They Might Be Giants discography | |
---|---|
Studio albums | 23 |
Live albums | 11 |
Compilation albums | 12 |
Video albums | 7 |
EPs | 15 |
Singles | 30 |
The following is a discography of They Might Be Giants (TMBG), an American alternative rock band comprising several artists including John Flansburgh, John Linnell, Marty Beller, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkauf. The band's first release was the November 4, 1986 eponymously titled They Might Be Giants , but TMBG did not gain commercial success until their March 1990 single "Birdhouse in Your Soul" from the album Flood . "Birdhouse in Your Soul" reached #3 on the United States Modern Rock Tracks chart and #6 on the UK Singles Chart and remains their highest-charting single in both countries. Over the next two decades, They Might Be Giants released studio albums on a near-biennial fashion and currently have a total of 23 studio albums along with 11 live albums, 12 compilation albums, 15 extended plays and 30 singles.
Year | Title | Chart peaks | Certifications (sales thresholds) | Notes | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US [1] | US Alt [2] | US Kids [3] | US Indie [4] | US Rock [5] | AUS [6] | UK [7] | ||||
1986 | They Might Be Giants | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| |
1988 | Lincoln
| 89 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
1990 | Flood
| 75 | — | — | — | — | 99 | 14 |
| |
1992 | Apollo 18
| 99 | — | — | — | — | 59 | — | ||
1994 | John Henry
| 61 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| |
1996 | Factory Showroom
| 89 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
1999 | Long Tall Weekend
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| |
2001 | Mink Car
| 134 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
2002 | No!
| — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — |
| |
2004 | The Spine
| 130 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
2005 | Here Come the ABCs
| — | — | 6 | — | — | — | — |
| |
2007 | The Else
| 118 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| |
2008 | Here Come the 123s
| 172 | — | 9 | — | — | — | — |
| |
2009 | Here Comes Science
| 91 | 23 | 4 | — | 34 | — | — |
| |
2011 | Join Us
| 32 | 8 | — | 8 | 8 | — | — |
| |
2013 | Nanobots
| 57 | 13 | — | 10 | 19 | — | — | ||
2015 | Glean
| 67 | 6 | — | 5 | 7 | — | — |
| |
Why?
| 181 | 12 | — | 6 | 15 | — | — |
| ||
2016 | Phone Power
| 122 | 8 | — | 11 | 14 | — | — |
| |
2018 | I Like Fun
| 108 | 8 | — | 3 | 17 | — | — |
| |
My Murdered Remains
| — [upper-alpha 1] | — | — | 9 | — | — | — |
| ||
The Escape Team
| — [upper-alpha 2] | — | — | 10 | — | — | — |
| ||
2021 | Book
| 88 | 7 | — | 14 | 10 | — | — |
Year | Title | Chart peaks | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
US [1] | |||
1994 | Live!! New York City 10/14/94
| — |
|
1998 | Severe Tire Damage
| 186 |
|
1999 | Live
| — |
|
2004 | The Spine Hits the Road
| — |
|
Almanac
| — |
| |
Venue Songs
| — |
| |
2012 | At Large
| — |
|
2014 | First Album Live!
| — |
|
2015 | Flood Live In Australia
| — |
|
2016 | Live in Brooklyn
| — |
|
2018 | TMBG Live 2018
| — |
|
Year | Title | Chart peaks | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
US Current [10] | US Indie [4] | |||
1989 | Don't Let's Start
| — | — |
|
1991 | Miscellaneous T | — | — |
|
1997 | Then: The Earlier Years
| — | — |
|
1999 | Best of the Early Years
| — | — |
|
2002 | They Got Lost
| — | — |
|
Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants
| — | — |
| |
2005 | A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants
| — | — |
|
Venue Songs DVD/CD
| — | — |
| |
2011 | Album Raises New and Troubling Questions
| — | — |
|
2014 | Idlewild
| — | — |
|
2018 | John Henry Demos
| 91 | 12 |
|
2020 | Modern
| — | — |
|
Year | Title | Chart peaks |
---|---|---|
US Indie [4] | ||
1993 | Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)
| — |
1994 | Back to Skull
| — |
2000 | Working Undercover for the Man
| — |
2001 | They Might Be Giants In...Holidayland
| — |
2003 | Bed, Bed, Bed
| — |
2004 | Indestructible Object
| 36 |
The Spine Surfs Alone
| — | |
2011 | Other Thing Brass Band
| — |
Cave Fish/Tesla
| — | |
2012 | Four Covers
| — |
Reptiles/Head in a Suitcase
| — | |
2013 | Nanobots EP
| — |
For Kids
| — | |
2016 | Songs for Chop
| — |
2021 | Pamphlet EP
| — |
Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Alt. [12] | AUS [6] | NLD [13] | UK [14] | ||||
"Don't Let's Start" | 1987 | — | 94 | — | — | They Might Be Giants | |
"(She Was A) Hotel Detective" | 1988 | — | — | — | — | ||
"Ana Ng" | 11 | — | — | — | Lincoln | ||
"They'll Need a Crane" | 1989 | — | — | — | — | ||
"Purple Toupee" | — | — | — | — | |||
"Birdhouse in Your Soul" | 1990 | 3 | 125 | — | 6 |
| Flood |
"Twisting" | 22 | — | — | — | |||
"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" | — | — | — | 61 | |||
"The Statue Got Me High" | 1992 | 24 | 155 | — | 92 | Apollo 18 | |
"The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)" | — | — | — | — | |||
"I Palindrome I" | — | — | — | — | |||
"O Tannenbaum" | 1993 | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"Snail Shell" | 1994 | 19 | — | — | — | John Henry | |
