''Flood'' is the third studio album by
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
-based
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
duo
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a d ...
, released in January 1990. ''Flood'' was the duo's first album on the major label
Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1 ...
. It generated three singles: "
Birdhouse in Your Soul
"Birdhouse in Your Soul" is a song by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released in late 1989 through Elektra Records as the lead single from the album ''Flood'', making the single the band's first release on a major labe ...
", "
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is a 1953 novelty song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. It was written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The lyrics humorously refer to the official ren ...
", and the domestic promotional track "Twisting". The album is generally considered to be the band's definitive release, as it is their best-selling and most recognizable album. Despite minimal stylistic and instrumental differences from previous releases, ''Flood'' is distinguished by contributions from seasoned producers
Clive Langer
Clive Langer (born 19 June 1954 in Hampstead, London, England) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards.
He usually works with Alan Winstanley. He composed the music for the films ''Still Crazy'' and ''Br ...
and
Alan Winstanley
Alan Kenneth Winstanley (born 2 November 1952) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards. He usually works with Clive Langer.
His early career during the mid-1970s was as an audio engineer, working on albu ...
.
John Linnell
John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
and
John Flansburgh
John Conant Flansburgh (born May 6, 1960) is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar.
Commo ...
also took advantage of new equipment and recording techniques, including unconventional, home-recorded samples, which were programmed through
Casio FZ-1
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It w ...
synthesizers. The album was recorded in New York City at Skyline Studios, which was better equipped than studios the band had worked in previously.
Promotion for ''Flood'' included television appearances, promotional videos, and an international tour. The album's mainstream promotion and success contributed to its status as the band's most well known album. Many fans, including young viewers of ''
Tiny Toon Adventures
''Tiny Toon Adventures'' is an American animated comedy television series that was broadcast from September 14, 1990, to December 6, 1992. It was the first collaborative effort of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation ...
'', were first exposed to They Might Be Giants's music through ''Flood''.
The album was initially issued on CD, LP, and cassette. Upon its release, ''Flood'' was met with praise from critics and achieved moderate success on sales charts. In 2013, the album was reissued as part of a CD series spanning They Might Be Giants' four Elektra releases. In 2014, it was reissued on LP in Europe by Music On Vinyl and in the United States by
Asbestos Records
Asbestos Records is an American independent record label in Stratford, Connecticut, United States, founded in 1996. It was established as a business to release albums and compilations for local bands, and to book shows at the Newtown Teen Cente ...
for
Record Store Day
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...
and
Black Friday, and it was reissued again on LP in 2015 on the band's label, Idlewild Recordings.
Background
''Flood'' was They Might Be Giants' first release on a major label.
Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1 ...
approached the band in 1989 following the unexpected success of their second album, ''
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
'', which was released on the independent
Bar/None
Bar/None Records is an independent record label based in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Early history
Tom Prendergast started Bar/None in early 1986 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Having previously worked in pirate radio and booked and promoted bands in his n ...
label.
The record deal that Elektra presented was largely due to the work of Susan Drew, an
A&R worker who had been following the band since 1986. Because of her confidence, the band was given an extensive level of creative control over their projects, in addition to the ability to take advantage of the label's resources. Although They Might Be Giants recorded the album as a duo, they were joined by several guest musicians on brass and string instruments. The band also enlisted Alan Bezozi to help program some of the electronic drums for the album.
Recording and production
The album was recorded in the fall of 1989 at Skyline Studios in New York City.
Skyline was only a few blocks away from the Public Access Synthesizer Studio, where the band had recorded their previous albums. Alan Bezozi and
John Flansburgh
John Conant Flansburgh (born May 6, 1960) is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar.
Commo ...
worked together to create atypical drum tracks, including one that samples the sound of Flansburgh's kitchen sink and refrigerator being struck with a drum stick.
An
Alesis
Alesis is an electronic music company that designs and markets electronic musical instruments, digital audio processors, audio mixers, drum amplifiers, amplifiers, digital audio interfaces, recording equipment, drum machines, professional aud ...
SR-16
drum machine was used to program the drums.
