But that's not the unique part. That's the everyband. Nor is it particularly unique that TMBG are now earning stupid money by making songs for television shows (The Daily Show's theme; Malcolm in the Middle's theme, "Boss of Me," for which they won a Grammy), movies (the second Austin Powers), literary journals (McSweeney's), and advertisements. The band's unique status with regard to today's pop landscape is that they have tran- scended it. Ten years ago, they were beginning to sound to the rest of the entertainment world like the last few ticks on the 15-minute rock fame population clock.
After breaking through with two indie records, TMBG signed to Elektra, which released Flood and Apollo 18, among the band's best and most popular albums, and John Henry, their most "controversial." To explain that controversy requires an introduction to the second factor that makes the band unique: their slavishly devoted fans. In 1994, when John Henry came out, it was the first TMBG record to contain songs that were written for, and played by, a rock band instead of being a combination of found sounds, lo-tech experiments, and the odd guitar and accordion. The cry of heresy came from all quarters: They Might Be taking themselves too seriously. But the fans stuck; such accusations from the band's cult of admirers have been part of every point in TMBG's development since they rewound their first live accompaniment cassette. Honoring that development--on a micro-scale, you could equate it with Dylan's progress from folk to electric (to newborn Christian, to reborn Jew, et al.)--is the focus of Gigantic, one of the best-rendered rock documentaries of all time. Whether you like the band or not, it's hard not to be inspired by their indefatigable, self-contained idiosyncrasy.
Gigantic chronicles the Johns' 20-year journey from a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn to that same one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, only now they're famous and have a Grammy on the wall. In between, we learn, by way of funny interviews with Flansburgh and Linnell, alongside talking-head testimony from devotees like Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, Ira Glass, Frank Black, and Syd Straw, and abundant archival footage, that their response to the attention they receive is amused resignation. Their concern is to communicate a singular musical sensibility to anyone who gets it; they take their music seriously, which confounds people because it seems so whacked out. Beneath the frivolity lurks a complex aesthetic miscegenation, incorporating punk rock, pop, rock 'n' roll, new wave, vaudeville, dance music, hiphop, and show tunes (among other forms).
What Gigantic proves is that the secret to the band's success--which finds them now (punch line of punch lines) at the peak of both their notoriety and creative energy--is self-knowledge. For all the fawning praise, corporate mishandling, and audience preconception thrown their way, John and John understand better than anyone that they are just a rock band, which is both the most and least important thing in the world.
