Decades before there was such a thing as “going viral,” quirky, pioneering college rockers They Might Be Giants were paving the way for the current generation of YouTubers, Vine stars, and Internet pranksters. And they did it totally analog-style.

Starting in mid-’80s, John Linnell and John Flansburgh began recording their songs on an answering machine, advertising the phone number in New York papers as “Dial-a-Song.” Thirty years, hundreds of hilarious recordings, and an entire digital revolution later, Dial-a-Song is back with a new phone number (844-387-6962, if you’re old-school), and its website, which launched in 2000 and went dark in 2008, is back as well. TMBG started posting online songs and accompanying videos in December last year, and Dialasong.com now features streams of “Got Getting Up So Down,” “I Wasn’t Listening,” “No Cops,” ‘Music Jail, Pt. 1 & 2,” “Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel,” “Let Me Tell You About My Operation,” “Hate the Villanelle,” and “Answer,” among other favorites.

"[Dial-a-Song] is such a creative challenge," Flansburgh admits. "To say it’s a marketing campaign is missing the point. But that said, it gives us a momentum that I don’t think we would have had otherwise. We’re a month and a half into it now, and people are really noticing what’s going on. That’s exciting for us. And we’re playing the songs live and they’re getting a huge response. It’s an interesting way of fitting into the world."

The question Flansburgh and Linnell sometimes ask themselves is, are they providing audiences with a temporary distraction, or are they fomenting some sort of creative breakthrough? Flansburgh says it’s both: “So much of our culture right now is people at work looking for a good reason to stop working. They’re just trying to find a break. So they’re grazing on viral video. And I feel like this Dial-a-Song project fits in with that. [But] it’s sort of in the same way as doing videos for MTV gave us access to a bigger audience in the late ’80s.”

In some ways, They Might Be Giants are more relevant in 2015 than ever, even as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their breakthrough album for Elektra Records, Flood. Moreover, they remain witty, self-deprecating, and forward-thinking. Throughout 2015, they’ll continue to post a new Dial-a-Song tune and video every week, but the prolific duo — who’ve also written for television, creating the incidental music for Malcolm in the Middle and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart — will also release three new studio records and their fifth, yet-untitled album of children’s music.

To celebrate the Flood anniversary, They Might Be Giants and Yahoo Music are premiering a free download of the full album, recorded live Down Under. For the next 24 hours, fans can get it right here, at the top of this page, after which Flood Live in Australia will be available for free on the band’s official website. In true TMBG fashion, the album was recorded during the band’s 24th anniversary and, at the time, Flansburgh and Linnell were just looking for some extra material to play in concert.

"I would be lying if I said this was something was carefully planned," Flansburgh admits. "Nothing we do is really that well thought-out. We’re just really good at tumbling down the road. Last year, we toured Australia for the first time in a long time. It was a miniature Pixies experience, when all of a sudden we found out we were much more popular in our absence from the Australian scene than we thought we were. All our shows sold out instantly and they added all these additional shows. And because they were adding shows, we wanted to do something different for the second show. So we played Flood in its entirety in a few different cities across Australia. We recorded the shows, and now we’re basically making those tracks available for free.”