Two-thirds of the album's budget was exhausted for the production of four songs: "
Birdhouse in Your Soul
"Birdhouse in Your Soul" is a song by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released in late 1989 through Elektra Records as the lead single from the album ''Flood'', making the single the band's first release on a major labe ...
", "Your Racist Friend", "We Want a Rock", and "
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is a 1953 novelty song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. It was written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The lyrics humorously refer to the official ren ...
".
These four tracks were produced by
Clive Langer
Clive Langer (born 19 June 1954 in Hampstead, London, England) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards.
He usually works with Alan Winstanley. He composed the music for the films ''Still Crazy'' and ''Br ...
and
Alan Winstanley
Alan Kenneth Winstanley (born 2 November 1952) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards. He usually works with Clive Langer.
His early career during the mid-1970s was as an audio engineer, working on albu ...
.
[
]
Style and composition
Like many of They Might Be Giants' early releases, ''Flood'' features a range of stylistic eclecticism. The press release for the album notes the "rock rave-up 'Twisting' ... the ountryinflected 'Lucky Ball & Chain' ... the existential oom-pah of 'Particle Man
"Particle Man" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, released and published in 1990. The song is the seventh track on the band's third album, ''Flood''. It has become one of the band's most popular songs, despite never having b ...
'", and "tender night-light metaphor and melody" of the lead single, "Birdhouse in Your Soul". Jon Pareles wrote for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' that the album "shrug off most typecasting". He added that through releases like ''Flood'', They Might Be Giants and a new wave of alternative musicians were gainsaying the standard practice of sticking to only one genre.
Regardless of the genre employed, They Might Be Giants are noted for unconventional lyrics, characterized by "bizarre" cleverness. ''Flood'' includes abundant examples of this style, manifested in unusual subject matter, unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unrel ...
s, and wordplay. However, John Linnell
John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
and Flansburgh took care to avoid using humor excessively, acknowledging the requirement that recorded music withstand repeated listens without losing value. Linnell has pointed out that in general, he writes melodies prior to writing lyrics. This creates the challenge of fitting the appropriate syllables and stresses into each line; often, demos were recorded with dummy lyrics to simplify the process. Linnell's melodies are often based around scales
Scale or scales may refer to:
Mathematics
* Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points
* Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original
* Scale factor, a number w ...
. D. X. Ferris, with commentary from John Linnell and John Flansburgh, outlined each individual track from ''Flood'' in a retrospective article published in ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
''.
"Theme From Flood" acts as a tongue-in-cheek introduction to the album, and it is regarded by scholars Elizabeth Sandifer and Alex Reed to be one of the first in a recurring trend of processional tunes composed by John Linnell. It is followed by the album's lead single, "Birdhouse in Your Soul". Although the melody for "Birdhouse" was written years prior to the lyrics, the lyrics were "shoehorned in to match the melody", according to Linnell. The narrative is given from the point of view of a child's nightlight
A nightlight is a small light fixture, usually electrical, placed for comfort or convenience in dark areas or areas that may become dark at certain times, such as at night or during an emergency. Small long-burning candles serving a similar fun ...
. According to John Linnell, the song was almost wrecked when he attempted to underscore it with a more dramatic drum track. Producers Winstanley and Langer opposed this decision and the drum track was scrapped. Linnell speculates that had this not been the case, the entire album might have suffered. Reed and Sandifer also note that the song makes an unanticipated jump from the key of C major to E-flat major
E-flat major (or the key of E-flat) is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has three flats. Its relative minor is C minor, and its parallel minor is E minor, (or enharmonically ...
and then back to C major. The track's later shifts to F-sharp minor
F-sharp minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative major is A major and its parallel major is F-sharp major (or enharmonically G-flat major).
T ...
and A major
A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...
lead to the division of the octave into equal intervals. Reed and Sandifer call ''Flood'' in general "modular" in its movement between musical ideas, which they accredit partly to its largely digital composition: the band's MIDI sequencer
A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound Cont ...
made it easy to transpose sections of a song out of the original key.
