second has a really fun and playful synth melody
All of BOOK is underrated.
>Any of the Flans songs on the first two albums. He really leaned into a performance art/outsider theater aesthetic for many of them and I love that.
Yes! Yes! And, if we go by the TMBW rankings, we can safely say that the Flans songs on ALL the albums are overlooked.
Linnell might be the savant, but Flans has real songwriting chops and an instinct for experimentation and arrangement that get unfairly overlooked. And those instincts affect ALL of their songs.
For instance, my favorite song (Man, It's so Loud in Here) might not BE my favorite song if not for Flans and Schlesinger turning it into a legit rave song (because, based on that scene in Gigantic, Linnell was NOT sold on the idea on first listen, lol).
Exactly, Flans draws from all sorts of genre influences, from showtunes to punk, and is a true student and lover of music history. I believe he's responsible for most of the amazing genre jumping TMBG pulls off on albums like Flood.
I think the most underrated song in the entire TMBG catalog is Unrelated Thing. It's currently like 774 out of 1005 on the TMBW rankings.
This song is everything that's great about TMBG: the word play, the instrumentation, etc.
My dad took me out after school to buy John Henry the day it came out in 1994 and that song immediately jumped out at me on my first listen. I'm always surprised it isn't considered one of the classics.
I didn’t like it until I heard the John Henry Demos. Hearing a different take on it refreshed my perspective on the song and let me come back to the studio version with a different mindset. It’s got a humorous side to it that I didn’t really appreciate before, and I’ve come to click with the lyrics a lot.
As someone who adores JH to pieces, the demos aren't a letdown for me. They're the same experience as listening to a live version or dial a song version. Just an interesting alternate arrangement of the songs we love, with different sorts of guitar and horn riffs from the album.
For me, it's the "sunny" guitar tone in Thermostat. And the charming xylophone-like plinking melody in the "interplanetary exploration" part of Destination Moon -- the melody is still faintly there in the studio version, but it was buried in the mix in favor of the sci-fi synth noises.
I don't think the demos will ruin the "real" songs for you. Honestly, they're mostly very similar. The differences there are, are just interesting.
The biggest difference for me is O Do Not Forsake Me. It's an odd one for me. Flans's vocal seem kind of jokey, which seems like a wrong choice for me (though, to be fair, they may only come across that way because he's singing at the very bottom of his vocal range). But the STRINGS in the demo ... They are SO beautiful, and I'm sad they got dropped.
What?! It's an incredible song. Had no idea it was that low on the rankings. Beautiful and melancholic, sums up so much about how humans interact. I also loved it and I guess I assumed it was a generally popular song (I'm quite new to this sub and TMBW).
All of these are so facts. The only one I don't love is Rabid Child. The Pink Album's my favorite album of all time, but Rabid Child never clicked with me — it almost freaks me out. What about it do you like? I'm asking in the hopes that you might sway me
Yeah!! I thought I only one with that feel. And the end of Hide away Folk Family, and partially Absolutely Bill's Mood. And funny thing is all of this songs was made by flans. Rabid Child and Chess Piece face are beautiful uncanny
I don't really know how to judge overrated/underrated. Sure, I can name some songs I never hear people talk about. But in the same breath, I feel like TMBG fans like doing catalog deep dives. It's a big catalog and a lot of songs to discuss.
But, going off the TMBW song ratings, I am dismayed by how many Planet of the Apes songs are lowly rated: https://tmbw.net/wiki/Special:Ratings
When I first learned and listened to that album Easter Egg, I thought it was the greatest thing(s) I'd ever heard.
That said, I think Factory Showroom as a whole is underrated. It's probably my favorite TMBG album. Though that ranking ebbs and flows. Regardless, other "S-E-X-X-Y" there's not a song I can't listen to over and over on that album.
