They Might Be Giants, “Fingertips” – 8.5.01
It was never meant to be listened to in order – in fact, Apollo 18 was designed to be listened to on shuffle. Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that, on a few glorious select occasions, They Might Be Giants used to rock the hell out of the entire 21-track “Fingertips” suite.
And if this doesn’t make your skull ache for more, you don’t understand the FANTASTIC parts about the soon-to-be-stilted early-90s alternative scene – most of which stood on the line between ridiculous and brilliant.
Linnell: “The project was to write a bunch of choruses and nothing else. In other words, I had to restrain myself from writing any other parts of the songs. I wanted a collection of choruses that’s something like what you see on TV late at night, like that old K-Tel commercials. I was thinking about how you know a lot of songs from these ads, but the only part you know is maybe one line, which is half the chorus. And yet they stick in your head in the way a whole song would. in a way, these tiny chips of songs seem complete, because you don’t know the rest of the song.”
Thanks, 1992. I had missed you.