John Flansburgh (guitar) and John Linnell (accordion, keyboards, and saxophone) created, with They Might Be Giants, one of the most colorful sagas in rock music. Their songs resembled the kind of tunes made for decades, but were infused with a humor and eccentricity that drew on operetta, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and the blandest bubblegum pop. Their art is a playful incursion of the off-Broadway theater subculture into the “high” culture of Greenwich Village lofts, blending everyday Brooklyn life (the neighborhood where they grew up) with the classics of Mark Twain. Each of the two embodies an improbable fusion of the provincial musichall idiot savant and the eccentric intellectual of the British nobility.

By the late 1970s, Flansburgh and Linnell were writing for the same Boston newspaper. Linnell later played for a long time with the Mundanes before moving to New York’s Lower East Side, where he reunited with his old writing partner. The two young men began performing live and, above all, recording privately on a 4-track recorder. Being only two, they had to invent increasingly creative ways of keeping time, employing drum machines, tape loops, synthesizers, and all sorts of percussion. Their collage technique and satirical approach were directly influenced by the Residents, though their results quickly diverged. Flansburgh and Linnell’s cultural roots lay in popular music, not in the avant-garde.

They Might Be Giants (Bar/None, 1986), which collects material previously released on cassette the year before, is a treasure trove of musical ideas worthy of the early records of Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren, and sometimes of the Bonzo Band, but played with the pop instinct of Alex Chilton. Each song is, first and foremost, a joke—sometimes satirical toward the American lifestyle, other times broadly reflecting the human condition (the grand choral quadrille Hope That I Get Hold Before I Die, a parody of Townshend’s philosophy). To reinforce the irony of the lyrics, the music is arranged in paradoxical ways, often using very minimal means: a harpsichord counterpoints the sweeping “cavatina” of Everything Right Is Wrong Again, trombone and tambourines accompany the rustic march of Number Three, and harmonica and accordion enliven the exotic novelty of 32 Footsteps. Catchy choruses, comical vocal registers, old-fashioned genres, and sudden tempo changes underscore the farce. When the band even tries to create an atmosphere (Absolutely Bill's Mood, Alienation's For The Rich), it results in hilarious parodies of country music.

The sketches with a more modern sound are also those most clearly inspired by contemporary artists and genres: the sparkling Prince-style soul-pop of Put Your Head Inside The Puppet Head, the angry Costello-style speech of Youth Culture Killed My Dog, Gary Glitter’s decadent boogie in Hotel Detective, and the melodic funk of the Talking Heads in Don't Let's Start, one of their classics.

At times solemn and martial, at times clownish and playful, They Might Be Giants mix beat, doo-wop, ragtime, polka, hard rock, vaudeville, folk ballads, soul ballads, country and western, blues, and hip hop with childlike frenzy, raiding the repertoire of more than one star. Their music is born at the intersection of Monty Python humor, animated cartoons, and surrealist paintings.

The EP Don't Let's Start inaugurated in 1987 the quirky tradition of putting on an EP not the leftovers but almost the best of their repertoire, from the Monkees-style bubblegum chorus of We're The Replacements to the drowsy waltz of When It Rains It Snows, triumphing in the breakneck polka of The Famous Polka, one of the most monumental sillinesses in rock history, destined to remain a staple of their live shows.

From the 1988 EP The Hotel Detective, at least the parody of rock operas in Science is worth saving.

On the other hand, the chorus of Now That I Have Everything and the folk ballad Greek #3 remained unreleased for years, yet they are more than worthy of their albums.

Lincoln (Restless, 1988) is even more carefully arranged and eclectic in material selection, although perhaps a little less iconoclastic in satirizing bourgeois conventions. Alongside the classics are a series of march-time nursery rhymes inspired by country music, such as Cowtown and the driving quadrille of Ana Ng (destined to remain one of their classics). Some of the pop-song sketches, like They'll Need a Crane and Santa's Beard, sound a bit forced, as their music is too “normalized” to match the mischievousness of the lyrics. The duo, however, references salsa (World's Address), zydeco (Piece Of Dirt), and yodeling (Mr Me) to expand their horizons.
The album especially marks the duo’s transition from brilliant musichall clowns to professional studio artists. Catchy, rhythmic choruses and crisp production transform songs originally written as jokes, like Purple Toupee, into potential hits.
Testament to their compositional genius are also surreal miniatures such as Lie Still Little Bottle, sung a cappella with finger snaps, Cage & Aquarium, for choir, jaw harp, and drum, and Stand On Your Own Head, a comical trot-style ragtime.

Their cheerful nonsense saga continued with the intricately woven mosaic of Flood (Elektra, 1990), ranging from the overwhelming garage-rock of Twisting, reaching melodic heights in the epic surf of Birdhouse In Your Soul (one of their masterpieces) and the ska quadrille of We Want A Room, always moving between country & western (Lucky Ball And Chain) and Tex-Mex (Your Racist Friend, another of their classics), a ragged reggae (Hearing Aid) and wild swing (Hot Cha), a pub chorale (Women And Me) and a TV short (They Might Be Giants). Their strength remains in novelty songs, intricate slapstick worthy of absurdist comedy: the doo-wop with Gypsy/Greek/Turkish rhythm of Instanbul, complete with violin, accordion, and brass; the drowsy swampy Cajun with a ballroom-style sax solo in Particle Man; the operatic “idiot-song” in the style of a village band, in the best Zappa tradition, in Whistling In The Dark.

