Oblique Strategies: Pop Music with a (Mobius Strip) Twist

This article was originally published in 1997.

They Might Be Giants: Factory Showroom
Elektra 1862-2

Lee Feldman: Living It All Wrong
Pure 003642540-2AD

This time around, here's a look at two albums that approach pop music from decidedly different and off-center perspectives. Two albums, Factory Showroom by longtime cult favorites They Might Be Giants, and Living It All Wrong by newcomer Lee Feldman, that bear little resemblance to each other as well as to the pustulence that passes for pop music these days, but share a common trait: they are both utterly brilliant records.

I don't know about you, but I've had it up to here with the malignant mediocrity that is pop music circa 1997, both on and off the airwaves. "Alternative" bands goose-stepping in their march to conformity, right down to the distortion and EQ settings on their amplifiers. Affected female singers that bludgeon you with their self-proclaimed sensitivity. Egocentric rappers spewing out their caricatured braggadickio. And the shi—er, the stuff they play on the radio—really, I never thought it could get this bad. But every now and again, albums come along that make you sit up and go, "yeah!"

In the case of They Might Be Giants' Factory Showroom, it was more like jumping up an down in sheer unbridled manic glee. Man, I love this album! I haven't been so excited about an album in a long time (the album was released around last December). The songs are, without exception, utterly brilliant, wry, off-the-wall observations about any number of conventional and bizarre subjects, from a thrilling new love ("New York City") to happily searching for buried metal treasure ("Metal Detector") to a tongue-in-cheek musical American History lesson ("James K. Polk"). Who can resist sentiments such as those expressed in "Till My Head Falls Off": "Don't interrupt me as I struggle to complete this thought/Have some respect for someone more forgetful than yourself!" Or a lyric like, "How can I sing like a girl/And not be stigmatized by the rest of world?"

John Linnell, and John Flansburgh, the brains behind They Might Be Giants, have been crafting songs with irresistible melodies, clever arrangements and uniquely witty, clever, fun lyrics since 1986, and Factory Showroom might be their best album yet. Aided in no small part by the other musicians enlisted for the recording—the tasteful, propulsive drumming of Brian Doherty, the avant-guitar stylings of Eric Schermerhorn, and the kinetic bottom-end power of Graham Maby on bass (the man who kicked Joe Jackson's first few albums into overdrive—remember the beginning of "Look Sharp"?). Every song is a glittering gem.

Musically, that is, not sonically. Factory Showroom was recorded in five different studios, so there's no way it could be sonically consistent. (Why do bands do that? It's enough of a pain in the butt just getting it right in one studio. . . .) In fact, a few of the songs, such as "How Can I Sing Like A Girl?" (men, haven't you always wondered?) and "XTC Vs. Adam Ant" (who else would even think of a song such as this, debating the musical merits of the two and coming to no conclusion whatsoever?) suffer from a slightly too thin EQ with slightly-too-bright vocals and a truncated bottom end, along with a flat soundstage and an overall mix that is somewhat opaque, with fine musical details obscured (though individual, well-recorded sounds such as chimes, violins and pianos jump out all over the place on this record—there's even a spooky, moaning musical saw in "James K. Polk"). And the overall EQ and mix vary considerably on some tracks.

So why is this recording reviewed here?

Because the songs that are mixed well sound incredible. Take the slinky, slithering leadoff track, "S-E-X-X-Y." Every vocal and instrument is recorded with superb clarity. The electric bass and drums have terrific bottom end weight and transient "snap," the lead and background vocals have excellent presence, the acoustic instruments—strings, horns, percussion—sound remarkably "real" and unprocessed, and the overall mix, a kaleidoscopic blend of everything from a beautifully-recorded string quartet to squalling guitars and sprawling synths, "breathes" like an organic entity, with extraordinary depth, frequency extension and dynamic power. Not to mention, it rocks! Why wasn't this song a monster hit? There's no justice in radioland.

