Darien Campo | Designer
Why is the world in love again? Why are we marching hand in hand? The ambassadors of love have brought us a brand new record for 2018: They Might Be Giants brand new album “I Like Fun.”
John and John’s 20th studio album further cements their place as one of rock’s most delightfully eclectic bands. While usually “experimental” music is confrontationally so, the Giants have spent over 30 years perfecting their own unique flavor of songwriting that invites listeners as much as it intrigues them.
The opening track title, “Let’s Get This Over With,” almost feels like the mission statement for the record. From the first note the Giants hook us with those catchy piano chords and bring us through a 15-track journey of non-stop pop energy with no filler tracks left. Each song sounds equally and lovingly crafted as if it were the lead single. And honestly, most any of these tracks could work as the single, the songwriting quality never seems to dip at any point as most pop records tend to do — usually around the 66 percent mark of the record.
“All Time What” proves once again that John Flansburgh secretly wants to be in a pop-punk band. “Lake Monsters” ends in one of the catchiest refrains about mass hypnosis ever written. “By the Time You Get This,” a letter to the future, is my favorite track on the album. I’ve never heard a song before that can inspire equal parts feelings of positivity and utter defeat. The record starts with high energy and carries that through for 13 songs until “The Greatest,” which is the first breather we get. The song feels like a Damon Albarn pastiche, and Flansburgh’s vocals perfectly capture that quiet power. The bizarre music video starring Nick Offerman is well worth the watch.
It wasn’t until the chorus of “Last Wave,” the final track, that I realized what a morbid record I had just listened to. I immediately spun the album a second time to discover the grim themes and lyrics that had been hidden by bright and poppy instrumentation.
“I Like Fun” follows in the path of previous Giants records like “Mink Car” and “The Else” with its relentlessly catchy songwriting masking darker lyrical tones. This is my favorite Giants record since 2013’s “Nanobots.” The only issue I had with the three albums that came out compiling their 2015 Dial-a-Song tracks is the lack of cohesion within the album. “I Like Fun” tells a cohesive, though esoteric, story that brings the record together into one full piece.
If you’ve never listened to the Giants before, they have once again cut a record that is just as good a place to start as any other. They are a persistently memorable and haunting songwriting duo, unmatched in their unique sound and always outdoing themselves. “I Like Fun” is a record full of love, fear and pop that feels “complete, completely, completelier.”
Contact the author at dcampo13@wou.edu
Photo by: theymightbegiants.com
