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PHONING IT IN

Phoning It In: “Unpronounceable”

TMBG

They Might Be Giants have resurrected their ingenious Dial-A-Song concept by streaming a new song each week of 2015 at www.dialasong.com. MAGNET’s Matthew Fritch reviews them all.

Last week, John Flansburgh announced the April 21 release of a new They Might Be Giants album. It is appropriately titled Glean, as it will include, in Flansburgh’s words, “many of the new dial-a-song tracks … and some other tracks.” Let the speculation about song selection begin: The album will have 15 songs; this week we are on track 10, and by April 21, there will be 15 Dial-A-Song entries. So it’s possible to shuffle the Dial-A-Song deck thus far and roughly create Glean, give or take the few tracks that Flansburgh indicated would be “other.”

Being dispassionate about They Might Be Giants (again, I am not a superfan) has been useful so far in criticizing the weekly song, but that emotional distance is eroding. And so I’m a little disappointed that the album is arriving so soon, because I had my own plans (hey, I didn’t get the Evite to the band meeting) to assemble a Dial-A-Song supermix at midnight on Dec. 31, 2015. Next week, I’ll put together a list of likely and non-likely Glean tracks. Unless TMBG releases the actual track listing in the interim, which will probably happen, because they keep raising the speed limit on the information superhighway.

“Unpronounceable” isn’t unlistenable—it’s just got one ‘80s affectation too many. The bloopy electronics and staccato guitar thing is fine, and evoking the Cars is not a crime, and admittedly the guitar riff also evokes “Ana Ng,” which is classic TMBG from 1988. (A different 1980s, but never mind about that.) Other things pile up, though: the too-heavy vocal echo on the verse, the too-aspirational guitar solo at the two-minute mark. This one isn’t for me, but if you’re the kind of person who owns a Brick, dial away.

File-A-Song: 5/10