THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS Miscellaneous T (Deleted 1991 Canadian issue 18-track CD album featuring B-Sides & Remixes including The Worlds Address Joshua Fried Remix Kiss Me Son Of God Alternate Version The Famous Polka & The Lady Is A Tramp complete with picture sleeve which has a deletion punch hole in the top left corner)

America's seminal geek rockers They Might Be Giants have been outsmarting every other act on the college-radio scene since the late '80s. Severe Tire Damage is the band's first live album, and surprisingly, it manages to be whimsical without being self-indulgent. TMBG's nucleus of John Linnell and John Flansburgh up the ante of fun on old favorites like "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "Ana Ng," and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" while also offering us more realized versions of should've-been-hits like "XTC Vs. Adam Ant" and "She's Actual Size." The Giants' backing band adds unexpected depth to the material, which also includes five new songs (and a hidden epilogue of live improvisation themed around the Planet of the Apes films). Many of the old fans who wrote They Might Be Giants off after Apollo 18 are advised to come back to the fold and see what the boys have been up to. —Jason Josephes

The self-titled debut from alternative music's favorite dork-rockers launched a career based on absurd lyrics planted in wildly diverse musical garden. Songs like "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" and the New-Wavish tributary "Youth Culture Killed My Dog," are sung with an Andy Kaufman-like sensibility that leaves one questioning their sincerity. In contrast, the tune "Don't Let's Start" is relatively sweet and earnest. Musically, TMBG stray from the country honker "Number Three" to the glam-rocker "(She Was a) Hotel Detective," adapting accordion, fuzz-boxed guitar, and electric piano to suit their purposes. Perhaps the most subversive mockery of all is how TMBG write extremely catchy melodies that "serious" musicians would love to claim as their own. "His shoes are laced with irony" goes a line from "Hide Away Folk Family." That pretty much ties it up. —Beth Massa

3" Single in longpack. Track Listing: 1.They'll Need a Crane 2.It's Not My Birthday 3.I'll Sink Manhattan 4.Nightgown of the Sullen Moon

Learned from a 1959 children's educational record, the title track of the four-song Why Does The Sun Shine? is a little science lesson that's (literally) textbook TMBG—half ridiculously geeky, half ridiculously tuneful, and a longtime favorite of their live sets in a much more rocked-up version. It's backed up by well-intentioned but fairly pointless covers of the Allman Brothers' archetypal Southern-rock instrumental "Jessica" and the Meat Puppets' "Whirlpool" (arranged around twin saxes), and an original called "Spy" that the band claims is its "homage to secret agent themes and free improvisation," but has more to do with the onstage mayhem it provides, with John Linnell "conducting" the whole band in single-note blasts. —Douglas Wolk

In search of a topic for his first opera, Thomas Adès originally turned to Lolita before being drawn to the ironic morality tale of sex, privilege, and the media that furnished the basis for Powder Her Face. Nevertheless, he exudes a Nabokovian delight in the rich possibilities of his allusive musical language. Most winningly, Adès's detailed portrayals of character and mood add depth to the tabloid fall-from-grace story that was the opera's germ. —Thomas May

Released in 1998 from I.R.S., this edition does not have a UPC code, but there is no mention of this release being a BMG or Music Club edition. Features all 12 songs and same artwork as the UPC version. - - - Track Listings 1. Tarzan Was a Bluesman 2. Easy 3. Reckless Driver 4. Dance Fever 5. Sample the Dog 6. Too Much Sex (Not Enough Affection) 7. Welcome to the Human Race 8. Eden Alley 9. Rev. Jack and His Roamin' Cadillac Church 10. Sinful Life 11. Little People Make Big Mistakes 12. Reprise (Don't Stop Now)