Jodie Foster held two pair, Bach had three of a kind,Gandhi said, "with my full house I will blow your mind."

Sometimes I loose track of what it is that makes me love They Might Be Giants so much. It’s usually some time between album releases when I haven’t listened to them in a while. Then I hear they are releasing something new and I think to myself that it’ll be fun to hear something new from them. Then the something new comes out and I pick it up and I immediately want to go back and listen to all their old stuff instead of listening to the new thing I just got. It happens every time and somewhere in my steady stream of pouring through the TMBG back catalog I’m reminded that it’s the catchiest, most sing-along music in the world and everybody needs something like that in their life. Sure the lyrics are sometimes surreal, existential, and dark but they have a good beat and you can dance to it. And really, isn’t that part of the fun? Anyhow, I always get back to listening to the new album and there hasn’t been one yet where I didn’t get the same giddy feeling from all their previous work.

I can’t think of any TMBG album that I would give a hands-down five star review to, but that has more to do with how prolific the two Johns are. They write for TV shows, TV networks, documentaries, commercials, web sites, and movie soundtracks. They release regular albums, singles, EPs, odds and ends collections, and web-only albums. They have an internet radio streamer, dialasong.com, and a free mp3 mailing list. If these guys concentrated on just a couple of these things at a time they could probably release an album that would completely blow the minds of every TMBG geek in the world simultaneously, myself included. As it is, The Spine was juggled along with all of their other projects and as a result has a lot of great songs, a handful of good songs, and a few that are just okay. That being said, I have never heard a TMBG song that I didn’t like in one way or another. My favorites from this one are "Experimental Film," "Memo to Human Resources," "Wearing a Raincoat," "It’s Kickin’ In," "Au Contraire," and "Damn Good Times. "