If a ‘quirky approach’ was the only prerequisite for musical greatness then folks like The Barron Knights, Weird Al“ Yankovic and Timmy Mallett would have been monopolising the shortlists for Mercury, Brit, Grammy and Billboard awards for years. But the sad truth of the matter is, it isn’t. Only in politics can the spurious and the absurd provide any clear substitute for cultural worth; a statement more than ably supported by the electoral jape that was the formal inauguartion of Tony and George – the artists more commonly known as They Might Be Miscreants. But a ‘quirky approach’ is what you’d naturally expect of Spine and to a certain extent you’re unlikely to be disappointed.
With a full two decades of hilarious irony to fall back on new Giant’s album Spine sees the Brooklyn duo evolve and flourish into a full and meaty sounding ‘band’ – for which there is no finer example than the belly thumping, power-pop opener ‘Experimental Film’. It’s still crazy. It’s still amusing. And it’s still as sharp as a freshly opened tin of corned-beef. Even the fairly obvious Andy Partridge vocal steals on title curio ‘Spine’ fail to detract from the unusually high level of sparkling pop wit. ‘Memo To Human Resources’ might sound like the usual ham-fisted approach to eccentricity the boys deploy, but by TMBG standards, it’s a fairly straight performance, buoyed up all the more by some classic sixties harmonies and beatific guitars. ‘Wearing A Raincoat’ is a similar proposition; sweetly psychedelic and bearing all the scars of a fab and leisurely trawl through the archives. Things even get a little punky with ‘Thunderbird’ and the affectionate Elvis Costello referencing that let rips with ‘It’s Kickin In’ – which rather than being the middle-age crisis you’d suspect of the duo, actually provides a tingling, vibrant and tasteful punk-pop brew. But if it’s the skewed, incorrigible genre-hopping antics you’re looking for, look no further than ‘Bastard Wants To Hit Me’ (complete with Air-come-Cher electro vocoder vocal), the brass led ‘Museum Of Idiots’ and the music-hall silliness of the accordion squashing ‘Broke In Two’.
At the end of the day though this is a They Might Be Giants record and only two things are really certain. The first is that at the end of the 45 minutes you’re entertained but largely unmoved. And the second is how you might conduct yourself physically in response to the record; there would be a knowing smile curling from the corner of your lips and your head would start nodding sagely in a display of ironic support for all those clever satirical references to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bach, Ghandi and Jodie Foster and the applause that simply must accompany the mental gymnastics that brings such wildly eclectic personalities together. And weather permitting, you might even laugh.
Anyway, it’s a long time since the bolt out of the blue success of ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ and the multi-platinum Flood album, and the boys done good. They’ve won a Grammy for the television show theme song (Malcolm in the Middle’s “Boss of Me“), and they produced a kids’ album (No!) and a kid’s book/CD combo. And that’s not bad.