Apollo 18

Apollo 18
Studio album by They Might Be Giants
Released	March 24, 1992
Recorded	March 1991
Genre	Experimental Rock
Length	42:37
Label	Elektra Records
Producer	They Might Be Giants
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Rolling Stone link
They Might Be Giants chronology
Miscellaneous T (1991) Apollo 18 (1992) The Statue Got Me High (1992)
TMBG studio album chronology
Flood (1990) Apollo 18 (1992) John Henry (1994)

Apollo 18 is They Might Be Giants' fourth studio album. It was released in 1992 and named after the Apollo missions, the last of which was Apollo 17.

The album marked the first conscious effort by John Linnell and John Flansburgh to branch out of their early sound, opting for more traditional rock rhythms and fuller arrangements. The duo adopted a backing band with live drums during the supporting tour.

Despite its lack of a chart-topping single and somewhat mixed reception from critics, Apollo 18 remains a fan favorite. The group even performed the album in its entirety at a few special shows in 2003.

Song notes and miscellanea

The fabled underwater encounter between the sperm whale and giant squid, from a diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.

• "Fingertips" is a series of twenty-one short tracks ranging in duration from four to sixty-one seconds (although most of them are under fifteen), totaling four minutes and thirty-five seconds. The liner notes, in an apparent reference to these tracks, have the message "The indexing of this disc is designed to complement the Shuffle Mode of modern CD players". Due to a mastering error, the UK and Australian issues of this CD have "Fingertips" as one track, while the U.S. edition has it as twenty-one tracks. The song became somewhat of a TMBG staple, appearing not only on the "Dial-A-Song" greatest hits compilation, but also as a must-play in their live setlists. A possible inspiration for "Fingertips" is The Residents' Commercial Album, an album-long series of very short songs, one of which (the 36th track) is even named "Fingertips."
• "The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)," spawned from a jam session of The Tokens song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and was originally intended to simply be called "The Guitar." Due to the legal ramifications of this, the record label required the band to add the title of the original song to the track.

• "Which Describes How You're Feeling" originally appeared on They Might Be Giant's 1985 demo tape^[1]. This version was later included in Then: The Earlier Years.
• The album's cover depicts a giant squid locked in combat with a sperm whale in space.
• The story for their inclusion as "Musical Ambassadors to International Space Year," as mentioned on the back cover of the album, is as follows: While Linnell and Flansburgh were searching the NASA Archive Center for photographs and visual materials appropriate for the album's cover, staff members at the NASA facility took notice of John and John and inquired about their business in their research. Linnell responded that they "were in this band, we're making this record, and we're going to start touring next year...They were particularly interested in that, because they said that 1992 was International Space Year. It was the first time we ever heard of that, but they said because we were a band going to be touring around the world in 1992 they wondered if we wanted to be spokesband for the International Space Year. So we said why not?”^[2]

Track listing

1. "Dig My Grave" – 1:08
2. "I Palindrome I" – 2:25
3. "She's Actual Size" – 2:05
4. "My Evil Twin" – 2:37
5. "Mammal" – 2:14
6. "The Statue Got Me High" – 3:06
7. "Spider" – 0:50
8. "The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)" – 3:49
9. "Dinner Bell" – 2:11
10. "Narrow Your Eyes" – 2:46
11. "Hall of Heads" – 2:53
12. "Which Describes How You're Feeling" – 1:13
13. "See the Constellation" – 3:27
14. "If I Wasn't Shy" – 1:43
15. "Turn Around" – 2:53
16. "Hypnotist of Ladies" – 1:42
17. "Fingertips: Everything Is Catching On Fire" – 0:12
18. "Fingertips: Fingertips" – 0:06
19. "Fingertips: I Hear the Wind Blow" – 0:10
20. "Fingertips: Hey Now, Everybody" – 0:05
21. "Fingertips: Who's That Standing Out the Window?" – 0:06
22. "Fingertips: I Found a New Friend" – 0:07
23. "Fingertips: Come On and Wreck My Car" – 0:12
24. "Fingertips: Aren't You the Guy Who Hit Me in the Eye?" – 0:07
25. "Fingertips: Please Pass the Milk Please" – 0:08
26. "Fingertips: Leave Me Alone" – 0:05
27. "Fingertips: Who's Knockin' on the Wall?" – 0:04
28. "Fingertips: All Alone" – 0:05
29. "Fingertips: What's That Blue Thing?" – 0:08
30. "Fingertips: Something Grabbed Ahold of My Hand" – 0:12
31. "Fingertips: I Don't Understand You" – 0:27
32. "Fingertips: I Heard a Sound" – 0:04
33. "Fingertips: Mysterious Whisper" – 0:28
34. "Fingertips: The Day That Love Came to Play" – 0:08
35. "Fingertips: I'm Having a Heart Attack" – 0:22
36. "Fingertips: Fingertips (Reprise)" – 0:10
37. "Fingertips: I Walk Along Darkened Corridors" – 1:01
38. "Space Suit" – 1:36

References

1. ^ http://tmbw.net/wiki/1985_Demo_Tape
2. ^ Jackson, Joab. "How They Might Be Giants Became the House Band for NASA." New Route Magazine, May 1992.

External links

• Apollo 18 at This Might Be a Wiki