Dan On "Severe Tire Damage"

I like everything They Might Be Giants does. This is largely because of their strange individual style, which I relate to because my humor doesn't make any sense either. This is their live album, and I have anticipated it for a while. I have seen them live five times, and a live album was such a great idea. They Might Be Giants is the kind of band that releases really good studio albums, and then when you see them live, the sound quality is just as good as the studio, except they often do different versions of songs and stuff like that.

My only real complaint about this album is that every show I've been to, TMBG played two encores and performed some 30 odd songs, and Severe Tire Damage features only 14 live tracks, with some new studio songs thrown in for good measure. There are some tracks on here that have improved over their original sound a ton, though. "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "She's Actual Size" are two good examples. And then there is the children's song they recorded a while ago, "Why Does the Sun Shine?", which they did here live at a lightning speed punk-ish tempo after playing it that way live for several years.

Also, "She's An Angel" is my favorite song ever, and even though it's a non-single off their first album it is somehow on this album. Hurray!

In case you haven't noticed, this is an album for fans of TMBG. And because of the great sound quality, I'd even recommend it for not-yet-fans. Especially because some of their wierdest songs made it on here somehow, like "Spider" and "Meet James Ensor". Why oh why couldn't they do "Boat of Car"?

MUZAK
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