Severe Tire Damage (album)

Last updated
Severe Tire Damage
TheyMightBeGiants-SevereTireDamage.jpg
Live album by
ReleasedAugust 11, 1998
Recorded1994–1998
Genre Alternative rock
Label Restless (U.S.)
Cooking Vinyl (U.K.)
They Might Be Giants chronology
Then: The Earlier Years
(1997)
Severe Tire Damage
(1998)
Live
(1999)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [3]
The Village Voice B+ [4]

Severe Tire Damage is a primarily live album by They Might Be Giants, released in 1998. It also features a few studio tracks, including a new single ("Doctor Worm").

Contents

The live cuts, some recorded at soundchecks without any audience, feature at least one track from every album since their debut, which include a few old fan favorites that have been reworked since the duo adopted a full backing band. Songs like "She's an Angel", from their debut, They Might Be Giants , and "Birdhouse in Your Soul", from their major label debut, Flood , are treated to multiple guitars and a horn section. Conversely, the song "Meet James Ensor" originally appeared on their first full band effort, John Henry (1994) and surfaces here in a bare-bones rendition, with only vocals and an accordion.

Besides the aforementioned lack of an audience on several tracks, some tracks have also undergone studio "retooling" - most notably, "Ana Ng," which appeared in its untampered form (with an uncropped intro and without a heavily distorted voice saying, "I don't want the world...") on the 1994 promo-only release "Live!! New York City."

A condensed version of this album was released as Live , which featured 10 of the 24 tracks listed here.

Song notes

Song origins

Track listing

All songs by They Might Be Giants unless otherwise noted. Tracks 18 - 24 are hidden tracks.

  1. "Doctor Worm" – 3:01
  2. "Severe Tire Damage Theme" – 0:40
  3. "They Got Lost" – 3:42
  4. "Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" (Hy Zaret)– 2:17
  5. "Birdhouse in Your Soul" – 3:12
  6. "She's An Angel" – 3:20
  7. "XTC vs. Adam Ant" – 3:39
  8. "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" (Nat Simon/Jimmy Kennedy)– 3:07
  9. "Ana Ng" – 3:00
  10. "First Kiss" – 1:36
  11. "Spider" – 0:53
  12. "Particle Man" – 2:09
  13. "She's Actual Size" – 2:18
  14. "S-E-X-X-Y" – 3:06
  15. "Meet James Ensor" – 1:30
  16. "Till My Head Falls Off" – 2:54
  17. "About Me" – 3:01 (actual track stops at 0:41 and is followed by 2:20 of silence)
  18. "Planet of the Apes" - 2:35
  19. "Return to the Planet of the Apes" – 2:46
  20. "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" – 1:40
  21. "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" – 1:08
  22. "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" – 1:57
  23. "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" – 2:00
  24. "This Ape's for You" – 1:13

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References

  1. Prato, Greg. "They Might Be Giants - Severe Tire Damage". AllMusic . Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  2. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Omnibus Press. ISBN   9780857125958.
  3. Brackett, Nathan; Christian Hoard (2004). The Rolling Stone Album Guide . New York City, New York: Simon and Schuster. p.  808. ISBN   0-7432-0169-8. rolling stone they might be giants album guide.
  4. Christgau, Robert (1999-02-23). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 2018-12-02.