"S-E-X-X-Y" | 1996 | — | — | — | — | Factory Showroom | |
"Doctor Worm" | 1998 | — | — | — | — | Severe Tire Damage | |
"Boss of Me" | 2001 | — | 29 | 89 | 21 | Music from Malcolm in the Middle | |
"Man, It's So Loud in Here" | — | 86 | — | — | Mink Car | ||
"Experimental Film" | 2005 | — | — | — | — | The Spine | |
"T-Shirt" | 2005 | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"I'm Impressed" | 2007 | — | — | — | — | The Else | |
"Can't Keep Johnny Down" | 2011 | — | — | — | — | Join Us | |
"Never Knew Love" | — | — | — | — | |||
"Cloisonné" | — | — | — | — | |||
"Old Pine Box" | — | — | — | — | |||
"You're on Fire" | 2013 | — | — | — | — | Nanobots | |
"Erase" | 2015 | — | — | — | — | Glean | |
"I Left My Body" | 2017 | — | — | — | — | I Like Fun | |
"The Communists Have The Music" | 2018 | — | — | — | — | My Murdered Remains | |
"I Lost Thursday" | 2020 | — | — | — | — | BOOK | |
"Who are the Electors?" | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | ||
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. |
Year | Title | Certifications (sales thresholds) |
---|---|---|
1999 | Direct from Brooklyn | |
2003 | Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
| |
2005 | Here Come the ABCs
|
|
Venue Songs DVD/CD
| ||
2008 | Here Come the 123s
|
|
2009 | Here Comes Science
|
|
2012 | Them Ain't Big Eye Ants
| |
2015 | Live in Berlin [16]
|
The band has released 25 main music videos for songs from their rock albums. [17] All of their children's albums have also included video content or run alongside DVD releases. The band also has videos for each of the Dial-A-Song tracks from 2015 and 2018 on their main YouTube channel, ParticleMen.
In 1999, They Might Be Giants released Direct from Brooklyn , a VHS compilation of their music videos from 1986 up to that point. It was reissued on DVD in 2003. The following music videos were included:
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 musical duo, often accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG expanded to include a backing band. The duo's current backing band consists of Marty Beller, Dan Miller and Danny Weinkauf. They have been credited as vital in the creation and growth of the prolific DIY music scene in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s.
Flood is the third studio album by Brooklyn-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, released in January 1990. Flood was the duo's first album on the major label Elektra Records. It generated three singles: "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "Istanbul ", 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 and Alan Winstanley. John Linnell and John Flansburgh also took advantage of new equipment and recording techniques, including unconventional, home-recorded samples, which were programmed through Casio FZ-1 synthesizers. The album was recorded in New York City at Skyline Studios, which was better equipped than studios the band had worked in previously.
Earth, Wind & Fire is an American band whose music spans the genres of jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, pop, Latin, and Afro-pop. They are among the best-selling bands of all time, with sales of over 90 million records worldwide.
They Might Be Giants, sometimes called The Pink Album, is the debut studio album from Brooklyn-based band They Might Be Giants. It was released by Bar/None in 1986. The album generated two singles, "Don't Let's Start" and "(She Was A) Hotel Detective". It is included on Then: The Earlier Years, a compilation of the band's early material, in its entirety, with the exception of "Don't Let's Start", which is replaced with the single mix for the compilation.
John Henry is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock group They Might Be Giants. It was released in 1994. It is the first album by They Might Be Giants to include a full band arrangement, rather than synthesized and programmed backing tracks. The album's name, a reference to the man versus machine fable of John Henry, is an allusion to the band's fundamental switch to more conventional instrumentation, especially the newly established use of a human drummer instead of a drum machine.
"Ana Ng" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released as the lead single from the band's 1988 album Lincoln. Although the song was their first US chart appearance, hitting #11 on the US Modern Rock chart, the single was never officially released in the US. It was only released for promotional purposes in the US, and it saw official releases in 1989 in the United Kingdom, Australia, and later, in 1991, in Europe.
John Conant Flansburgh 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.
Apollo 18 is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants. It was released in 1992 through Elektra Records and was named after the cancelled Apollo 18 mission that was scheduled to have followed Apollo 17. The album was also associated with International Space Year, for which They Might Be Giants were declared the official "musical ambassadors" by NASA.
