With vocals often as high and nasally as Urkel, and lyrics about subjects as eclectic as lighthouses and the 1964 World's Fair, They Might Be Giants is far from the coolest rock band out there. The musicians are often considered kings of "geek rock," a loosely-defined and trivializing label given to many a skinny white dude with glasses and a guitar. Yet however nerdy the band seems, TMBG has been a consistent favorite of mine since middle school. Such taste is not typical of today's collegiate audiophile, who listens to music played by indie hipsters epitomizing today's definition of "cool." And while I can appreciate an artist who cultivates a good image, I believe the "anti-cool" musician is the most sincere and soul-bearing form of artist.
Upon first hearing the song "This Must Be the Place (Nave Melody)" by Talking Heads, I quickly decided it was my favorite love song. In it I heard one of the most simple and honest portrayals of love ever captured in music. I knew enough about this anti-cool band to know that a love song was not its usual fare, and I knew enough about love songs to know that this one was unusual and uncool. As esoteric songwriter David Byrne admits, they lyrics are simply a string of non-sequiturs, and it may be Byrne's only real love song out of a catalogue spanning 30 years. In the concert film "Stop Making Sense," Byrne performs the song to a standing lamp on stage. That the object of his affection is a lamp rather than a person is both strange and honest it would have felt contrived and insincere had he fabricated some woman to be the song's subject. In the same film, Byrne says he usually does not cover the subject of love because it is "kind of big." In a world full of musicians who strain to create a sense of "real emotion," it takes true openness in an artist to create an album forwardly and un-hiply titled "More Songs About Buildings and Food."
And then there are the rockers who are so geekily unhip that they transcend the standard criteria of coolness to become some of the coolest rock stars there are. Bespectacled white boy Ben Folds has achieved rock star status in his 20-year career, and has nerded out by producing albums for William Shatner and collaborating with Weird Al Yankovic. John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats writes songs about H.P. Lovecraft and Judy Garland, and sings in a nasally tone similar to that of TMBG. Jonathan Richman has written songs about various painters throughout history and has distanced himself from hippie and drug cultures since the '70s.
Watch any of these performers on stage and you come to understand them as individuals rather than affected personas exemplifying what is hip and cool at the time. When Folds sings about his girlfriend's abortion or Darnielle sings about seeking refuge from his abusive stepfather in the company of a girl named Cathy or Richman sings about his desire for a girlfriend, they are among the most effective proclamations of "real emotion" because the artists have proven to be honest and real in their songs about everything else.
If an artist seems to forego "real emotions" for miscellaneous subject matter, one cannot dismiss the artist as being dishonest or out of touch with his or her feelings. Rather, we should consider it admirable for an artist to care not for what a song should be about, but for what the musician wants to sing. And isn't complete disregard for what people think the epitome of rock and roll? Isn't "anti-cool" the epitome of cool?