The simple Jonathan Richman-style ballads of It's Not My Birthday and Hey Mr DJ, respectively from the EPs They'll Need A Crane and Purple Toupee, may be worth more than the album tracks themselves.

The first two albums, the remix album Miscellaneous T, the B-sides from the EPs, and about twenty unreleased tracks were anthologized on The Earlier Years (Restless, 1997).

On the album Apollo 18 (Elektra, 1992), the first signs of fatigue can be felt, both in the music and in the lyrics. A curious fact, since this is also their most ambitious album in terms of arrangements.
The group is increasingly less the American version of the Bonzo Band and more an abstract reprocessor of consumer music icons, much like pop-art artists used the icons of consumer society. Just as the latter ended up focusing on Coca-Cola cans, the Giants focus on novelty.
Their parodic, cabaret-style pop pays homage to the tradition of a genre often dismissed, from which rock musicians actually learned a great deal, but it does not add much to history (only I Palindrome I and Dinner Bell stand out); although the twenty “hidden” tracks, each a musical idea of just a few seconds, constitute an impressive display of force from these modern Rodgers & Hammerstein. The duo reaches the peak of their potential when it channels the verve of the Blues Brothers on Dig My Grave and the punch of the Clash on See The Constellation.
If the first album was the work of a pair of street musicians, if Lincoln was a more philosophical reflection on their role as storytellers in a society that no longer needs storytellers, and if Flood was pure fun from two virtuosos, Apollo 18 is their first professional record, where the songs are truly songs, and not metaphors for something else.

The single Why Does The Sun Shine serves as a prelude to the new album, John Henry (Elektra, 1994), which is far less creative than the previous four, despite a lineup that effectively includes bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu), drummer Brian Doherty, and guitarist Robert Quine. The approach is commercial, reminiscent of Destination Moon and Snail Shell, retaining only a veneer of their former humor. The jokes in Subliminal and Thermostat feel too serious, and the quirky arrangements too orderly. A few period reconstructions (Extra Savoir-Faire) and soundtrack parodies (Spy) are not enough to redeem an album that negates the duo’s inventiveness. Perhaps the highlights are No One Knows My Plans, boasting a memorable melody and a retro-style calypso arrangement, and Stomp Box, driven by an irresistible rhythm.
Abandoning their heavyweight collaborators, on Factory Showroom (Elektra, 1996) the duo experiments with funk and disco (S-E-X-X-Y) and with the tight, synthetic pop of the Cars (Metal Detector). A couple of choruses rocket forward on hard-rock guitars (Till My Head Falls Off and especially New York City, punctuated by bells), and the album features at least one chorus worthy of Merseybeat, How Can I Sing Like A Girl. The duo continues pursuing a more serious format, but without abandoning their musichall pantomimes, which ultimately steal the spotlight—not so much XTC vs Adam Ant as The Bells Are Ringing (a pompous theme with operatic soprano counterpoint) and Spiraling Shape (a hybrid of cartoon theme songs and Renaissance sonata).
Still jovial and playful, the duo broadens their horizons and revitalizes their repertoire, but too many riffs and melodies end up feeling like repeated sketches.

John Flansburgh’s solo works, released under the name Mono Puff, are of limited significance. The EP Mono Puff (Hello, 1995) and the album Unsupervised (Rykodisc, 1996) are mostly tributes to the leader’s idols. It's Fun To Steal (Bar None, 1998), with its quirky blend of synth-pop and power-pop, succeeds better and, on the whole, continues the TMBG program of nonsense and kitsch.
Then (Restless, 1997) compiles 72 tracks from the early period. The live album Severe Tire Damage (Restless, 1998) includes the new single Doctor Worm.

The partnership of Flansburgh and Linnell—two of the greatest melodic geniuses in rock history—can be compared to Stanshall/Innes of the Bonzo Band or Partridge/Moulding of XTC. The Giants combine the caustic humor of music hall with the melodic talent of classic pop.

John Linnell recorded his first solo, State Songs (Zoe, 1999), a collection of songs dedicated to states of the USA.

They Might Be Giants returned with Mink Car (Restless, 2001), a compilation of mostly Internet-only released material, and probably their weakest album. A few funny novelties (Hovering Sombrero) are surrounded by nods to hard-rock (Cyclops Rock) and disco-music (Man It's So Loud In Here, the single). The classic style of TMBG gets almost parodied in the inept Boss Of Me.

Dial-A-Song (Rhino, 2002) is a 52-song career anthology.

No (Idlewild, 2002) is an album of music for children, that brings back the similarities with Jonathan Richman (I Am Not Your Broom, I Am a Grocery Bag) and fits well in the original spirit of their music (Violin, Fibber Island, The House at the Top of the Tree).

Preceded by the five-song EP Indestructible Object (Barsuk, 2004), the album The Spine (Zoe, 2004) is a collection of rather faceless songs, with the exception of Experimental Film.

A User's Guide To They Might Be Giants (Elektra, 2005) is a 29-song career retrospective.

They Got Lost (Zoe, 2005) collects leftovers.

Here Come The ABCs (2006) and Here Come The 123s (Disney Sound, 2008) compile children's music; and Here Comes Science (Idlewild, 2009) contains children' music to explain scientific concepts.

The Else (2007) and Join Us (Idlewild, 2011) showed the duo aging with class, dishing out relaxed, witty music for aging yuppies with nonchalance.

Later albums include: Nanobots (2013), Glean (2015), the children's album Why? (2015), Phone Power (2016), I Like Fun (2018), My Murdered Remains (2018), The Escape Team (2018), Book (2021), containing Brontosaurus, and The World Is to Dig (2026).