"Lucky Ball and Chain" employs the unreliable narrator motif, according to Linnell. Influenced by the country-western
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, old- ...
musical tradition, the song is a "simple regret song" dealing with "the one that got away". The fourth track and second single, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a cover of the 1953 original, was added by Flansburgh and Linnell to their repertoire in the early 1980s to lengthen their live sets. From that point, it evolved from a folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
-inspired cover to the baroque pop
Baroque pop (sometimes called baroque rock) is a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music. It emerged in the mid 1960s as artists pursued a majestic, orchestral sound and is identifiable for its appropria ...
rendition that appears on ''Flood''. A Casio FZ-1
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It w ...
synthesizer was used to perform the song in the studio. "Dead", described by ''Rolling Stone'' as "one of TMBG's most abstract and personal songs", follows the story of someone dying and then being "reincarnated as a bag of groceries". According to Linnell, "The dreamlike relationship between returning expired groceries and returning from the grave after you expire appealed to me."
"Your Racist Friend", produced by Langer and Winstanley, is a politically charged song which follows a fairly straightforward narrative.[ The song, which depicts a social conflict, is considered to be the band's most clear "political statement".] On the other hand, the accordion-tinged "Particle Man" lightheartedly chronicles the disputes of four characters, the titular Particle Man, Universe Man, Person Man, and Triangle Man. Linnell has claimed that the character Triangle Man was inspired by Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...
's appearance in the 1955 film '' The Night of the Hunter''. The final single, "Twisting", was selected over "Your Racist Friend", in part because it was more lyrically ambiguous.[ Reed & Sandifer 2013, p. 37.][ The song references both ]The Young Fresh Fellows
The Young Fresh Fellows are an American alternative rock group, that was formed in 1981 in Seattle, Washington, United States, by Scott McCaughey and Chuck Carroll. Tad Hutchison, Chuck Carroll's first cousin, joined for the recording of the grou ...
and The dB's
The dB's are an American alternative rock and power pop group, who formed in New York City in 1978 and first came to prominence in the early 1980s.
Their debut album, ''Stands for Decibels'', is often acclaimed as one of the greatest "lost" powe ...
, two groups that influenced the sound of the track itself. Flansburgh has noted that, while recording the song, Bezozi accidentally erased the entire drum track for "Twisting". Flansburgh then had to recreate the track from scratch.[ Reed & Sandifer 2013, p. 77.] The cryptic "We Want a Rock" features a violin performance by Mark Feldman, and "Someone Keeps Moving My Chair" revolves around petty concerns and their importance "when everything else is going haywire". "Hearing Aid" features the mixing of standard They Might Be Giants sounds with an Arto Lindsay
Arthur Morgan "Arto" Lindsay (born May 28, 1953) is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He was a member of the pioneering 1970s no wave group DNA, which featured on the 1978 compilation ''No New York''. In ...
guitar solo and vacuum cleaner
A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven.
The dirt is collected by either a ...
synth sounds, experimentations that Flansburgh found difficult to achieve.
"Minimum Wage", which features only those two words, saw the band dabbling in sampling (specifically the 1966 Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
recording of "Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
"). The sound of the whip was crafted in the studio when the band was unable to find a suitable stock sound effect; the effect was a composite of a wind sound from Linnell's Moog keyboard and the crack of a wet towel, courtesy of Roger Moutenot. "Letterbox", which was also considered as a potential single from the album, was another track that had been in live setlists years prior to the release of the album. For "Whistling in the Dark", Flansburgh and Linnell wanted the bass drum to be extremely pronounced, although they were later unhappy with the result. Linnell noted that, lyrically, the song is about two men who engage in a fight, only for the listener to soon learn that they are both in prison. "Hot Cha!" references the name of a wooden horse in the Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products wer ...
board game ''Derby Day''; musically, the song is a mix of eclectic sounds (such as the noise of mallets and drumsticks banging on a sink and base of a refrigerator), samples (such as a door buzzer), and unique recording methods (such as running horn samples through a guitar fuzz box). In the cheerful tune "Women and Men", the band examines human reproduction from a "disengaged view", and "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" takes its title from a Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Mahavishnu Orchestra were a jazz fusion band formed in New York City in 1971, led by English guitarist John McLaughlin. The group underwent several line-up changes throughout its history across its two periods of activity, from 1971 to 1976 a ...
album cut of the same name. "They Might Be Giants" operates as the band's manifesto and was inspired by The Monkees
The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was conc ...
