Customer Reviews

Apollo 18

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This album stands out as one of TMBG's finest. The music is just brilliantly written, with their trademark lyrics that venture somewhere between profound and confounding. Straight from the get-go, you jump right into the fast and thunking "Dig My Grave" and from there into the incredibly fun "I Palindrome I". The masterpieces that really stand out here, however, are "Statue Got Me High", "Fingertips"- the absurdist collection of seconds-long songs, and "Guitar"- a witty parody of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" that is very popular live.

Every song in this album is a keeper- I find it very hard to skip from track to track. The sounds never jump around inappropriately- you glide from song to song without question of its location. Somehow you start in the thrashy sounds of "Dig My Grave" and end up in the glorious instrumental masterpiece that is "Spacesuit" (my personal favorite). This is an album that all people must have- some of the best music ever written is on this album. The rest of the best music ever written is on TMBG's masterpiece "Flood".

1. Dig My Grave- 4/5

2. I Palindrome- 5/5

3. She's Actual Size- 4/5

4. My Evil Twin- 4/5

5. Mammal- 5/5

6. Statue Got Me High- 5/5

7. Spider- 4/5

8. Guitar- 5/5

9. Dinner Bell- 4/5

10. Narrow Your Eyes- 5/5

11. Hall of Heads- 4/5

12. Which Describes How You're Feeling- 4/5

13. See the Constellation- 5/5

14. If I Wasn't Shy- 4/5

15. Turn Around- 5/5

16. Hypnotist of Ladies- 4/5

17. Fingertips- 5/5

38. Space Suit- 5/5 (#1 song on the album)

1992's Apollo 18 is quite possibly They Might Be Giants' strangest set of bite-size pop tunes. Let me say this about "Fingertips": I thought it was madly inspired as one unbroken four-and-a-half-minute track on the Dial-A-Song anthology (2002), but it's even cooler as 21 separate tracks. Just play this disc in "shuffle" or "random" play mode and see what I mean; you can also play the song straight through (tracks 17-37) and skip over any parts you don't like. And the most accessible track here is "The Guitar," a funky jam which features sweet-voiced Laura Cantrell crooning nonsense lyrics set to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and John Flansburgh chirping an entirely different set of nonsense lyrics. Speaking of Flansy, he pretty much rules on this disc (as he did on TMBG's idiosyncratic self-titled debut). In addition to "The Guitar," he turns in some of his finest performances on the power-poppish "My Evil Twin," the '60s-style pop confection "Narrow Your Eyes" (a bitter breakup song leavened with lovely Beatle-esque harmonies), and the urgent, psychedelic rocker "See the Constellation," a rather moving breakup song wherein an abandoned and spiritually depleted fellow identifies with a figure he sees in the stars: "No cigar, no lady on his arm, just a guy made of dots and lines." (On that last one, dig the opening line, a deliberate echo of Warren Zevon's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me": "I lay my head on the railroad track"!) To a lesser extent, I also enjoy the snarling "He's a Hypnotist of Ladies" ("You won't remember why you liked him!") and the campy "She's Actual Size." (However, I'm a little disappointed in "If I Wasn't Shy"; I can buy it when he finally sings "I'd ask you, if you don't mind, to kiss you a hundred times," but when he asserts that he would "burn all the uniforms" and "steal somebody's Cadillac," it sounds forced.)

Bandmate John Linnell turns in a couple of very strong performances, as well: "I Palindrome I" is a disturbing song about a grown man at odds with his mother, leavened with cheeky wordplay and a cheery melody; and the rousing "The Statue Got Me High" is about a man so affected by a work of art that he explodes (he may mean it to be a metaphor, but the lyrics do get a little graphic...). He also contributes a pair of cute, "educational" songs, "Dinner Bell" -- about Pavlov's experiments with dogs -- and "Mammal" ("So the warm blood flows with the red blood cells, lacking nuclei, through the large four-chambered heart, maintaining the very high metabolism rate they have...").

The bulk of these tracks are pretty slight -- the aforementioned "She's Actual Size," "If I Wasn't Shy," and "Dinner Bell;" Flansburgh's punkish "Dig My Grave," Linnell's too-brief "Which Describes How You're Feeling All the Time," the silly, supernatural cuts "Hall of Heads" and "Turn Around" -- but only the instrumental "Space Suit" (a wee afterthought following the tour-de-force that is "Fingertips") and the spoken bit "Spider" (unlistenable even at 50 seconds) are utterly skippable. Nice work, otherwise!

from the two shy guys of They Might Be Giants. Uncompromising, yet attempts to function as a normal pop album. It fails, much to everyones delight. Released when the "Shuffle" button on your CD player was a novelty, they invite you to shuffle it so that the 20 or so little odd five to twenty second snippets comprising "Fingertips" pop up around the regular three minute ditties. In this case, youll be listening to say, "Narrow Your Eyes", a relatively straightforward song, and then suddenly,"...whats that blue thing, doing here?" issues from the speakers only to continue on innocently with the next song as if the part about the blue thing was a hallucination. So, it's fun in that sense. Doesn't quite have that classic feel of "Lincoln" or "Flood", but still a very good, of course clever installment in the TMBG catalog. However, it should be noted that this was the last TMBG cd I ever bought. Im still not sure why.