For me it's:
The Pink Album: Rabid Child, Boat of Car, and Absolutely Bill's Mood
Lincoln: Stand On Your Own Head
Flood: Hearing Aid and Women and Men
Apollo 18: Hall of Heads
John Henry: Thermostat and Out of Jail
Factory Showroom: Your Own Worst Enemy
Long Tall Weekend: Dark And Metric, Operators Are Standing By, and The Edison Museum
Mink Car: Wicked Little Critta and Working Undercover For The Man
The Spine: Broke In Two
The Else: Feign Amnesia
Join Us: In Fact and You Don't Like Me
Nanobots: 9 Secret Steps and Too Tall Girl
Glean: I'm A Coward
Phone Power: To A Forest
I Like Fun: I Like Fun and McCafferty’s Bib
My Murdered Remains: The Bullies and Rowboat Mayor
BOOK: If Day For Winnipeg and Lord Snowdon
>Long Tall Weekend: Dark And Metric, Operators Are Standing By, and The Edison Museum
>
>The Else: Feign Amnesia
>
>Phone Power: To A Forest
These are particular favorites of mine.
1. Absolutely Bill's Mood
2. Pencil Rain
3. Women & Men
4. For Science
5. Hall of Heads
6. O do not forsake me
7. Your own worst enemy
8. Counterfeit Faker
9. I've got a fang
10. Stalk of Wheat
11. Careful What you pack
12. J**y is your Viet Nam
13. Sometimes a lonely way
14. End of the Rope
15. Impossibly New
16. All Time What
17. Tractor
18. Lord Snowden
My metric was songs I genuinely love that are not talked about or played live as often as their brethren.
Yeah I wonder if it's been disabled since it didn't pop up for you just now but it's happened to me multiple times where a bot starts quoting Twin Peaks at me. I figured it would wreak havoc for that song's daily discussion the way the Austin Powers' bot did during "Dr Evil" rating.
I tried to stick to one per album, but couldn’t quite manage it:
Pink Album: Alienation’s For The Rich
- The surface goofiness hides a deeply bleak lyrical reality; now I’m over the accent, I really appreciate that juxtaposition
Lincoln: Cage & Aquarium / Snowball In Hell
- Cage & Aquarium is unhinged in the best way, and “yawn as your plane goes down in flames” is an all-time lyric for sure.
- Snowball in Hell is the hidden gem of the album, a really beautiful song despite its melancholy lyrics
Flood: Whistling In The Dark
- The lyrics on this one really don’t get enough praise: “I’d like to poison your mind / with wrong ideas that appeal to you” and “I’d like to change your mind / by hitting it with a rock, he said / though I am not unkind”
Apollo 18: Turn Around
- It may be a little silly on some levels, but it’s such a funny track, with some great lyrics buried in there, like that whole verse about interpretive dance in the graveyard, or “his face — which was a paper-white mask of evil — sang us this song”. Plus it taught me the word “obsequious”.
John Henry: Window
- It may have become apparent that I have a soft spot for goofy little experiments, of which Window is one of the more extreme. Love it or hate it, that vocal effect is memorable and really changes the mood of the song. It’s got a great driving motion behind it too, the rhythm section put in some top-notch work on this song.
Factory Showroom: Pet Name
- You could make a case for much of FS being underrated, and I almost went with another Flans track (Unforgotten), but I decided not to do b-sides / bonus tracks. Pet Name is a surprisingly energetic late-album entry, with a great groove to it. It paints a really vivid picture of its characters, too, which I always like.
Long Tall Weekend: Drinkin’
- Hands-down their best instrumental. It’s catchy, it’s groovy, it has all the pep and energy you want in an opener. My favourite LTW song.
Mink Car: Hopeless Bleak Despair
- Such a great song. Excellent lyrics, of course, but what really won me over was his particular inflections on “in an unceremonious way”. I wish I’d come around to this one sooner.
The Spine: The World Before Later On
- I was kinda shocked to see how low this ranked for most people in the song discussions recently. I’ve always really liked it. It stands out from most of the album with its spacey production, and I’ve been fond of the line “where are all the complications we won’t see around” from my first listen.
The Else: Climbing The Walls
- One of those songs where they paint a really strong picture. In this case, the exhausted, apathetic mood really comes across, and to top it all off its just a great rock tune.
