By: Darien Campo Staff Writer
This week, March 8th, alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants released their 19th studio album “Phone
Power”. “Phone Power” is the third collection of songs from the 2015 revival of TMBG’s Dial-a-Song
project, in which they recorded and released a brand new song (with an accompanying video) every
week this year. The previous two collections of 2015 Dial-a-Songs, released earlier this year, were
“Why?” and “Glean”.
Anybody who follows TMBG is already familiar with most of the songs on this album, since they’ve
previously made an appearance on dialasong.com, but it’s still great to hear them all collected together
for the first time.
For a band that’s been releasing music almost constantly for the past 30 years, it’s truly amazing that
they’ve kept the same standard of quality on each album. Every song on “Phone Power” shows the same
attention to detail that Johns Flansburgh and Linnell have consistently delivered to their eager fans.
There are some really fun tracks on this album. My personal favorite is “I Am Alone”, which details a
very dramatic (and hilarious) standoff between 4 characters with too many plot twists to count. The
songs are creative and fun as always, but nothing on the album really breaks away from the TMBG
standard — which is hardly even a complaint.
The most notable detail about “Phone Power” is that it is TMBG’s first foray into the world of “pay-what-
you-want” releases. If you visit tmbg.com/phonepower you’re greeted with the option to choose your
own price for the 18 track album. They even say that you can pay nothing for the album, “because, like,
you don’t have any money right now. We understand. We totally support that idea. We don’t mind
giving things away.” They do offer special deals for folks who pay more for the album, like a physical CD
instead of a download link, and even an exclusive live stream to a show of theirs in April.
Though the songs on “Phone Power” are fun, I’m still waiting for TMBG to blow me away again like they
did with their 2013 release “Nanobots”. Regardless, “Phone Power” is a powerful addition to the
unstoppable The Might Be Giants discography, and is sure to please any fan.
