I don't know why but Flood is my least favorite of all their albums.

Every other TMBG album has a very distinct style to me, and when I think of the album, or a song on it, I have this mental recognition that kicks in. It's like when you think of a person as bad or good... but the adjectives that their albums trigger in my mind aren't real words....or even adjectives for that matter. It's just this....weird little association that my mind makes with each album.

But not Flood.

Flood feels like a compilation album. None of the songs feel like they're in the right context, and they all feel too....marketed.....like TMBG was trying too hard when they made this CD. But the songs themselves are great! You can't write and arrange a better song than Birdhouse, and Particle Man is a legend in its own right.

But the songs don't function as an album.

Hmm....what do y'all think?

Au Contraire, in fact you say quite thew opposite of what I've always thought. :rolleyes:

This topic is gonna hurt some of fans on here though. :(

Flood, though not one of my absolute fave albums, is still rather special to me...

Thus, I have to say I disagree.

I do get what you are saying about the mental recognition thing, however. Each album has it's own little mood, an aura if you will, about it that sort of just kicks in your head when you turn it on.

I agree with the silver dude to a certain extent. I've always felt the album really drops off in quality about halfway through. That's not to say the whole second half is bad (especially since it has "Whistling"), but the best songs are definitely at the beginning. This is one of those CD's that always bugs me when I have to skip to the good tracks.

Flood is my favourite of Their albums, I will make no secret of that. AS for it seeming like a compilation, erm, does the phrase "No!" sound familiar?

It is most definitely themed, with this vaguely Celtic / Western feel to the whole thing. From the saloon tack piano of "Dead" to the whistling, John Wayne movie closer of "Road Movie", the whole time you are watching a spaghetti western, observing the poster on the wall at the store, hearing about the tough guy in town that is "Particle Man", repeating the history of colonisation that is "Women and Men".
Long sentence over.
Flood is their tour de force so far, and the poster who says it's their "most accessible album" also posts it as their least favourite?

"Ideal Album Progression:

Flood - Lincoln - Apollo 18 - Spine - Pink - Mink Car - Miscellaneous T (not really an album... but since it was mentioned, I'll include it) - Factory Showroom - John Henry"

But hey, lets not split hairs. Just admit its the best :D

Well duh, if it was the most accessable it would not be one of the best albums.... something more deep and complicated is going to be a lot better.

WARNING: CRAPLOAD OF TEXT AHEAD. TIRE CHAINS ADVISED.

(Let me just start by saying that I DO like the Flood album.)
To my ears, Flood has kind of a thrown-together quality to it. "Label wants an album? Let me just pull something synthesized out of my ass."
HOWEVER, I do miss the no-actual-band TMBG sound. Sort of hearkens back to the days when the live shows were just the Johns and a tape (in which I was not actually born). That's why I always like the demos so much, because one instrument in the entire arrangement is the actual thing, and the rest is confined to the keyboards they have in their home studios. It's kind of a sound that my two person band can aspire to.
Plus, I have a genuine soft spot for Istanbul because it was the first TMBG song I'd ever heard. If I'd heard something normal like, say, Prevenge or something, I'd probably go "yeah, they're good" but I wouldn't have chosen their album over A String Quartet Tribute to Radiohead (which actually exists, by the way). But the strangeness and the unique sensibilities that went into Istanbul (along with most of the stuff on that album) caught my attention and caused my mom and I to run out and buy Dial-A-Song (because Best Buy didn't have Flood and we really wanted to hear Istanbul again.)

The thing is, I can't really isolate an album as "worst" because every time I say to myself 'yes, this is it, this is TMBG at its crappiest' I feel this painful pang in my gut, like "No, I like THIS song and THIS one".


By my standards, an album is "bad" when there's at least 3 songs (or 2, depending on how long the track list is) that I can't bring myself to listen to through the end, and end up skipping. Which is to say, a "good album" is one that I can listen to all the way through, with no pesky track skipping.

The Spine is actually a notably good album, with the exception of the song "Spines", which I'm actually starting to get used to as well. This was the newest album around the time that I started to really get into TMBG, and so I've got muddled memories of calling Dial-A-Song and hearing something from this album. I'm still not sure if the first song I ever heard via my phone was "Museum of Idiots" or "Broke In Two", so those two will just have to slug it out.

John Henry is my favorite album EVER by ANYBODY so nobody touch it.

Despite the fact that Space Suit and Which Describes How You're Feeling weirded the heck out of me when I first heard it, Apollo 18 is a fairly decent project. I can't get used to Dinner Bell, and I still have to skip past Spider because it gives me nightmares (and apparently I'm missing out by doing so). But that's not important.

So my worst TMBG album would have to be No!, because that's as far as my record collection extends thus far. I could never honestly designate No! as a "good" album because I can't get through ten seconds of Violin, Wake Up Call, or Clap Your Hands, and don't even get me started on I Am A Grocery Bag (all of which I *still* haven't heard to the end of, because I'm not strong enough).
While John Lee Supertaster is a great one, Where Do They Make Balloons is one of my favorite TMBG songs, and you have to love anything that Robin contributes to (unless she's got a hand puppet and isn't singing in her normal voice), I don't think it's enough to save No! from the chaotic awfulness of I Am A Grocery Bag and friends.



And thus ends our broadcast day. *beeeeeep*

Uhm..if we're discussing only the ADULT albums, I gotta go with Flood. I love it, I listen to it, it's got some great songs. Theres no songs I don't like, but as a whole, it's my least favorite. Don't know why. Don't really have a reason.

Nut as a whole?

What're YOU talkin' about? It CLEARLY says "but". :P

I won't say what I'm thinking right now... ;)

I struggle with the concept that accessible and "deep and complicated" are mutually exclusive, or that accessible and best are somehow incompatible. But hey, each their own.

I really like flood, to me it is the only album that fits together as an album, rather than just a bunch of great tracks thrown togther like some others. It's true there are a couple of tracks I don't listen to, Istanbul and Minimum Wage for example, but there's always a few skipables with every album. :mellow:

flood is the reason i am a giant head :)
it is also one of my all time fav albums of all time
and thats saying something since i like a lot of different music but my all time favs are mostly ska :) or metal/ grunge
heh
i also must say i am limited to tmbg i dont have all thier stuff
and my big days of listening to them were back in the early to mid 90s
but then some of ya werent born back then (jk)
anyway thats my 2 cents

Ha! :D

I agree.

Come on people, we are suppose to like the music not hate it.

Flood was like quite a many TMBG fans my first. With 19 songs it's a good mix of quality and quantity.

We got trolled into this topic, people.

Though of course there is nothing wrong with anyone disliking an album or song (hate is a little strong for this topic isn't it?)

I myself am not a huge fan of John Henry, though I have nothing specifically bad to say about it. It contains some songs I very much like, but for some reason as an album its not really up there for me. I suspect its more related my experiences at the time it came out than anything to do with musicianship or sounds.

But anyhoo, I'm going to post stuff in a topic about the ABCs. I just got round to them. Late learner, you see.

Side A of Flood is great :)
(showing my age that I originally owned it on vinyl)
The B side wasn't as much fun to listen to over and over and over and over and over and over and over.... better stop there, you get the jist.

Apollo18 is my fave album, both sides.

I didnt like John Henry and as such I found the next few albums too different from their early stuff.

But I really like 'Stalk of Wheat' on Spine :)