Pros: Fun to listen to. "Till My Head Falls Off" needed to be recorded.
Cons: Their shortest album. Needs at least six more songs, and a couple cuts.
The Bottom Line: Don't let the bad rap this album has acquired fool you - it's like a fantastic EP with some 'bonus' rarities mixed in, pretending to be a real TMBG album.
dopple's Full Review: Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants
In 1996, They Might Be Giants released Factory Showroom, and the response was pretty lousy - critics bashed it, the record company did little to promote it and it wasn't much success commercially, and even TMBG's loyal fanbase kind of scoffed at it.
Why did critics hate it? Well, for some reason critics have bashed everything They Might Be Giants have done since they're much-praised independent records. Ever since they hit it big with FLOOD, the music press has pretty much been down on this group.
Elektra Records seemed to enjoy the band's company, but had them pegged as a cult act. Though "Birdhouse In Your Soul" was a pretty decent hit single in 1990, each successive record has gotten less and less promotion from the label. FACTORY SHOWROOM was the end of the line...it was like it was never released, even though it had several songs that could have been catchy singles and made interesting MTV videos. So commercially, it kind of bombed.
But the fans - fans have always been there to hold this group's work up and appreciate the expansion of their sound and scope. Until now. FACTORY SHOWROOM was John & John's second effort with a full-band, which many found alienating (prefering them as a lone duo). But more than that, this album only had 13 short songs on it! This, from a band that would usually pack on two albums worth of material on to a single record.
But most importantly, there was the fact that Factory Showroom was indeed the group's least cohesive effort to date. But is it deserving of all this anti-hype? Heres a rundown:
THE GOOD: Some of the band's finest songs are on this album. "Till My Head Falls Off", an extremely energetic and catchy Linnel number that recounts a man's strange and paranoid ramblings after downing a bottle of advil, belongs on any 'best of' compilation they ever put out (it did indeed make it on their live album, in a virtually identicle rendition). "Metal Detector", a JOHN HENRY-esque tune, retains the dark sound of their previous record on the chorus but some very light, peaceful verses. It's extremely tuneful. "Spiraling Shape" is so catchy that it comes off as very familiar and therefore, like it's been done before. Maybe it has. It's still a killer Giants song. "The Bells Are Ringing" is the last song on the album but sounds like it should have been the first. It's great, and will lead off any TMBG mix tape I make in the future. It really leaves you wanting more, as if the small number of songs wouldn't have done that already.
THE JUST 'OKAY': John Flansburgh, the other half of the duo that lies at the core of TMBG, doesn't put up his best batch of songs here. For the most part, his cuts are quite pleasant but lack the inventiveness or crunch of his usual stuff. For instance, "New York City" is a cute love song, but it's unusually straightforward and unremarkable, and may leave lots of people waiting for the punchline. Others, like "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?", at least boast clever lyrics to accompany the conventional tunes.
THE QUESTIONABLE: They puzzlingly lead off the album with "S-E-X-X-Y", a song that seems to amuse the band far more than it does any of their fans (hence it's appearence on the live and best of albums). It's not awful, but it boasts an incredibly standard old funk instrumentation and somewhat cheesy lyrics (though most likely intentional, it doesn't make them good). There are also some strange inclusions - considering 'Showroom' is so short for a They Might Be Giants LP (which usually pack in at 18 or more songs, here only 13), and the band had many other new tunes kicking around in their live act around this time, it's odd they chose to go with tracks like "James K. Polk", a previously released B-side, and "I Can Hear You", an okay song rendered little more than novelty due to being recorded on an old Edison wax cylinder and sounding like a bad connection to their famed 'Dial-a-Song' service. These would probably have been best left to the next rarities compilation.
So for FACTORY SHOWROOM to be considered the group's weakest album, I can understand. It's their first album to lack a unified feel from beginning to end, and it's much too short. I must say though, a lot of the harsh criticism it has gotten is unwarrented. There is plenty of good stuff here, and nothing truely awful. For most bands this would be a near-masterpiece, and even for the Johns it's a great collection of a music.
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