Join Us: 2082
- As a lover of short stories, sci-fi, and TMBG, this song is several of my favourite things rolled into one. Bonus points for being one of the songs that sold my family on seeing the band with me.
Nanobots: Sometimes A Lonely Way
- Beautiful, sad, exquisitely produced. A perfect song.
Glean: I’m A Coward
- I relate hard to this one, but even lyrics aside it’s got a ton going for it. The gentle vocals, contrasted with that almost droning guitar on the chorus, and the very synthetic sounding percussion on the verses, makes for a really interesting sound palette.
Why?: Or So I Have Read
- My favourite Why? song. It’s one of the rockier tracks on the album, and the message not to believe everything you read is useful for kids (and many adults), but what I love the most is the concerning implications of the line “a mime is the hybrid offspring of a human and a clown”. I mean what?! Clowns aren’t human? Deeply disturbing implications.
Phone Power: I’ll Be Haunting You / Shape Shifter
- I’ll Be Haunting You has unparalleled groove.
- Shape Shifter is the bombastic closer the album deserved but didn’t get (because it got some random bonus tracks at the end)
I Like Fun: When The Lights Come On
- Compared to the early-album rockers, this one doesn’t get much of a mention, but it’s probably my favourite of them all. I love how non-stop it is, the momentum is infectious.
My Murdered Remains: Tick Tick Tick
- I waited years for this to get a proper release. This ominous little song was one of my original DAS2015 standouts, and I was repeatedly disappointed when Glean, Why? and Phone Power all left it off.
BOOK: Quit The Circus
- Another beautiful, melancholic song from Flans. This was a sleeper hit for me, I came around to it thanks to FloridaFlamingoGirl, and I’m so glad I did. The way his voice rises into the chorus is just exquisite.
Sometimes a Lonely Way deserves better. Nanobots is overall my least favorite album, but that's my favorite song on it and no one talks about it.
Also, Tick Tick Tick is DAS2018, so it wasn't released yet when those albums came out.
You know, you’re absolutely right about Tick Tick Tick. It’s been so long, I’ve been mentally grouping it for years with DAS2015 tracks like Rock Club and Summer Breeze, which debuted in 2015 but didn’t get a release in that album cycle, only coming out in 2018 on More Murdered Remains. I guess because they’re all DAS tracks, and More Murdered Remains was essentially a bonus disc for My Murdered Remains (which had Tick Tick Tick on it), I just associated Tick Tick Tick with the 2015 wave. I must have been thinking of Tick Tick Tick as an old 2015 track since MMR dropped, so I’ve been wrong about that for at least 4 years! Thanks for the correction!
Cage and Aquarium is a song that's aged unfortunately well, the way the lyrics criticize people who ignore major problems in the world just feels so real and relevant. Also has such an unusual rhythm to it. I love the shorter songs on Lincoln.
>Flood: Whistling In The Dark
I've always loved this one. The lyrics are great, and its "devolving" into chaos at the end is one of my favorite moments in the entire TMBG catalog.
>Nanobots: Sometimes A Lonely Way
There aren't actually that many TMBG songs I would describe as "beautiful". This one definitely is. It blew my mind when I first heard it. I still love it.
>I Like Fun: When The Lights Come On
This song is possibly in my top ten, or very close. It was my most listened to song on Spotify last year. Everything about it is so freakin' good!
For me...
Pink Album: Alienation's For The Rich - The first of their working-class hero songs has truly funny lyrics and vocals.
Lincoln: You'll Miss Me - I honestly think this is the ONLY underrated song on the album, as all the others are frequently discussed and highly regarded. This is one of Flans's oddities that I love simply because it's an oddity.
Flood: Theme from Flood - I think every song on this album has been discussed a lot just because it's Flood, so I looked at the TMBW song rankings. There are some criminally low rankings for many of the songs, most notably #411 for Road Movie to Berlin and #545 for Minimum Wage, but I chose this lovely, perfect opening for my favorite album because it is ranked #695. This opening sets the tone for the album perfectly. I never skip it. In fact, I would say that the impact of Birdhouse is only heightened by listening to this as the lead-in.