All hail Apollo 18! The first time I sat and listened to this album, every other word that came out of my mouth was "What the heck was that supposed to be? " I, unfortunately, was listening for appealing beats, nice instuments, etc...not the thing to do when listening to these guys. After getting a bit more into it, though, I saw that this CD was a gift from the heavens (or Brooklyn, at least). The lyrics are witty and intelligent, the music, once gotten used to, is catchy, and the subjects sung about are so strange and utterly obscure that no one can help but love Apollo 18. Fingertips, though seeming to be a jumble of babbling having nothing to do with anything, actually tells an interesting little story that, of course, you can make up (and I have yet to make use of the shuffle-and-listen). Perhaps the best way to describe this album is to allude to one of it's songs-"The Statue Got Me High." This statue will get you very high, and once it gets you into full swing, human company shall pale before this monolith...most likely because you won't want to leave your stereo system.

Who could not like this album? Every song on Apollo 18 is a work of art, from the catchy and upbeat "The Statue Got me High" to the eclectic mix that is "Fingertips" to the more pop-like "See the Constellation". A few of my favorites from Apollo 18 are "Dinner Bell", "I Palindrome I", and "The Statue Got me High", but every song on this album is a work to be admired and enjoyed. If you are going to buy one TMBG album, buy this one.

Apollo 18 is the best They Might Be Giants album to date. Why? For one, all of the songs are consistent and are fun to listen to. And I must mention FINGERTIPS next. There is no other song like it in the world. It is a collection of several musical styles with a higher than normal amount of TMBG lunacy. You must hear it to appreciate it. Then there is THE STATUE GOT ME HIGH. Where else can you hear the lyric "Your turn to view the stone and then your turn to burn." Classic TMBG stuff there. While the lyrics of TURN AROUND are grim, it is a song the whole family can sing along and enjoy. It is just so much fun! There is so much to say about this album and I can't mention it all. This is a must have for fans and music collectors alike.

This album is a musical learning experience. This was my first exposure to TMBG and the songs on this album are truly genius. Only artists coming off the other side of the brain can produce such masterpieces...of course, we all have to be willing to switch over to the other side of our brains for a little while to appreciate it...but that's fine by me. TMBG has a unique knack for creating equally catchy lyrics and music...you'll find quirky little phrases floating around your head all day...such as "he's even got a twin like me!" from "My Evil Twin." "She's Actual Size", "I Palindrome I", "Fingertips" and "Mammal" are the highlights...I feel the big spotlight however should be aimed directly at the brilliance of "Dinner Bell." Based on the experiments of Russian scientist Pavlov...this piece is musically mindboggling and lyrically perfect. "Apollo 18" is art...and don't let anyone convince you otherwise!

They Might Be Giants have done a lot of great work, but this is still the CD I return to again and again. It is filled with wry lyrics set to catchy music, and the "high concept" (requiring use of your CD player's shuffle-play or random-play feature) easily provokes a big grin. At the end of the disc are some 20 assorted short tracks - almost splinters, really - designed to be mixed into the longer songs. Although I rarely actually *do* this, the idea is amusing in any case.

My favorite might be "My Evil Twin," containing a shopping list of the subversive twin's characteristics, climaxing with the unforgettable conclusion that "...he's even got a twin like me." Also memorable is "Turn Around," a jazzy stomp with its stirring chorus: "Turn around, turn around - there's a human skull on the ground." Two high-energy cuts, "The Statue Got Me High" and "See the Constellation," will have you dancing around the living room with their irresistibly revved-up guitars, and I could go on and on. Almost every track is a winner, and everyone will have individual favorites.

Some have complained that the dynamic duo of TMBG are too sly for their own good. Well, until we have a surfeit of such cleverness running around, let's just enjoy these sharp guys and their feverish imagination.

Apollo 18, overall, is better than Flood. However the songs on Flood are better than the songs on Apollo 18. Anywho, they are both fabulous albums and should definitley be checked out by those who like humor and music incorporated together. They are reminisant (Ouch, check out that spelling!) of Weird Al, and dare I say... Frank Zappa. Some of their songs are crap, yes, but more than often their songs are realy freaken good. Check them out.

This TMBG album has some wide and glaring weak spots. It is certainly not the peak of their career, but there are still moments of genius, as in "I Palindrome I", "The Statue Got Me High", and even "Mammal."

Skip this one if it's your first purchase, though, and get "Flood" instead. It can be rather hard to digest in places.