Indestructible Object is the sixth EP by They Might Be Giants, released through Barsuk Records on April 6, 2004.
"Boss of Me" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. The song is famously used as the opening theme song for the television show Malcolm in the Middle, and was released as the single from the soundtrack to the show. In 2002, "Boss of Me" won the band their first Grammy Award, in the category of Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The song was one of the band's most commercially successful singles and is one of their best-known songs. The song was originally written with the chorus "Who's gonna guess the dead guy in the envelope" for a contest presented by the Preston and Steve show during their Y-100 days.
"Birdhouse in Your Soul" is a song by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released in early 1990 through Elektra Records as the lead single from the album Flood, making the single the band's first release on a major label. "Birdhouse in Your Soul" is the band's highest-charting single in both the US and the UK, and is one of their best-known songs.
"(She Was A) Hotel Detective" is a song and single by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released as a single on May 5, 1988, two years after the release of They Might Be Giants, the album on which it originally appeared. The "Hotel Detective" title has become a somewhat recurring theme for the band.
"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 been released as a single. John Linnell and John Flansburgh performed the song, backed by a metronome, for their 1990 Flood promotional video. Although it was released over a decade before the band began writing children's music, "Particle Man" is sometimes cited as a particularly youth-appropriate TMBG song, and a precursor to their first children's album, No!, which was not explicitly educational. The song is partially influenced by the theme of the 1967 Spider-Man TV series.
A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants is a 2005 compilation album by the group They Might Be Giants.
"You Don't Know Me" is a song written by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker in 1955. "You Don't Know Me" was first recorded by Arnold that year and released as a single on April 21, 1956, on RCA Victor. The best-selling version of the song is by Ray Charles, who took it to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962, after releasing the song on his number 1 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. The first version of the song to make the Billboard charts was by Jerry Vale in 1956, peaking at number 14 on the pop chart. Arnold's version charted two months later, released as an RCA Victor single, 47–6502, backed with "The Rockin' Mockin' Bird", which reached number 10 on the Billboard country chart. Cash Box magazine, which combined all best-selling versions at one position, included a version by Carmen McRae that never appeared in the Billboard Top 100 Sides listing.
Brian Doherty is an American drummer, singer-songwriter, composer, music producer, and educator based in New York City. After starting his career as a member of the rock bands The Silos and They Might Be Giants, he has also worked with artists such as XTC, Freedy Johnston, and Ben Folds and contributed to movie soundtracks. As of 2014 he has released three albums of royalty-free drum tracks for songwriters, and in 2012 released his debut solo project, Treat + Release.
Danny Weinkauf is a Grammy-winning New York–based musician and composer. He has been the longtime bassist for They Might Be Giants (TMBG). He has recorded and toured with the band since the late 1990s. Weinkauf had previously performed in a band called Lincoln along with TMBG's guitarist Dan Miller and drummer Gonzalo Martinez De La Cotera. He has written four songs for TMBG, all for their children's albums. Weinkauf wrote and sang "Where Do They Make Balloons?" on the children's album No!, "Number Two" from Here Come The 123s, "I Am a Paleontologist" from Here Comes Science, and "Elephants" from Why? He also played bass alongside bandmate John Flansburgh for his solo project Mono Puff, in addition to providing additional bass on John Linnell's State Songs album. In 2014 Weinkauf began releasing albums for children and families as "Danny Weinkauf". That year he released "No School Today" followed by "Red Pants Band" (2016), "Totally Osome!" (2017), "Inside I Shine" (2018), "Dinosaurs and Metaphors" (2020), "Words" (2021), "lullabies" (2022) and "Light Up Your Love" (2023). The later 7 albums were all released on his own label Red Pants Music except "Words". He performs live as 'Danny Weinkauf and his Red Pants Band' with Tina Kenny Jones on bass, keyboards, and vocals, Steven Plesnarski on drums and vocals, and Russ Jones on guitar, bass, vocals, and ukulele. His eight albums have received numerous awards and frequent rotation on kids radio such as Sirius XM's Kids Place Live.
Direct from Brooklyn is a compilation of music videos by American alternative rock group They Might Be Giants. It was released on VHS in 1999 and DVD in 2003. The title refers to the home of John Linnell and John Flansburgh, founding members of the band. Many of the music videos were filmed in Brooklyn and other parts of New York City.
The discography of American band The Donnas consists of 7 studio albums, 2 compilations and numerous singles and appearances on various other media.
"Snail Shell" is a song by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released on August 15, 1994 as the lead promotional single off of their fifth album, John Henry. It peaked at 19 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. This was a commercial disappointment for the band, as the song was perceived by the band as having the potential to be as successful as their breakthrough hit, Birdhouse in Your Soul. The day after the single's release, the group put out the E.P. Back to Skull, which features the song along with a version remixed by The Dust Brothers entitled "Snail Dust".
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