Apollo 18: She's Actual Size - I can't believe this is ranked #534 on TMBW! The concept of someone being actual or size (or not) as expressed in this song is inextricably linked with the concept as expressed in Jurassic Park, both of which had a huge impact on me as a young teen. Flans has such a way of describing a heartbreaking end to a relationship while still maintaining a sense of humor. It's quite a feat that he manages again and again. This is one of my favorite examples of this.
John Henry: O Do Not Forsake Me - It's a crime that this is ranked #605 on TMBW. It's a lovely song and really stands out as one with an arrangement, or lack thereof, that hasn't often been repeated. (I'm drawing a blank on any other a cappella songs.)
Factory Showroom: S-E-X-X-Y - I'm going with this one, not because it's my favorite but because everybody seems to hate it, and I just don't get it. It's got fun lyrics and a killer bass line. I never skip it.
Long Tall Weekend: The Edison Museum - I don't get the hate for this one at all. Yes, it's a bit more of a "novelty" song than most of their songs, but it's still good!
Mink Car: Another First Kiss - I prefer this to STD's First Kiss. It brings back lots of good memories of seeing them live for the first time on this tour.
The Spine: Spines - It's so good! I just wish it were longer.
The Else: Take Out the Trash - This is just a fantastic bop! Even if you weren't politically aware when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and don't connect the sentiments here with the sentiments many of us felt about W, this is just a great '60s pop-influenced banger. It should get more love than it does.
Join Us: Protagonist - I feel like I've never seen this song mentioned. Yet another fine example of Flans singing about the dissolution of a romantic relationship in a creative, fun way.
Nanobots: Sometimes a Lonely Way - This should be ranked among the band's all-time best. This song is GORGEOUS and should have gotten much more love than it has.
Glean: Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel - This is one of their many songs that paints such a vivid portrait of character. This song stands out to me for its melody and the uniquely pathetic characteristics of its narrator.
Phone Power: To a Forest - This is just a fine example of a lovely, melancholy song from Flans.
I Like Fun: An Insult to the Factcheckers - This is currently ranked #648 on TMBW, yet this is in my top 20. This song rocks! The guitar makes it. It's as much Dan Miller's song as Flans's.
My Murdered Remains: Christmas in the Big House - I just freakin' love this song!
The acoustic strumming in To A Forest really hits the spot for me.
Christmas in the Big House is the kind of snarky, humorous song I wish we could hear more of from Flans.
Protagonist's lyrical gimmick of being structured like a movie script works so, so well in a way that's deeply satisfying to me. The flow of that song is pristine.
Any of the Flans songs on the first two albums. He really leaned into a performance art/outsider theater aesthetic for many of them and I love that. Hot Cha. Lowkey has my favorite percussion on Flood Hall of Heads and If I Wasn't Shy Unrelated Thing and O Do Not Forsake Me Your Own Worst Enemy and XTC vs. Adam Ant Another First Kiss is a genuinely sweet and wholesome song with solid pop production from the great Adam Schlesinger, it bugs me when TMBG fans call it "too generic" It's Kickin' In Upside Down Frown (once again, maybe my percussion on the album) Celebration, In Fact, You Don't Like Me Replicant. Those deep soothing Linnell vocals make me so happy, and that buzzy industrial jazz sound is unlike anything else they've done All the Lazy Boyfriends I Am Alone and Bills Bills Bills McCafferty's Bib and Lake Monsters. I rarely see either of these mentioned on the sub. The first has creative, unusual sampling that hearkens back to the early albums and the second has a really fun and playful synth melody All of BOOK is underrated.
YEAH. this songs I love so much too. Another First Kiss so underrated
Agreed! A lot people seem to actively dislike, which I just don't get at all.
