Customer Reviews

Factory Showroom

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

They Might Be Giants has some great albums, but this one is definitely top of the line. It's one of those magical albums where, after only one or two listenings, you'll already feel like you've heard each song a thousand times before. It's got a lot of the usual TMBG slow-to-medium paced lightweight sillyness (How Can I Sing Like a Girl, Exquisite Dead Guy, Spiraling Shape) but also some faster and heavier tracks that could almost pass for regular rock, if it weren't for the trademark TMBG bizarre lyrics (Till My Head Falls Off, XTC vs. Adam Ant). The electronics on this album are particularly nice (see especially How Can I Sing Like a Girl) and some of the songs are hilariously off-the-wall (such as the musical history lesson / biography James K. Polk and the life-and-death battle of the bands between XTC and Adam Ant). There really aren't any weak spots on the album; I'd highly recommend it as an intro to TMBG or as an addition to your collection.

1996's Factory Showroom, They Might Be Giants' sixth album (their fourth for a major label, their second with a full band), contains just 14 songs, allowing for only a bare minimum of filler. Okay, so "Exquisite Dead Guy" is nowhere near as funny as its title; the disco pastiche "S-E-X-X-Y" (an ode to a transvestite?) sounds like a self-conscious joke; and "Metal Detector" is very cute, but slight and forgettable compared with the remaining tracks...

In the raucous yet poignant "Till My Head Falls Off" -- possibly the most "punk" song TMBG have ever done -- John Linnell sings from the perspective of a man who is beset by senility ("Don't interrupt me as I struggle to complete this thought / Have some respect for someone more forgetful than yourself") but won't go down without a fight ("And I'm not done ... Though it may not be a long way off, I won't be done until my head falls off"). In the gentle yet darkly funny "Your Own Worst Enemy," he plays a shut-in who weeps and numbs himself with alcohol, while what may be just a figment of his imagination lurks right outside his home. (And how's this for a chorus: "The song they play is that guy with the messed-up face going, precious and few are the moments that you and your own worst enemy share"?) The lovely, mid-tempo "Spiralling Shape" may well be an anti-drug song, given lines like "Go ahead, wreck your life ... clawing at nothing you drop through the void / Your terrified screams are inaudible ... The spiralling shape will make you go insane." He also contributes a rollicking ode to the accomplishments of president James K. Polk (complete with a "singing saw" solo), and the lush closing track "The Bells Are Ringing" (complete with amazing vocal-layering, and chilling lyrics about mind-control).

As for John Flansburgh, he's featured on the disc's most madly inspired moment, "I Can Hear You;" recorded with no electricity on an 1898 Edison wax cylinder recording studio phonograph, the song effectively re-creates the muffled sounds of the airplane phones, door buzzers, and fast-food drive-through intercoms about which he croons. The exuberant "New York City" -- a track written by three women (!) and featuring one of Flansy's sweetest performances -- evokes the joy and the rush of young love. In sharp contrast, the mellow "Pet Name" has him awkwardly fumbling his way toward a relationship ("You say I'm OK for a guy, but I can tell that you are lying / And we've almost figured out how we'll get along / And given time, we'll find it strange to be alone"). "XTC vs. Adam Ant" is not so much about a celebrity deathmatch between the British New Wave acts ("Beatle-based pop versus new-romantic"), as it is about the eternal struggle of "content versus form;" ever the diplomat, he concludes, "There is no right or wrong." (Speaking for myself, I'm more of an XTC gal...) And in the gorgeous (though overlong and repetitive) ballad "How Can I Sing Like a Girl" ("...and not be stigmatized by the rest of the world?"), Flansburgh bemoans the repression of one's talent in the name of seeking society's approval.

Overall, Factory Showroom is, thus far, TMBG's most grossly underrated and consistently strong effort. (P.S.: To find the hidden ditty, "Token Back to Brooklyn," cue up track 1, press play, and hold the backwards-skip button [<<] down for about a minute.)
"A token back to Brooklyn fell between the grating and we're just watching it sinking;
"The fare went up to one hundred dollars and we can never go home again.
"The bill collector's drinking lighter fluid and says he'll tell our parents;
"Our feet start running at a furious pace, but we can't get away."

I don't know that you can really call this album weird, I mean, all of their albums are weird. You kind of wonder if these guys are some mad geniuses that are actually communicating brilliant riddles with:

"Put out your hands and you fall through the window
And clawing at nothing you drop through the void
Your terrified screams are inaudible
Drowned in the spiral ahead and consumed in the shape."

Kind of a cartoon Nietszche feel to it. I think if Charles Manson wasn't a homicidal maniac, he would really dig TMBG. All kidding aside, this album features some of the greatest TMBG songs ever, with cuts like "Till My Head Falls Off," "Spiraling Shape," James K. Polk," and "New York City." If you don't like this album, then you are not a fan of the band and that is OK, I guess. But as an owner of all of their CDs and a person that has seen their incredible live shows on numerous occasions, I just don't see how anybody cannot love them.

I congratulate you TMBG, I want to first say this is my second favorite album behind John Henry (so far, the only album i dont have is Flood. Weird). But this is the one album that is practically flawless, it has all different kinds of songs, hard rock songs (XTC vs Adam Ant, Till' My Head Falls Off) with some catchy diddys (Exquisite Dead Guy, Your Own Worst Enemy) and some of the coolest sounding songs you have ever heard by TMBG (Spiraling Shape, Metal Detector, New York City) and S-E-X-X-Y has a very disco feel to it, while James K. Polk is a very educational song about our beloved 11th president. Pet Name is one of my favorite songs on this album with some of the best vocals by Flansy and with Linnell on keyboards. I Can Hear You is a awsome song recorded on a wax phonograph in the Edison Museum. And with the ending song The Bells Are Ringing is just an amazing ending song that reminds me of The End of The Tour which is just fine because "Tour" is my favorite ending song by TMBG. This is known as their worst album by the critics by is one of my favorites in my book with each and every song having a wonderful sound and tune and overall balance. So stop reading reviews and buy this album!

