Title:Mink Car By: They Might Be Giants Released by: Restless Released on: September 11, 2001 Rating (out of 10): 5 Date: 11/25/2001
Dear John...
There is a fundamental problem with being a fan and a critic. A fan knows the history of a band inside and out, and loves everything about them. Aspects of love come into play. Fandom holds no record of wrong. It overlooks faults as if they don’t exist. It never ends, is patient, and endures all things. You can see my dilemma.
I admit that I came into the game late. I became a fan of They Might Be Giants in 1994 when simultaneously picking up Flood and John Henry, and worked my way backwards. Not only did my discoveries become greater as I worked my way back to 1986, but my fandom grew to be immeasurable.
This is where the real story begins. I listened to Then: The Earlier Years for countless hours in 1997 and gained Internet access, becoming a part of the horribly scary TMBG online community. I don’t want to compare myself with other TMBG online fans, but when one gets to the point where he is taking quizzes at fan sites to see how big of a fan he is, they all might as well be on the same plain.
The majority of my time as a TMBG fan, and the entirety of my hardcore fandom, took place between albums. Historically, TMBG released a new album every 2 years. It didn’t seem to faze me that it can’t be a good sign when creative juices slow to one album between 1996 and the present. No, Malcolm In The Middle doesn’t count.
Upon its release, Mink Car couldn’t have been more disappointing, and my conflict between fan and critic increased. Returning to the typical formula of shorter songs and a greater number of tracks, Mink Car offers us 17 songs, most of which the fans have been familiar with—the songs have been floating around for the past several years. Not only have many of these songs played a prominent role in TMBG's live show for over 2 years, we have heard the rest on Dial-A-Song, or the new "free-when-you-pay-10-dollars-a-month" service, eMusic.com.
This is nothing new. However, this time, the songs are purposely revamped for the sake of releasing them in different forms, when the original forms are superior.
Take the second track, "Cyclops Rock," which fans have been hearing live since early 1999. We’ll get into lyrical elements later, but in terms of musical form, the song began with Flansburgh’s simple ska-guitar rhythm until Linnell came in, squeezing delightfully nerdy, electronic melodies from his keyboard. It’s what we’ve come to expect from the duo. (I know, they are a full band now, but they have always been best when the late-coming band stayed in the background.) Mink Car's "Cyclops Rock" gives us arena-rock guitar noise, synthetic bells, three Dans and a Luis Jardim. All more prominent than John Linnell, whose revamped "Finished With Lies" was once a facetious, accordion-only warning, but now sounds like a Phillips Magnavox jingle.
There was a time in 1986 when it was difficult to tell the difference in both songwriting and vocals between the two Johns, and they were both beyond reproach. The gap between the two only widened since, with Flansburgh becoming the undisputed weaker songwriter, though inarguably more personable. Now, both the wit and the song construction falter, and the two Johns fail to rely on each other’s strengths within each piece.
Even Linnell has become predictable. Two of Linnell’s stronger tracks on Mink Car, "Hovering Sombrero" and "Bangs," suffer from sounding altogether too similar. Nothing but praise is due in taking inanimate objects like nightlights or water tanks and turning out a fresh lyrical approach such as "I’m your only friend/I’m not your only friend/But I’m a little glowing friend/But really I’m not actually your friend/But I am" or "When this grey world crumbles like a cake/I’ll be hanging from the hope/That I’ll never see that recipe again." Compare with:
You’re never just a hat, you know/Hovering sombrero
Linnell’s lyrical content wanes throughout Mink Car. "Man, It’s So Loud In Here" declares, "You have to carry all your things/You can’t misplace them/There is nowhere to place anything." The fan in me wants to attribute the awkwardness to the underlying commentary on '80s dance music; as rigid as the New Order drum-loops employed throughout the ballad. The fan in me still loves this song despite all of its shortcomings. However, the critic in me recognized the shallowness and refuses to accept it is intentional.
Even Linnell’s best track, "Hopeless Bleak Despair," is summed up with the lyric "That’s how I finally got rid of it"—matter-of-factly, and lacking any wit that I’ve come to love from Them. Maybe my fandom is getting the best of me, but even melodically, part of me wants to sing the "Fingertip" "I’m having a heart-attack" instead of "I never knew what everybody meant/By endless, hopeless, bleak despair" in the opening chords. Familiarity is possibly another attribute of fan-love.
And these are the best songs.
On the downside, "Another First Kiss" is pleasant enough, and probably Flansburgh’s best offering, but lacks the energy that gave the Severe Tire Damage version its appeal. Similarly, "She Thinks She’s Edith Head" lacks Flansburgh’s whiny approach on Long Tall Weekend, but uses the exact instrumental track behind Flansburgh’s new monotone.
"Older," a crowd-favorite, tries to overcome its staleness with synthetic horn bursts. The result is simply annoying. At the same time, the Mink Car version is devoid of the song's previous "time" pause, which made the song.
If Linnell has lost a bit of his melodic edge, Flansburgh has moved almost entirely into genre pieces. They cover '60s pop on Georgie Fame’s "Yeh Yeh" with mediocre and unnecessary results, imitate Burt Bacharach on the skipable title track, "sha-la-la" their way through the subpar, and again previously released, "Working Undercover For The Man," and waltz a petty bar tune to "Drink."
However, all of these songs are similar in that they are each the best song in the world when compared to "Mr. Xcitement with Mike Doughty." Somehow managing to exceed the obnoxiousness and complacency of any of Soul Coughing’s material, "Mr. Xcitement" comes across as a solo Doughty project with horns. The Giants' input is nowhere to be heard on the track. I’m not turning in my TMBG fan resignation for this one, but if the Möxy Früvous or Barenaked Ladies collaboration is anywhere in the future, that will be the day.
Mink Car lacks any consistency and comes across as a cut-and-paste revamp, hastily thrown together to appease fans who have been begging for studio material for 5 years. I love They Might Be Giants, but I cannot overlook this. I won’t hold this against them, but the critic in me refuses to make excuses for the overall weakness of the album. No, my fandom remains intact. Consider this review a case of tough-love.