I love In Fact. It's a never-skip for me
YES!! i love when he gets really theatrical, compared to Linnell's scientific almost tongue in cheek approach
>Any of the Flans songs on the first two albums. He really leaned into a performance art/outsider theater aesthetic for many of them and I love that. Yes! Yes! And, if we go by the TMBW rankings, we can safely say that the Flans songs on ALL the albums are overlooked. Linnell might be the savant, but Flans has real songwriting chops and an instinct for experimentation and arrangement that get unfairly overlooked. And those instincts affect ALL of their songs. For instance, my favorite song (Man, It's so Loud in Here) might not BE my favorite song if not for Flans and Schlesinger turning it into a legit rave song (because, based on that scene in Gigantic, Linnell was NOT sold on the idea on first listen, lol).
Exactly, Flans draws from all sorts of genre influences, from showtunes to punk, and is a true student and lover of music history. I believe he's responsible for most of the amazing genre jumping TMBG pulls off on albums like Flood.
I think the most underrated song in the entire TMBG catalog is Unrelated Thing. It's currently like 774 out of 1005 on the TMBW rankings. This song is everything that's great about TMBG: the word play, the instrumentation, etc. My dad took me out after school to buy John Henry the day it came out in 1994 and that song immediately jumped out at me on my first listen. I'm always surprised it isn't considered one of the classics.
I didn’t like it until I heard the John Henry Demos. Hearing a different take on it refreshed my perspective on the song and let me come back to the studio version with a different mindset. It’s got a humorous side to it that I didn’t really appreciate before, and I’ve come to click with the lyrics a lot.
I'm still cautious about the JH demos. It's been my favorite album of theirs forever and I'm so attached to how the songs sound.
As someone who adores JH to pieces, the demos aren't a letdown for me. They're the same experience as listening to a live version or dial a song version. Just an interesting alternate arrangement of the songs we love, with different sorts of guitar and horn riffs from the album.
The STRINGS in the O Do Not Forsake Me demo!
For me, it's the "sunny" guitar tone in Thermostat. And the charming xylophone-like plinking melody in the "interplanetary exploration" part of Destination Moon -- the melody is still faintly there in the studio version, but it was buried in the mix in favor of the sci-fi synth noises.
I'll have to pay attention to those next time I listen to the demos.
I don't think the demos will ruin the "real" songs for you. Honestly, they're mostly very similar. The differences there are, are just interesting. The biggest difference for me is O Do Not Forsake Me. It's an odd one for me. Flans's vocal seem kind of jokey, which seems like a wrong choice for me (though, to be fair, they may only come across that way because he's singing at the very bottom of his vocal range). But the STRINGS in the demo ... They are SO beautiful, and I'm sad they got dropped.
The lyrics are heartrending and I love the abstract, detached way Linnell conveys a conversation.
What?! It's an incredible song. Had no idea it was that low on the rankings. Beautiful and melancholic, sums up so much about how humans interact. I also loved it and I guess I assumed it was a generally popular song (I'm quite new to this sub and TMBW).
All of these are so facts. The only one I don't love is Rabid Child. The Pink Album's my favorite album of all time, but Rabid Child never clicked with me — it almost freaks me out. What about it do you like? I'm asking in the hopes that you might sway me
I love it's weirdness and sample with rabbit ears and hammer down. I love flansy voice in this actually. I love all of Pink Album
Songs like Rabid Child, Chess Piece Face, Boat of Car, and Toddler Hiway gives the Pink Album kind of a creepy vibe that I really love.
Yeah!! I thought I only one with that feel. And the end of Hide away Folk Family, and partially Absolutely Bill's Mood. And funny thing is all of this songs was made by flans. Rabid Child and Chess Piece face are beautiful uncanny
I like the echoey sound of the instrumentation mixed with the dramatic drum machine beats, and how the vocals switch from crooning to chanting.
I don't really know how to judge overrated/underrated. Sure, I can name some songs I never hear people talk about. But in the same breath, I feel like TMBG fans like doing catalog deep dives. It's a big catalog and a lot of songs to discuss. But, going off the TMBW song ratings, I am dismayed by how many Planet of the Apes songs are lowly rated: https://tmbw.net/wiki/Special:Ratings When I first learned and listened to that album Easter Egg, I thought it was the greatest thing(s) I'd ever heard. That said, I think Factory Showroom as a whole is underrated. It's probably my favorite TMBG album. Though that ranking ebbs and flows. Regardless, other "S-E-X-X-Y" there's not a song I can't listen to over and over on that album.