They Might Be Giants have made a career of making unique albums, but Factory Showroom really stands out. This is what TMBG would sound like if they had a guitar hero in their ranks. At times, the album sounds like a battle between the rest of the band and Eric Schermerhorn's dazzling playing, and the results don't always jive: "XTC vs. Adam Ant," in particular, sounds disjointed, despite the solo at the beginning that could rank as the best guitar playing ever put down on a TMBG disk.

The music sounds like a further evolution of the approach the Giants introduced on John Henry, pushing further toward deep bass lines and heavy drumming. The Johns more or less dumped this approach within a year for a horn sound (that also went by the wayside by the time Mink Car, their next album, was recorded), so what you hear here you won't hear anywhere else.

The songs are hit or miss -- more so than any other TMBG album -- but the hits rank with their finest work. "Til My Head Falls Off" is one of the band's greatest efforts, a bouncing surge of pop rock telling a tale of an old man's defiance with John Linnell's typical mix of humor and pathos. "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" takes John Flansburgh's choir boy vocal and mixes it with a foreboding bass line that adds weight to the surprisingly straight-talking lyrics. And "Pet Name" is a gem, a remarkable blend of blue-eyed soul and the Johns' usual dead-on description of the anxieties in a relationship.

The rest of the album is merely OK: a few songs like "Spiraling Shape" and "The Bells Are Ringing" reward repeated listens, but the songs generally don't carry the spark that distinguishes good or great albums by the Johns. Consider this the final evolution of the John Henry sound, and a unique picture of a great band in the mid-90s.

Factory Showroom was one of the later TMBG Cd's I listened to. I didn't think that it would sound as good as their older Cd's. I was completly off track. This is probably one of my favorite Cd's by TMBG. It includes so many great songs. What's really good about it is that they have a full band backing up the John's. I think that a lot of the songs off this Cd could be considered classic TMBG songs. My favorites are "The Bells are Ringing," "Till my head falls off," and
"Your own worst enemy."

If you are a TMBG fan, Factory Showroom is absolutely worth adding to your collection. Several of my favorite TMBG songs are on this album. Some songs may seem like standard pop fare, but the Johns usually have a twist with their lyrics. For example, much like "Twisting" on their album Flood, the track "Till My Head Falls Off" juxtaposes an upbeat rock/pop sound with serious subject matter, in this case lyrics about commiting suicide by Advil overdose.

Some fans dislike this album for its more mainstream sound, but it's exactly that sound that makes this a good first CD for the TMBG curious. But don't be mislead, mainstream for John and John is still quirky by most standards, and it contains enough classic TMBG-ness to keep a fan happy. Factory Showroom is an enjoyable album, one of their best. I look forward to seeing where They Might Be Giants goes next with Mink Car.

About me:
I'm a long time fan of They Might Be Giants, starting with Flood. I have all TMBG's CDs except for Then. Recently I purchased Linnell's solo album State Songs and both CDs from Flansburgh's Mono Puff. My favorite album is a tie between Lincoln, Flood, and Factory Showroom. My least favorite album is John Henry.

As their solo projects demonstrate, John Linnel and John Flansburgh have radically different approaches to music. Flansburgh likes traditional rock grooves and more grounded lyrics, Linnel likes to be strange and off the beaten path lyrically and musically. On this album, TMBG's mesh of these two styles is split almost exactly down the middle.

On the one side, there's Flans with rock grooves "Pet Name," "XTC V. Adam Ant," the disco "S-E-X-X-Y," and the cover tune "New York City." On the other, there's Linnel with the Cello-based "Exquisite Dead Guy," the drum-machine powered "Your Own Worst Enemy," the bouncy ode to beachcombing "Metal Detector," and the ranting "'Til my head falls off." All of these are good songs and worth listening to, but I miss having the two sounds more fully integrated.

Although the songs are longer, this is also about 5 cuts short of a full TMBG album. There are 13 tracks, and two are available elsewhere, so it's a total of 11 new songs. For most bands that's respectable, but TMBG traditionally have 16 or 18 tracks an album.

That said, some of my favorite songs come off this album. There are only one or two that I wouldn't listen to repeatedly; it's fun, exciting, solid stuff.

But for the long-time fan, it feels a little like the beginning of the end (especially since it was their last real studio album for four years).

Man, this has got to be the best They Might Be Giants album, maybe second to only Severe Tire Damage. Even as great as their early work was, I feel that the duo does better work with the full band. It just gives them a better sound. Songs on the album which I thought were superb the first time I heard it included "S-E-X-X-Y", "Till My Head Falls Off", and surprisingly "James K. Polk." Others such as "Metal Detector", "XTC vs. Adam Ant" and "Your Own Worst Enemy" soon grew on me. This is one of the very few albums which I can put into my CD player, sit back, relax, and listen to all the way through. I strongly suggest this album to any fan of the Johns.

This was the second album on which They Might Be Giants were accompanied by a full band. It's a solid album, featuring typical TMBG type songs. The songs here that are the most popular among TMBG fans are probably "James K. Polk" and "New York City" (which was not written by TMBG). My personal favorites, besides those, are "S-E-X-X-Y" and "XTC vs. Adam Ant". Fans of TMBG should enjoy this album.