Or how about "Exquisite Dead Guy?" The opening vocal harmonies are beautifully recorded, the electric bass is huge, the harp is gorgeous in its subtle, plucky detail, and the cello is rich and warm (though the boys couldn't resist running it through a tremolo unit at points)—the juxtaposition of the gorgeous, sumptuous sound and the disturbing lyrics (a dead guy hanging on a hook outside the window?) is the stuff of genius. The synth sounds on "Metal Detector" are, well, fabulous. The intro to "Spiraling Shape" is an airy, dreamy blend of drums, vocals and vibes. And "Pet Name" is simply stunning—ravishing melody and chord changes, fat, meaty bass, taut, crisp snare drum, lush organ, crystalline piano, cymbals that are just perfectly placed in the wide-open mix—even the electric rhythm guitar sounds remarkably realistic. There are many more sonic high points, and it's almost pointless to talk about the musical high points, because, truly, there aren't any low points.

Ultimately, the song "I Can Hear You" puts it all into perspective—not just the album, but all of modern recorded music. "I Can Hear You" was recorded without electricity on an 1898 Edison wax cylinder phonograph at the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey. The surface noise is half as loud as the music, the vocals break up badly on loud peaks, there's no bass or treble, the pitch wavers and everything is distorted. The lyrics are barely intelligible (an inspired in-joke—you can barely hear the vocalist singing, "I can just barely hear you." Then the fairly-well-recorded closing song, "The Bells Are Ringing," comes in, and sounds by comparison as if the sonic heavens have opened. All this reviewer hair-splitting over this and that aspect of sound quality is trivial, relatively speaking, when you think about the fact that the fidelity and clarity of today's sound reproduction, however imperfect, is as good as it is, and that we are fortunate enough to live in an age where we can hear great music and great artists in sound that does them justice. Especially when it's in the service of albums as musically extraordinary as Factory Showroom.

From a different musical parallel universe comes Lee Feldman and Living It All Wrong. Sounding like the New Yorker he is, Feldman's adenoidal, edgy, voice is the perfect vehicle for his songs, wrought from a world-weary, worldly wise, yet understanding, compassionate perspective. The title track could be an anthem for so many modern lives: "I talked to Rebecca on the phone last night/I made her feel bad when she was feeling all right./And I don't see an end in sight/I've been living it all wrong." Feldman's songs sound like no one else's, though the feeling I get from hearing them takes me back to the late Sixties/early Seventies and the emotions evoked by singer-songwriters like Randy Newman (to whom the promo notes compare Feldman, not accurately) and Tim Hardin. The album's piano-electric bass-drums instrumentation, with spicings of percussion, strings and organ, provide the perfect backdrop—spacious, open, just-right-an electric guitar would just clutter the stark beauty and elegance of the arrangements. Feldman's melodies insinuate themselves into your mind, his chord structures and piano playing are unique and inventive, and the bassist and drummer provide immaculate, sympathetic musical support.

My friends, I don't have to be equivocal about the sound on this disc—it is absolutely stunning. Don't be fooled by the intro piece, "Stride In"—it's deliberately lower-fi, a setup for the sonic magnificence of the rest of the album. The piano is gorgeously recorded, with superb attack, decay, body and presence. The electric fretless bass is almost acoustic-sounding in its richness, depth and harmonic definition. The drums are pristine, and although panned too widely, the panning works in the context of the overall mix, adding scale and scope to the overall sound. Feldman's voice is recorded straight-up, with no reverb or studio effects whatsoever, save for the slight natural presence peak of the vocal mike. In fact, it sounds as if no processing, limiting, compression or EQ was used for any of the sounds on this recording, and the dynamic range and frequency balance are superlative. Needless to say, you can hear every musical nuance and detail, from the individual jingles in a tambourine to the distinctive upper-harmonic "growl" of the fretless electric bass. The mixes are wonderfully balanced (although the piano and strings are pushed hard left or right on a couple of cuts). The string sound is ravishing.

Where did this jewel come from? No recording information is given. In fact, the other musicians aren't even listed! As a responsible reviewer (I'd like to think so, anyway), I should find out, but somehow, I don't want to—I want the mystery and magic of this album not to be tainted in my mind by finding out that they recorded it in blah-blah-blah studio with such-and-such mikes and so on. I prefer simply to wallow in the always riveting, sometimes ravishing music, smile at the sentiments of Feldman's oblique, knowing, dead-on lyrics, and bask in the sheer sonic beauty of the recording. I could go on and on, but, listening to Living It All Wrong in the background as I'm writing this, words ultimately fail me. Simply one of the most magnificent albums I've ever heard.