They Might Be Giants – I Like Fun
They Might Be Giants' 20th album delivers exactly what you'd expect from the alt rock outfit. Fans will lap it up, everyone else might be mildly irritated
For argument's sake, let’s just say there’s a world map equivalent of all of the bands that ever existed and every band was placed on the map according to their relation to other bands. They Might Be Giants would be placed exactly equidistant from The Magnetic Fields, Violent Femmes and Ween. The Magnetic Fields because TMBG are a band that like both keyboards and wordplay. Violent Femmes because they have attitude to spare. And Ween because, well, you never can really tell if they're taking the piss or not.
TMBG’s 20th album, I LIke Fun, doesn’t mess with the template too much. If you come to this record knowing only the TMBG song used as the soundtrack to Malcolm in the Middle, you’ll get a hearty helping of everything there is to like – and, yes dislike – about Lincoln, Massachusetts’ greatest export. There are Magnetic Fields type songs (Let’s Get This Over With, Mrs Bluebeard and McCafferty’s Bib). Violent Femmes type songs – of these An Insult to the Fact Checkers, When the Lights Come On and album closer Last Wave are probably the best examples. And there are Ween type songs like title track I Like Fun and The Greatest which are mildly irritating. As you’d expect. It wouldn’t be a There Might Be Giants album if there wasn’t something irritating, right?
But, you know, these guys have been going for over 30 years and there are hordes of fans out there who will lap this stuff up. Not entirely for us but we’re glad it’s in the world!
Listen to: Let’s Get This Over With, Mrs Bluebeard, When the Lights Come On