THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - Join Us

They Might Be Giants are a purely American phenomenon, and there's little reason why they shouldn't keep being one. In other words: over here, there's not much we can do with their music. Not that it's distasteful. Quite the opposite. It's just that their stylized alt-pop seems tailor-made to soundtrack one of those TV shows that pad out Mtv's evening schedule, full of college parties, fake Barbie-style caricatures of teenage girls, and all the rest.

But we're talking about people who put out their first album twenty-five years ago, and no one would dream of saying that John & John (Linnell and Flansburgh) don't know how to do what they do well. It's simply that the meaning of their music struggles to fit our idea of what good American indie should sound like.

In recent years the duo's output has focused mainly on the "music for kids" strand, and that already seems to say something. Music for children, yes: albums made up of educational songs and nursery rhymes, a less dumbed-down way than many others of trying to teach your kids something before they start feeling the irrepressible urge to fall in love with Hannah Montana's heir apparent – or to resemble her, if they happen to be girls. And of course writing music for children isn't that easy, and it seems that, all things considered, They Might Be Giants have pulled it off pretty well.

As for us, who haven't been children for quite some time now, we should try to work out how much is good and how much isn't so good on their new "grown-up" record, titled "Join Us", released a couple of months ago, four years on from its predecessor "The Else". And so we're back to what we said at the start: stuff for young americans.

First of all, though, it's worth repeating that we're not dealing with a pair of unknown amateurs. These two guys may be a bit nerdy, but every one of their records ends up on the charts one way or another, and "Join Us" was no exception: number 32 on the Billboard chart, number 8 if we look at the rock and alternative categories. They Might Be Giants have their fans, in short, and critics on the other side of the Atlantic are often kind to them.

But let's get to "Join Us". Eighteen songs, eighteen small, round, colorful candies. Electric guitars that bawl but with restraint, melodies that spin on themselves, folksy touches and innocent choruses. A bit in the territory of Weezer, so to speak, the blander side of Weezer. There are actually a few tracks that stand apart from the pack, it's true. Like "The Lady And The Tiger", tucked away near the end, a sort of hip-hop dirge vaguely reminiscent of Beck: we give it the prize for most interesting track. And the songs that follow, before the brashly lo-fi pop finale of "You Don't Like Me", change course too, though with questionable results. In any case, if we had to pick one song able to represent, better than any other, the sound and spirit of They Might Be Giants updated to 2011, we could only go with "Can't Keep Johnny Down". Track 1 on the album, lead single. All a little too easy.

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06/09/2011