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See Discography Abbreviations for definition of various terms.







Apollo 18 is They Might Be Giants' fourth studio album, released in 1992. It was the band's second release with the major label Elektra Records.

Purchase [ edit ]

Seller Format Price Link

iTunes AAC $9.99 Asbestos Records Vinyl $17.99

Vinyl back An Elektra poster promoting the album A second poster UK magazine ad promoting the album

Description [ edit ]

Background [ edit ]

For the band's follow-up to the successful Flood, Elektra approached Elvis Costello to act as producer. John and John feared self-consciousness in the face of such an admired musician, and had assumed that Flood's accomplished fruition would serve as an indication that the band was mature enough to produce the album itself, as they had originally planned. This disagreement caused a rift between Elektra and the Johns, which took a while to heal. Flansburgh, Linnell, and Susan Drew of Elektra discuss this subject at length in bonus footage included on the Gigantic DVD.

Apollo 18 illustrates TMBG's first significant attempts at fleshing out the simpler sound employed on earlier albums. The album's accompanying tour, named the Don't Tread On The Cut-Up Snake World Tour, was the band's first to use a live backing band.

Artwork [ edit ]

Art surrounding Apollo 18 tended to have a space theme; it was designed by John Flansburgh under the pseudonym "Rolf Conant". While searching the NASA archives for a cover graphic, John and John were approached by the NASA staff and selected as Musical Ambassadors for International Space Year. The logo for International Space Year is included on the back cover of the album. The album's cover depicts a giant squid locked in combat with a sperm whale in space.

The original Elektra Records logo from 1956 is used extensively throughout the record's packaging.

Sales and singles [ edit ]

Apollo 18 on the Billboard 200 A chart showing the historical performance ofon the200

Apollo 18 debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart the week of April 11, 1992; it spent 6 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 99. The album generated three singles: The Statue Got Me High, I Palindrome I, and The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight). "The Statue Got Me High" spent 8 weeks on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Chart, peaking at number 24. The other singles from the album failed to chart. Music videos were produced for "The Statue Got Me High" and "The Guitar", the former having a space theme consistent with the art surrounding the album, and the latter being the first TMBG music video directed by John Flansburgh.

Fingertips [ edit ]

Apollo 18 is an unusual album, mainly due to the "Fingertips" tracks: 21 short songs which average about 13 seconds in length. The liner notes state "The indexing of this disc is designed to complement the Shuffle Mode of modern CD players." This implies that the CD was designed for listening on shuffle—as you listen, the "Fingertips" tracks intersperse themselves among the songs of average length, creating a pleasant "musical collage". In most regions, "Fingertips" was properly divided into separate tracks for the CD; however, due to a mastering error at WEA, European and Japanese versions include the entire selection of "Fingertips" as one continuous track, a flaw which continues to occur in discs produced to this day.

Track listing [ edit ]

Trivia [ edit ]

Apollo 18 was released on vinyl in Europe, though not domestically, which made it the last TMBG album released on vinyl until The Else in 2007.

was released on vinyl in Europe, though not domestically, which made it the last TMBG album released on vinyl until in 2007. The liner notes indicate design by Rolf Conant, a pseudonym of John Flansburgh.

The Dial-A-Song number in the booklet is incorrect, stating the number as 718-963-6962. TMBG pointed this out to the audience at shows around this time. (The incorrect number was apparently for a warehouse.)

The original Apollo program plan included lunar missions through Apollo 20, but further launches were cancelled after Apollo 17. Although the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project is sometimes informally referred to as Apollo 18, the appellation remained officially unused.

Information bulletins [ edit ]

The TMBG Online Information Bulletin run by Bo Orloff sent out five updates on the subject of this album:

Image gallery [ edit ]

Front cover

Side 1 label

Lyric sheet (side 1)

Lyric sheet (side 2)

CD [ edit ]

Back cover artwork

Disc

Longbox front

Longbox back

Cassette [ edit ]

Cassette cover