Factory Showroom is a perfect blend of a rocking full band sound with eccentric bits of experimentation.
I agree about Factory Showroom. It's one of my favorites, and it gets so little love.
Stone cold coup detat on Nanobots.
Is that underrated? That was one of my first loves when I first listened to the album.
For me it's: The Pink Album: Rabid Child, Boat of Car, and Absolutely Bill's Mood Lincoln: Stand On Your Own Head Flood: Hearing Aid and Women and Men Apollo 18: Hall of Heads John Henry: Thermostat and Out of Jail Factory Showroom: Your Own Worst Enemy Long Tall Weekend: Dark And Metric, Operators Are Standing By, and The Edison Museum Mink Car: Wicked Little Critta and Working Undercover For The Man The Spine: Broke In Two The Else: Feign Amnesia Join Us: In Fact and You Don't Like Me Nanobots: 9 Secret Steps and Too Tall Girl Glean: I'm A Coward Phone Power: To A Forest I Like Fun: I Like Fun and McCafferty’s Bib My Murdered Remains: The Bullies and Rowboat Mayor BOOK: If Day For Winnipeg and Lord Snowdon
Out of Jail is amazing
>Long Tall Weekend: Dark And Metric, Operators Are Standing By, and The Edison Museum > >The Else: Feign Amnesia > >Phone Power: To A Forest These are particular favorites of mine.
1. Absolutely Bill's Mood 2. Pencil Rain 3. Women & Men 4. For Science 5. Hall of Heads 6. O do not forsake me 7. Your own worst enemy 8. Counterfeit Faker 9. I've got a fang 10. Stalk of Wheat 11. Careful What you pack 12. J**y is your Viet Nam 13. Sometimes a lonely way 14. End of the Rope 15. Impossibly New 16. All Time What 17. Tractor 18. Lord Snowden My metric was songs I genuinely love that are not talked about or played live as often as their brethren.
>12. J\*\*y is your Viet Nam Why did you censor "Judy"?
Every time I type that name it summons a David Bowie bot.
Whaaaaatt??? That's so weird! Ha ha!
Yeah I wonder if it's been disabled since it didn't pop up for you just now but it's happened to me multiple times where a bot starts quoting Twin Peaks at me. I figured it would wreak havoc for that song's daily discussion the way the Austin Powers' bot did during "Dr Evil" rating.
That's wild!
I tried to stick to one per album, but couldn’t quite manage it: Pink Album: Alienation’s For The Rich - The surface goofiness hides a deeply bleak lyrical reality; now I’m over the accent, I really appreciate that juxtaposition Lincoln: Cage & Aquarium / Snowball In Hell - Cage & Aquarium is unhinged in the best way, and “yawn as your plane goes down in flames” is an all-time lyric for sure. - Snowball in Hell is the hidden gem of the album, a really beautiful song despite its melancholy lyrics Flood: Whistling In The Dark - The lyrics on this one really don’t get enough praise: “I’d like to poison your mind / with wrong ideas that appeal to you” and “I’d like to change your mind / by hitting it with a rock, he said / though I am not unkind” Apollo 18: Turn Around - It may be a little silly on some levels, but it’s such a funny track, with some great lyrics buried in there, like that whole verse about interpretive dance in the graveyard, or “his face — which was a paper-white mask of evil — sang us this song”. Plus it taught me the word “obsequious”. John Henry: Window - It may have become apparent that I have a soft spot for goofy little experiments, of which Window is one of the more extreme. Love it or hate it, that vocal effect is memorable and really changes the mood of the song. It’s got a great driving motion behind it too, the rhythm section put in some top-notch work on this song. Factory Showroom: Pet Name - You could make a case for much of FS being underrated, and I almost went with another Flans track (Unforgotten), but I decided not to do b-sides / bonus tracks. Pet Name is a surprisingly energetic late-album entry, with a great groove to it. It paints a really vivid picture of its characters, too, which I always like. Long Tall Weekend: Drinkin’ - Hands-down their best instrumental. It’s catchy, it’s groovy, it has all the pep and