They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants treat the entire history of popular music as a trampoline rather than a rulebook. Like two pinballs pinging off each other through musical murals stretching into a giddy ether, TMBG moves by ricochet. On their upcoming album The World Is to Dig (due April 14th, 2026, from Idlewild Recordings), the multi- Grammy-winning duo carry on bouncing through the pop multiverse, digging into whatever they find with playful zeal. John Linnell and John Flansburgh continue to fire ideas off one another like particles in a perpetual motion experiment, each collision producing a new angle, a new melodic left turn, resulting in tracks packed with esoteric references, mischievous details, and left-field detours. Untethered from trends, immune to nostalgia, and equally ready to draw from Tin Pan Alley theatrics and contemporary pop culture references, The World Is to Dig is the sound of a band very much in motion; not chasing relevance but generating it on their own terms. That sense of motion is no accident. For Flansburgh, the freedom of They Might Be Giants has always come from refusing to plant a flag in any single approach. “There’s a tremendous advantage to being in a project that is open-ended,” he says. “We can do something that's straight-ahead punk or dig into Count Basie, and that keeps things zesty. The people with their arms folded in the back row might wonder, ‘Do these guys still have it?’ To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we ever “had it,” but the truth is, right now, we've got something new.” That eager energy builds off their ecstatic 2021 album BOOK, and the Johns’ open-endedness has only grown more vital on their new 24th album. The duo’s sublimely unpredictable “Wu-Tang” is the lead single, fueled by an appreciation for and fascination with their fellow New York icons. The sweet ‘60s- styled harmonies of Linnell and Flansburgh introduce an emotionality that takes the track far past its potential shock value. “Two mighty spirits were waging a battle/ Inside my heart,” Linnell cries out. “Listen to the sound on the CD/ If you don’t believe me/ Check it and see for yourself.” They Might Be Giants recognize the humor in singing about The RZA, GZA, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard—but step up to that challenge directly. “A lot of artists want to be perceived as being really authentic and hide whatever sense of humor they have,” Flansburgh says. “But people have seen us for who we really are. I would have appreciated if they thought of us as being more mysterious than they do, but they’re like, ‘I get it. You guys watched a lot of TV when you were kids.’ But then again our listeners did too!” That dizzying self-awareness invigorates album opener “Back in Los Angeles”, a self- professed “Jabberwocky lyrical fantasy” and “series of funhouse mirrors” about life in Southern California via some hyper-New York folk. “I’m gonna swap out my brain for a chrome raccoon/ Like they did in that movie Chrome Raccoon,” Linnell deadpans over a swanky wash of strings and spatters of Marty Beller’s jazzy snare drum. The track (and the album as a whole) benefits yet again from the collaboration of the Johns and co-producer Patrick Dillett (David Byrne, St. Vincent, Mary J. Blige), a deft hand at the board more than capable of joining them on every arcane musical exploration. Ever-driven by that kinetic search for new ideas, that melodic smoothness is counterpointed perfectly by Dan Miller’s rip curl guitar and Danny Weinkauf’s fluid bass lines on the thunderous “Outside Brain”. Flansburgh’s soft and surfy tones unfurl a lyrical panic attack, crawling "from a mineshaft to a crawlspace across a bed of nails and broken glass." His words nestled comfortably into the muscular track, this is the kind of tension that has always propelled the best TMBG tracks. “I think both John and I are kind of professionally dysmorphic,” Flansburgh says. “When I think of rock culture, I don't think of our band as having any place in it. I never think about where we land in the world.” The album’s gestation followed a similar creative pattern: each John would workshop ideas in their home studio only to bring the best ones into a fluid musical conversation, at which point they became inextricably They Might Be Giants-ified. At that point in the process, Flansburgh adds, The World Is to Dig gained some added fluidity. “This album, like our first album, was all made by the same people at the same time in the same place. It has its own musical universe,” he says. “Even as songs pull apart and get further afield, it became naturally cohesive. Our most successful records hang together in very natural ways, and this album has that continuity.” Linnell agrees, noting that the duo’s penchant for brevity aids in that strength: “Very early on, we admired bands that had short songs that said what they had to say and finished. There was this movement in the mid-20th century to write confessional poems full of very specific personal emotion, but I want to write about geostationary orbits. That would be an interesting poem for me. And speaking for Flansburgh, there's something beautifully opaque and elliptical about his recent lyrical ideas.” Speaking of opacity, the explosive “Je N’en Ai Pas” suggests that They Might Be Giants might’ve been suited to a career as French language punks. A rabid language-learner, Linnell took inspiration from an idiom he’d recently learned, fitting it to bursts of choppy guitar and thumping drums. “It literally means ‘I don’t have any,’ like ‘I’ve got nothing,’” he laughs. “A lot of the lyrics are about being tired and needing to lie down. It might be the most personal song I’ve ever written.” Elsewhere, the rubbery “Slow” draws its esoteric influence from microtonal music, the track ratcheting up phrase by phrase across the octave’s 19 pitches. On the bouncy “Character Flaw,” Linnell asserts his tough guy bona fides (“It’s the flawiest flaw that you have ever saw”), a particular favorite of Flansburgh’s: “I love the insane way Linnell sings the opening, trying to make it musically as startling as it could be.” And “In the Dead Mall” finds Flansburgh delighted at the concept of shoplifting, the idea of getting hopped up on small thrills in public places. They Might Be Giants’ trademark blend of wit, affection, and self-knowledge reaches its perfect distillation with “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” a cover of Raspberries’ gleaming ’70s bubblegum rock fantasy about instant stardom. Nearly 40 years and 24 albums into their own career, the Johns feel the absurdity of singing along to those lyrics—and that awareness only deepens the song’s charm. But it’s not just wit for wit’s sake. “I remember listening to that song on the school bus,” Linnell says. “We’re not in any danger of becoming an overnight sensation. That night has been going on for 40 years now. But we do this for ourselves. We’re trying to make the kind of album that we would be interested in.” In the end, the cover isn’t a gag so much as a thesis: a duo of funny, intelligent, creative musicians still primarily guided by genuine affection for songs, ideas, and moments that move them. On The World Is to Dig, that instinct remains They Might Be Giants’ greatest constant: proof that curiosity, love, and joy are more sustaining than any trend, and that chasing those emotions naturally will always result in new discoveries.