They Might Be Giants 4: Miscellaneous T and Then

To cash in on the marginal success TMBG had with Flood, their old distributor collected a bunch of tracks from the EPs originally released to promote the singles from the debut and Lincoln. With the somewhat inspired title of Miscellaneous T, it presented in more or less a reverse chronological order to that of the original EPs.

As with most B-sides and whatnot, they’re not all zingers, else one would think they’d’ve made it to the albums proper. Highlights include “We’re The Replacements”, a silly tribute to the Minnesota band (no matter what the fatter John says), “The Famous Polka”, the original version of “Kiss Me, Son Of God”, “It’s Not My Birthday”, the scandalous commentary in “Hey Mr. DJ I Thought You Said We Had A Deal” and, possibly, the so-called “Joshua Fried Remix” of “The World’s Address”. Beyond that, well, you gotta be a fan.

Some years later, after the band had returned to obscurity, the quest to remaster and reissue things led to Then, a repackaging of the first two albums, bolstered by the various EP tracks, along with another 19 tracks heard only on Dial-A-Song or before shows. All the EP tracks had of course been reissued once on Miscellaneous T, so fans old and new could marvel at those extras. The “intros” are fairly entertaining, and earlier versions of “Don’t Let’s Start”, “Which Describes How You’re Feeling” and “Hope That I Get Old Before I Die” contrast how those songs began with how they started out. “Number Three” sung entirely in Greek will scratch a few heads, but the track titled “Schoolchildren Singing ‘Particle Man’” offers just that, and is just plain charming.

Then, therefore, is the way to go if you don’t have anything prior to Flood. But if you do, you might as well upgrade.

They Might Be Giants Miscellaneous T (1991)—2½
They Might Be Giants Then: The Earlier Years (1997)—4