Editor's Note: For the next 10 weeks, I'll be writing occasional posts about the 10 records that played a role in shaping my music taste. Underscore on the word occasional.
Flood
When I was 13, I laid down some hard-earned babysitting money on a record that I can say saved me from commercial radio’s death rattle in the early 1990s. Looking back, I place both blame and credit on They Might Be Giant’s Flood for a lot of choices - musical and otherwise - that I’d make in the coming years.
Setting up a pattern that I’d carry with me well into adulthood, I purchased Flood because I had a bad crush on a boy who was a big They Might Be Giants fan. He seemed witty and sharp, so whatever he was into, I wanted a piece of.
The first time I plunked the tape into the player, I remember being somewhat disappointed and turned off by the nasal whine of the Johns’ vocals. But I faithfully listened and re-listened to it. Eventually, it got in, and I played the tape so many times that I wore it down to a warble of sound in some places. It is the only album to this day that I can tell you with 100 percent certainty what the opening lyrics are (“Why is the world in love again?” if you care).
Flood spoke to me. Like all 13 year olds, I felt wildly misunderstood. I wanted out of the suburbs, and They Might Be Giants seemed to offer a window into some impossibly hip post-punk Brooklyn arts scene that I was convinced I’d want to be a part of as soon as I could flee Herndon. To be into TMBG at that time was to zag against the cultural zeitgeist, which was definitely zigging toward either grunge or boy bands.
In the 2002 documentary Gigantic, either Sarah Vowel or Ira Glass (can’t remember who) describe how clever you think you are as a teenager being a fan of TMBG, getting into their obscure references and witty wordplay. And that is exactly what I thought. It was very self-satisfying to be into something that a relatively small group of people liked. On a related note, I have always had a tremendous soft spot in my heart for geeky guys who can make me laugh. I blame that fully on this album.
I haven’t listened to Flood in years, but to leave it off my top 10 list would be a disservice to my former self. Like most fans of TMBG, you eventually grow up, realize they are a gimmick band and grow past them. And with that, the smug teenager inside of you who values the clever and the obscure above all else dies a little death.
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