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Tag Archives: They Might Be Giants

Songs about the U.S. Electoral College

21 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Abolish the Electoral College, Deb, Donald Trump is Gonna Steal the Election, Double Feature, Electoral College, Jonathan Mann, Roosterhead, Schoolhouse Rock!, They Might Be Giants, Who Are the Electors?

Forget Schoohouse Rock! Today’s tunes are gonna school you on America’s Electoral College. What it is, who does what, and why it should be abolished. That’s right dear reader, we here at Poprock Record take a side – for democracy. As the bands below point out, the US Electoral College is an anachronistic relic of the nation’s pre-democratic founding. But hey, if politics is not your thing don’t worry, we’ve still got hooks galore. Or you could always do what most people do with popular music: ignore the words.

To get you up to speed on the relevant deets about our topic let’s check in with America’s smartest, bifocaled poprock outfit, Brooklyn’s They Might Be Giants. Their brand new single is a timely exposition on all things Electoral College entitled “Who Are the Electors?” Seriously, the song is a practically a wiki entry on who ‘electors’ are, how they are chosen, and the rationale for choosing a president this way. Of course, they do slip in a mild critique here and there with lines like ‘it’s up to them, not up to us’ and ‘we’re only the voters, they are the electors.’ Overall the track is both effectively educational and eminently hummable. Only these guys could put so much factual content into a song while sacrificing nothing on the melodic front.

From there, things get a lot more blatantly critical. ‘Song a Day’ phenomenon Jonathan Mann has been creating new tunes daily since 2009 so it was statistically predictable that one would eventually touch on American political institutions. Shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 he released “Abolish the Electoral College,” his ode to all that is wrong with it and what might be done to put it right. That’s correct, he’s not just complaining. Mann manages to sing about something called the ‘national popular vote interstate compact’ in some detail. Frankly, the guy should get some kind of award for making that proposal sound both musically and intellectually attractive. Meanwhile Bethlehem Columbus band Deb offer up clear criticisms of how the Electoral College violates basic democratic values like voter equality by privileging land and locale. Musically the track comes off like a shoegaze Bruce Springsteen with its soothing earnest drone and relatable content.

Jonathan Mann – Abolish the Electoral College

Perhaps not surprisingly, punkers give the Electoral College the best drubbing, coming out with both guns blazing. Chicago band Double Feature offer up a bevy of politically critical tunes on their 2019 release, American Dream Not Found. So many great titles here like “Alt-Wrong,” “You Can’t Silence the Scientists,” and “I’m Still Waiting for the Trickle Down.” But right now our attention lands on “I Dropped Out of the Electoral College,” a delightfully raucous blast of righteous punky indignation, with some great melodic diversions. Alternatively Roosterhead is a punk band from Los Angeles with a more experimental bent, but the politics is still front and centre on their 2018 release Virtual Democracy. With songs like “Dark Money,” “Kleptocracy Now,” “If Millennials Actually Voted,” and “A Swing State” there’s little doubt where they stand. However our featured song is entitled, predictably, “Electoral College,” a challenging melodic noise piece that nicely rhymes ‘college’ with ‘abolish.’

Rounding things out on this political institutions tunes session are a few somewhat unrelated songs. First up is a band called Electoral College. The only track of theirs I can find is called “Bladerunner” and it has nothing to say about politics. In fact, I can’t say much about them at all as they are pretty much invisible on ye old interweb. But the song’s got a cool, loose indie vibe, with just a touch of punk. Now, to wrap things up, let’s return to the endlessly topical Jonathan Mann. On his September 2020 release “Donald Trump is Gonna Steal the Election” he pretty much predicts most of what the Trump team would get up to shortly thereafter i.e. purging voter rolls, acts of voter suppression, endlessly and baselessly contesting the results, etc. Don’t let the song’s infectious upbeat tone fool you, it’s all a load of very bad news.

Electoral College – Bladerunner
Jonathan Mann – Donald Trump is Gonna Steal the Election

Well, now you know. The Electoral College is so bad that people even write songs about it. Will these tunes spark the institutional revolution America so desperately needs? Highly unlikely. But they do make suffering with it just a little bit better.