song " (Theme From) The Monkees". ''Flood'' concludes with "Road Movie to Berlin", which was written by John Flansburgh in Germany in 1989 (at which point the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
still stood). The song deals with the clash between absurdism
Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd. This implies that the world lacks Meaning of life, meaning or a higher purpose and is not fully intelligible by reason. The term "absurd" also has a more specific sense ...
and existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
that the band encountered while touring Europe. Flansburgh's voice was slowed down for this song, an effect that he later called "creepy". Due to the haste with which the final portion of the album was recording, the band accidentally forgot to include an entire verse of the song in the finished product; Linnell and Flansburgh felt that they did not have the time to fix it, so the mistake remained. The song also makes use of "synthetic or sampled" trumpet sounds, one of which was also included in "Birdhouse in Your Soul".
Artwork
The photograph used for the cover of the album depicts a man rowing a boat made out of strung-together washbasins. The image was captured by Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971), an American photographer and documentary photographer, became arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviets' ...
as part of a series taken to document the Ohio River flood of 1937
The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...
. The cover, which was designed by band member John Flansburgh with Elizabeth van Itallie, originally featured only the photo; however, an emblem including the band's name, inked by Flansburgh's former coworker Barbara Lipp, was later added. The emblem resembles the logo of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada, known as simply the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE or ...
.
Promotion
To promote ''Flood'', Elektra produced a promotional video featuring Linnell and Flansburgh facetiously extolling the album's merits. One sarcastic quip was that the album included nineteen songs, which made it inherently better than other albums with fewer tracks. The video also included a live performance of "Particle Man" and a sample of the lead single "Birdhouse in Your Soul". The band also produced a music video, directed by Adam Bernstein
Adam Bernstein (born May 7, 1960) is an Emmy Awards, Emmy Award-winning American film director, music video director and television director. For his work on the television show ''Fargo (TV series), Fargo'' in 2014, he received a nomination for ...
, for "Birdhouse in Your Soul". In April, the band appeared on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...
'' to perform the song with Doc Severinsen
Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen (born July 7, 1927) is an American retired jazz trumpeter who led the NBC Orchestra on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson''.
Early life
Severinsen was born in Arlington, Oregon, to Minnie Mae (1897–1998) a ...
and the Tonight Show Band. Severinsen's unusually fast count-in resulted in a performance with a noticeably higher tempo than the album recording. Linnell and Flansburgh would later adopt a similar tempo for subsequent live performances.
Tour
In support of ''Flood'', They Might Be Giants toured North America and Europe, including a series of shows in Germany. Due to the scale of the tour, the band's road crew
The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians. This catc ...
doubled in size—increasing from two members to four. Linnell and Flansburgh have recounted the unfamiliarity of touring outside of North America. In Europe, they report that crowds acted differently due to cultural gaps.
The band continued to tour as a duo, with Linnell playing accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
and Flansburgh on guitars, or occasionally playing a marching band bass drum
The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...
. Large posters of postage stamps adorned the stage as props; the minimal arrangement was received as a boldly simple choice. Sets included a combination of old and new material. As in the past, the band was backed by a tape deck playing drum tracks or a metronome
A metronome, from ancient Greek μέτρον (''métron'', "measure") and νομός (nomós, "custom", "melody") is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats pe ...
in lieu of a full rhythm section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band.
The rhythm sec ...
.
Reception
Critical reception
''Flood'' received generally positive reviews, though some critics expressed reservations. Chris Heim wrote for the ''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' that the album is a rare example of success for a "quirky cult band" signed to a major label. Steve Simels, writing for ''Stereo Review
''Sound & Vision'' is an American magazine, purchased by AVTech Media Ltd. (UK) in March 2018, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products. Before 2000, it had been published for most of its history as ''Stereo Review''. ...
