Factory Showroom

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Factory Showroom
Studio album by They Might Be Giants
Released	October 8, 1996
Recorded	1995–1996
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	42:41
Label	Elektra Records
Producer	Pat Dillett
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
They Might Be Giants chronology
Live!! New York City 10/14/94 (1994) Factory Showroom (1996) S-E-X-X-Y (1996)
TMBG studio album chronology
John Henry (1994) Factory Showroom (1996) Long Tall Weekend (1999)

Factory Showroom is the sixth studio album by the band They Might Be Giants. It was released in 1996 (see 1996 in music) through Elektra Records.

The album reclaims the more diverse and electronic sound of their early work, moving away from the live, relentlessly driving rock feel of its 1994 predecessor, John Henry. Still, Factory Showroom differed from previous They Might Be Giants recordings in several ways. While the band introduced a bassist and a drummer for John Henry, Factory Showroom was their first album to feature a second guitarist. Eric Schermerhorn played lead guitar on the album, adding solos to tracks like "XTC vs. Adam Ant", but evidently the band felt that this brand of guitar work did not mesh with their style, as Schermerhorn left the band after a short amount of touring. Factory Showroom also had, by far, the fewest number of tracks of any They Might Be Giants album up until the release of The Else, coming in at only thirteen, while no previous TMBG album had any fewer than eighteen tracks. The tracks on Factory Showroom tend to be longer than their older songs, however, so the album as a whole takes about as much time as their previous efforts.

John Flansburgh (founding member, guitarist and songwriter) has publicly declared Factory Showroom to be his favorite of the duo's many recordings ^[1]. Feeling that Elektra Records did not do enough to promote the album, among other disputes, They Might Be Giants left the label after its release.

[edit] Song notes/trivia

• "I Can Hear You" was recorded at the Edison Laboratory on a wax cylinder phonograph without the use of electricity.
• "James K. Polk" is a song about James Knox Polk, the 11th President of the United States. A sparser, drum machine driven version had previously popped up on the Istanbul (Not Constantinople) EP (1990).
• The hidden track (Track 0) on the CD entitled "Token Back to Brooklyn" is accessible by rewinding from the beginning of Track 1 ("S-E-X-X-Y"), and is not playable on all CD players. It can, however, also be heard on the rarities compilation They Got Lost along with the Internet-only album Long Tall Weekend.
• Much to the disdain of the Johns, a cassette version of the album that claimed to be a "promotional item" from Elektra was leaked by an unknown source. Along with every song from the standard release (including "Token Back To Brooklyn"), this version also included versions of "On The Drag" and "Older" that have not reappeared on an official release, as well as "SenSurround" (the single version), "Counterfeit Faker", "Certain People I Could Name", "Unforgotten", "Reprehensible", "They Got Lost", and "Rat Patrol". All of these tracks were rejects from the Factory Showroom sessions, and were either released on the S-E-X-X-Y EP or the 1999 album Long Tall Weekend.

[edit] Track listing

All songs by They Might Be Giants unless otherwise noted.

1. "S-E-X-X-Y" – 3:51
2. "Till My Head Falls Off" – 2:53
3. "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" – 4:32
4. "Exquisite Dead Guy" – 2:02
5. "Metal Detector" – 3:50
6. "New York City" (Robynn Iwata, Lisa Marr, Lisa Nielsen) – 3:02
7. "Your Own Worst Enemy" – 1:45
8. "XTC vs. Adam Ant" – 3:37
9. "Spiraling Shape" – 4:24
10. "James K. Polk" (Matthew Hill, They Might Be Giants) – 3:04
11. "Pet Name" – 4:04
12. "I Can Hear You" – 1:57
13. "The Bells Are Ringing" – 3:32

[edit] External links

• Factory Showroom at This Might Be A Wiki

[edit] References