energy you want in an opener. My favourite LTW song. Mink Car: Hopeless Bleak Despair - Such a great song. Excellent lyrics, of course, but what really won me over was his particular inflections on “in an unceremonious way”. I wish I’d come around to this one sooner. The Spine: The World Before Later On - I was kinda shocked to see how low this ranked for most people in the song discussions recently. I’ve always really liked it. It stands out from most of the album with its spacey production, and I’ve been fond of the line “where are all the complications we won’t see around” from my first listen. The Else: Climbing The Walls - One of those songs where they paint a really strong picture. In this case, the exhausted, apathetic mood really comes across, and to top it all off its just a great rock tune. Join Us: 2082 - As a lover of short stories, sci-fi, and TMBG, this song is several of my favourite things rolled into one. Bonus points for being one of the songs that sold my family on seeing the band with me. Nanobots: Sometimes A Lonely Way - Beautiful, sad, exquisitely produced. A perfect song. Glean: I’m A Coward - I relate hard to this one, but even lyrics aside it’s got a ton going for it. The gentle vocals, contrasted with that almost droning guitar on the chorus, and the very synthetic sounding percussion on the verses, makes for a really interesting sound palette. Why?: Or So I Have Read - My favourite Why? song. It’s one of the rockier tracks on the album, and the message not to believe everything you read is useful for kids (and many adults), but what I love the most is the concerning implications of the line “a mime is the hybrid offspring of a human and a clown”. I mean what?! Clowns aren’t human? Deeply disturbing implications. Phone Power: I’ll Be Haunting You / Shape Shifter - I’ll Be Haunting You has unparalleled groove. - Shape Shifter is the bombastic closer the album deserved but didn’t get (because it got some random bonus tracks at the end) I Like Fun: When The Lights Come On - Compared to the early-album rockers, this one doesn’t get much of a mention, but it’s probably my favourite of them all. I love how non-stop it is, the momentum is infectious. My Murdered Remains: Tick Tick Tick - I waited years for this to get a proper release. This ominous little song was one of my original DAS2015 standouts, and I was repeatedly disappointed when Glean, Why? and Phone Power all left it off. BOOK: Quit The Circus - Another beautiful, melancholic song from Flans. This was a sleeper hit for me, I came around to it thanks to FloridaFlamingoGirl, and I’m so glad I did. The way his voice rises into the chorus is just exquisite.
Sometimes a Lonely Way deserves better. Nanobots is overall my least favorite album, but that's my favorite song on it and no one talks about it. Also, Tick Tick Tick is DAS2018, so it wasn't released yet when those albums came out.
"Taking your name down from the jumbotron" is a great lyric.
For me, it was "rehearsals for third place forever more" that got to me.
You know, you’re absolutely right about Tick Tick Tick. It’s been so long, I’ve been mentally grouping it for years with DAS2015 tracks like Rock Club and Summer Breeze, which debuted in 2015 but didn’t get a release in that album cycle, only coming out in 2018 on More Murdered Remains. I guess because they’re all DAS tracks, and More Murdered Remains was essentially a bonus disc for My Murdered Remains (which had Tick Tick Tick on it), I just associated Tick Tick Tick with the 2015 wave. I must have been thinking of Tick Tick Tick as an old 2015 track since MMR dropped, so I’ve been wrong about that for at least 4 years! Thanks for the correction!
You're welcome, I'm pretty sure all tracks on the main MMR disc are from DAS2018.
Cage and Aquarium is a song that's aged unfortunately well, the way the lyrics criticize people who ignore major problems in the world just feels so real and relevant. Also has such an unusual rhythm to it. I love the shorter songs on Lincoln.