'', compared the album's structural complexities to The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...
at the peak of their career. Simels praised the album's originality and intellect, while heavily criticizing other contemporary music for lacking those characteristics. Writing in '' Spin'', Ira Robbins called ''Flood'' "another captivating variety show of art-rock, swing, the Bonzo Dog Band, cow-pop, show tunes and the Schmenge Brothers ... Boundless imagination, loopy mix-and-match arrangements and a gyroscopic sense of what makes a pop tune click are still responsible for the easy and abiding appeal of TMBG's ingenious material." In a retrospective AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
wrote that despite some inconsistencies and awkward selections, the album is musically superior to its predecessors. He observed that through ''Flood'', Flansburgh and Linnell "exchange quirky artiness for unabashed geekiness". Six of the album's nineteen tracks are designated as AllMusic "picks". Reviewing the album in 2022 for ''Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'', Quinn Moreland commented that the duo's "ability to grab listeners with sharp, catchy songwriting was never more evident than on ... ''Flood'', where their expansive imagination was matched by major label money."
Reviews in the UK were also mostly positive. In a review for '' Q'', Peter Kane lauded the record for its uniqueness and for the sheer quantity of tracks, which he said ensured that the listener would enjoy at least one song, and concluded that ''Flood'' was "as playful an entertainment as will be heard all year". In ''NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' Jerry Smith called the collection "a weird and wonderful varied combination of the zany, trivial, witty and wacky, delivered with a spritely foot-tapping ease that belies their bizarre subject matter". ''Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the ''NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in ''Re ...
'''s Iestyn George
Iestyn George is a Welsh journalist, who previously worked as an editor at both ''NME'' and '' GQ'' and is now a lecturer at University of Brighton.
Journalism career
During the 1990s, George was a writer for ''NME'' magazine, and became news ed ...
observed that "if it's to be faulted, the album is a mite too cluttered for its own good, but the virtues of imagination and originality that these native New Yorkers display are worthy of enthusiastic approval". Andy Ross
Andrew Ross is an American musician. He has been the guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist for the rock band OK Go since 2005. He is also behind a solo project, Secret Dakota Ring, which released albums in 2004 and 2008. Ross is also co-founder of ...
of ''Sounds
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
'' believed that it was the duo's melodic talents that prevented them from becoming just a novelty act, and wrote that ''Flood'' was "a real cryptic crossword of an album, requiring perseverance and application with ultimately rewarding and fulfilling results".
Conversely, ''Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...
'' critic Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
and ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
s David Browne found ''Flood'' to be unremarkable overall. Both critics chastised the band's novelty, which they found to be wearing thin as time progressed. In the UK Caroline Sullivan of ''Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
'' felt that enjoyment of ''Flood'' "hinges upon one's general feelings about similarly zany characters like Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.[Talkin ...](_blank)
and Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
. If their very American, very beatnik, surrealism spells instant yawnorama, forget TMBG—they're the same thing, but minus the good tunes." However, in a 2009 ''Rolling Stone'' article revisiting ''Flood'' near its twentieth anniversary, D. X. Ferris praised the album as both the band's most iconic release and one that revolutionized the college radio
Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...
scene.
Commercial response
''Flood'' peaked at number 75 on the ''Billboard'' 200, spending 22 weeks on the chart. The lead single from the album, "Birdhouse in Your Soul", reached number 3 on the ''Billboard'' Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks (1988–2009) and Alternative Songs (2009–2020)) is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-played ...
chart. The single also charted in Ireland and the UK. "Twisting", which was released as a domestic promotional single, peaked at number 22 on the ''Billboard'' Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album also contains two of the band's most well known songs, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man". The former was released as a single, reaching number 61 on the UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
, but failing to chart in the US.
''Flood'' was the first album released by They Might Be Giants to receive the RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
Platinum sales award—indicating sales over one million copies—which it achieved on July 10, 2009. It is also certified Gold by the BPI in the United Kingdom.
Legacy
''Flood'' is They Might Be Giants' best-selling album, and it is widely regarded as their most iconic. Due to the acclaim with which it was received, the album is considered to have cemented the band's reputation as a staple of alternative
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
and college rock
College rock was the alternative rock music played on student-run university and college campus radio stations located in the United States and Canada in the 1980s. The stations' playlists were often created by students who avoided the mainstream ...
. Curtis Silver, in a retrospective for ''Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'', collected anecdotes from They Might Be Giants fans, many of whom were first exposed to the band through ''Flood''. Silver concluded that new fans are drawn just as much to the band's old material as they are their more recent work, due to its sustaining accessibility. In fact, many fans cite the band's earliest albums as their favorites—though often not ''Flood'', despite (or perhaps due to) its longstanding mainstream success.