Pandemic poprock

20 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alien Human Emotions, Asylums, Chris Church, Graveyard Tourism, It Only Hurts When I Breathe, It's Good to be Alive, Michael Carpenter, Michael Oliver, Pandemic Diary, Richard Turgeon, Rob Elliott, Still Not Ready to Die, They Might Be Giants, Whateverly Brothers, wr fkd

Pandemic-Diary---ball-and-chain-and-scientistWe tend to be inspired by the world we live in so it’s not surprising that some artists are ruminating musically about our present pandemic. While the artists featured below are all over the map in terms of their responses to the situation, the results are all music to my ears!

Kicking things off, prolific poprocker Michael Carpenter teams up Michael Oliver for the slightly country, melodious, and oh so apropos “It Only Hurts When I Breathe.” Thankfully Michael-squared only seem to be suffering from heartbreak rather than lung dysfunction. Whew! Tilting the mood somewhat, the one-off single “wr fkd” is from the Whateverly Brothers, aka Chris Church, and its churning grind of delicious jangle definitely captures how a lot of people are feeling right now. Again, it might be love problems motivating these musical sentiments but, hey, if it fits the bigger picture why not use it? Another deliberately displaced tune comes from Asylums’ last album, Alien Human Emotions, but here too I think the song speaks to our present moment. As some lobby for a quick return to economic normalcy, one has to wonder if the results won’t be a kind of “Graveyard Tourism.” Dead rich, that’s what they’re really aiming to be. Planning to defy that end game is LA’s powerpop grunge-meister Richard Turgeon on “Still Not Ready to Die.” It’s a brand new song that is definitely about what is happening now and it rocks, in his reliably hooky way. Let’s end on an up note with America’s most cheery musical iconoclasts, They Might Be Giants, and their eminently pleasant, uplifting and predictably quirky “It’s Good to be Alive.” Maybe play this one a few times, just to up your dose of good feelingness. And don’t forget to click on all the artist names to give them some money-coloured love.

Today’s feature graphic is courtesy Toronto pop artist Rob Elliott. If pointed laughter is your thing, head over to his Pandemic Diary pages and laugh until you cry.

Having fun with They Might Be Giants

04 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Artist Spotlight

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

I Like Fun, The Communists Have the Music, They Might Be Giants

Screen Shot 2018-11-03 at 11.56.31 PMI just saw They Might Be Giants last night here in Toronto and I’m in love again. How can a basically two-man band be so talented? So smart. Seemingly endlessly inspired. Incredibly musically proficient. Funny, political, and wonderful to just listen to ad libbing comedy between songs. It was a show that seemed both spontaneous and perfectly executed, performed by extraordinary guys playing at being easygoing and unpretentious. It took me back to my joy in discovering them with their third album, 1990’s Flood. I just couldn’t believe how interesting and intelligent their songs were. And the hooks were glorious!

Screen Shot 2018-11-03 at 11.57.46 PMThis year Brooklyn’s joy released their 20thalbum of original material with I Like Fun. And it is just freakin’ fabulous. The guys keep churning it out year after year but the quality does not take a hit. “Let’s Get This Over With” kicks things into gear with a jaunty uptempo melody and driving piano, “While I Left My Body” has a great droney hook, “All the Time” is just straight up pop goodness, and things just carry on in a very TMBG set of veins after that. I love the deft jazzy piano base undergirding “Mrs. Bluebeard” or the Beach Boysy sound of “This Microphone” or the more straightforward poprock vibe of “Last Wave.” But special attention must go to “The Bright Side,” the obvious single to me, with its super hooks. The band got the album out early this year but hardly let up on their amazing productivity, mounting a world tour and releasing even more brand new material on their special Dial-a-Song Direct website. Check out the video for their latest melodic zinger: “The Communists Have the Music.”

Go directly to They Might Be Giants’ website to find out about their fanclub, the Dial-a-song promotion, or when their amazing live show will be near your town!

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