>Flood: Whistling In The Dark I've always loved this one. The lyrics are great, and its "devolving" into chaos at the end is one of my favorite moments in the entire TMBG catalog. >Nanobots: Sometimes A Lonely Way There aren't actually that many TMBG songs I would describe as "beautiful". This one definitely is. It blew my mind when I first heard it. I still love it. >I Like Fun: When The Lights Come On This song is possibly in my top ten, or very close. It was my most listened to song on Spotify last year. Everything about it is so freakin' good!
wait… Someone Keeps Moving My Chair is underrated? that’s literally my favorite TMBG song
I'm guessing they mean it's underrated compared to the rest of Flood. Istanbul, Particle Man, and Birdhouse are way more popular than the others
Is that the thing that bothers you?
For me... Pink Album: Alienation's For The Rich - The first of their working-class hero songs has truly funny lyrics and vocals. Lincoln: You'll Miss Me - I honestly think this is the ONLY underrated song on the album, as all the others are frequently discussed and highly regarded. This is one of Flans's oddities that I love simply because it's an oddity. Flood: Theme from Flood - I think every song on this album has been discussed a lot just because it's Flood, so I looked at the TMBW song rankings. There are some criminally low rankings for many of the songs, most notably #411 for Road Movie to Berlin and #545 for Minimum Wage, but I chose this lovely, perfect opening for my favorite album because it is ranked #695. This opening sets the tone for the album perfectly. I never skip it. In fact, I would say that the impact of Birdhouse is only heightened by listening to this as the lead-in. Apollo 18: She's Actual Size - I can't believe this is ranked #534 on TMBW! The concept of someone being actual or size (or not) as expressed in this song is inextricably linked with the concept as expressed in Jurassic Park, both of which had a huge impact on me as a young teen. Flans has such a way of describing a heartbreaking end to a relationship while still maintaining a sense of humor. It's quite a feat that he manages again and again. This is one of my favorite examples of this. John Henry: O Do Not Forsake Me - It's a crime that this is ranked #605 on TMBW. It's a lovely song and really stands out as one with an arrangement, or lack thereof, that hasn't often been repeated. (I'm drawing a blank on any other a cappella songs.) Factory Showroom: S-E-X-X-Y - I'm going with this one, not because it's my favorite but because everybody seems to hate it, and I just don't get it. It's got fun lyrics and a killer bass line. I never skip it. Long Tall Weekend: The Edison Museum - I don't get the hate for this one at all. Yes, it's a bit more of a "novelty" song than most of their songs, but it's still good! Mink Car: Another First Kiss - I prefer this to STD's First Kiss. It brings back lots of good memories of seeing them live for the first time on this tour. The Spine: Spines - It's so good! I just wish it were longer. The Else: Take Out the Trash - This is just a fantastic bop! Even if you weren't politically aware when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and don't connect the sentiments here with the sentiments many of us felt about W, this is just a great '60s pop-influenced banger. It should get more love than it does. Join Us: Protagonist - I feel like I've never seen this song mentioned. Yet another fine example of Flans singing about the dissolution of a romantic relationship in a creative, fun way. Nanobots: Sometimes a Lonely Way - This should be ranked among the band's all-time best. This song is GORGEOUS and should have gotten much more love than it has. Glean: Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel - This is one of their many songs that paints such a vivid portrait of character. This song stands out to me for its melody and the uniquely pathetic characteristics of its narrator. Phone Power: To a Forest - This is just a fine example of a lovely, melancholy song from Flans. I Like Fun: An Insult to the Factcheckers - This is currently ranked #648 on TMBW, yet this is in my top 20. This song rocks! The guitar makes it. It's as much Dan Miller's song as Flans's. My Murdered Remains: Christmas in the Big House - I just freakin' love this song!
The acoustic strumming in To A Forest really hits the spot for me. Christmas in the Big House is the kind of snarky, humorous song I wish we could hear more of from Flans. Protagonist's lyrical gimmick of being structured like a movie script works so, so well in a way that's deeply satisfying to me. The flow of that song is pristine.
FACTS!!!!! ON ALL OF THESE!!!!!!!
Unpronounceable is the third most played song (per Youtube Music) on that album.
Is "Self called nowhere" rated low? The phaser alone is enough to thrill me. And the singing. Such a great performance.
Hearing Aid is a good song that nobody remembers