In 1990, ''Tiny Toon Adventures
''Tiny Toon Adventures'' is an American animated comedy television series that was broadcast from September 14, 1990, to December 6, 1992. It was the first collaborative effort of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation ...
'' aired animated music videos for two tracks from the album, "Particle Man" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". Through the program, the band was exposed to a younger set of fans. This ultimately led the band to begin releasing children's music alongside their "rock albums" over a decade later.
They Might Be Giants has performed ''Flood'' live in its entirety on numerous occasions. In 2015, the band released the live album '' Flood Live in Australia'', a recording of the album played live in 2013, in which the songs are performed in reverse order, starting with "Road Movie to Berlin" and ending with "Theme from Flood". The band has performed multiple ''Flood'' concerts in the reverse-order format. In other shows, the songs are played out of sequence.
The band planned to perform a series of ''Flood'' concerts in early 2020 to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the album's release, but the tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. The dates were rescheduled to between September 2020 and May 2021, but these were also postponed. Following this, the shows were rescheduled in early 2022, with 43 dates from June 2022 to May 2023. Some early tour dates were additionally postponed to later in the schedule due to Flansburgh suffering broken ribs in a car accident.
Track listing
Personnel
They Might Be Giants:
*John Flansburgh
John Conant Flansburgh (born May 6, 1960) is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar.
Commo ...
– songwriting, vocals, guitar, programming, mandolin, trumpet
*John Linnell
John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
– songwriting, vocals, accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
, keyboards, saxophones, programming, melodica
Additional musicians:
*Alan Bezozi – drum programming
Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These mus ...
* Mark Feldman – violin on "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "Istanbul", and "We Want a Rock"
*Rick McRae – trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
on "Theme from Flood" and "Whistling in the Dark"
*Frank London – trumpet on "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "Whistling in the Dark", and "They Might Be Giants"
*Charlie Sepulveda – trumpet on "Istanbul" and "Your Racist Friend"
*Marion Beckenstein – vocals on "Theme From Flood"
*Joel Mitchell – vocals on "Theme From Flood"
*The Skyline Staff – handclaps
A clap is the percussive sound made by striking together two flat surfaces, as in the body parts of humans or animals. Humans clap with the palms of their hands, often quickly and repeatedly to express appreciation or approval (see applause), b ...
on "Particle Man"
*Arto Lindsay
Arthur Morgan "Arto" Lindsay (born May 28, 1953) is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He was a member of the pioneering 1970s no wave group DNA, which featured on the 1978 compilation ''No New York''. In ...
– guitar on "Hearing Aid"
*Roger Moutenot – whip on "Minimum Wage"
Production:
*They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a d ...
– producer
*Clive Langer
Clive Langer (born 19 June 1954 in Hampstead, London, England) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards.
He usually works with Alan Winstanley. He composed the music for the films ''Still Crazy'' and ''Br ...
– producer
*Alan Winstanley
Alan Kenneth Winstanley (born 2 November 1952) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards. He usually works with Clive Langer.
His early career during the mid-1970s was as an audio engineer, working on albu ...
– producer
*Roger Moutenot – recording, mixing
*Paul Angelli – engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
*Patrick Dillett – assistant engineer
*Katherine Miller – assistant engineer
*Alex Noyes – MIDI coordinator
Artwork:
*John Flansburgh – design
*Elizabeth van Itallie – design
*Helene Silverman – design consultant
*Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971), an American photographer and documentary photographer, became arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviets' ...
– photography
*Barbara Lipp – art assistance
Chart performance
Album
Singles
Certifications and sales
Release history
''Flood'' was released in CD, LP, and cassette formats both in the United States and foreign markets by Elektra Records. In addition to two vinyl reissues in 2014, the entire album was included in a two-part 2013 CD compilation that collected They Might Be Giants's work from their period with Elektra.
Notes
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
*
External links
*''Flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
'' on This Might Be A Wiki
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a ...
* ''Flood'' (release history) on This Might Be A Wiki
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a ...
{{Authority control
1990 albums
Elektra Records albums
They Might Be Giants albums
Albums produced by Alan Winstanley
Albums produced by Clive Langer