Mental Floss

They Might Be Giants Release Educational Science Album for Kids

By Chris Higgins

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Nerd parent alert: new TMBG album of science stuff for kids available now! (iTunes Link)

Indie pop icons They Might Be Giants have long been known for embedding factoids in their songs. For example, their cover of "Why Does the Sun Shine" features the opening hook: "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas; A gigantic nuclear furnace; Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees!" (To be fair, TMBG didn't write that tune; see the original version by Tom Glazer.) But then there's the presidential nerd material: TMBG wrote a detailed trivia-heavy song about the oft-forgotten president "James K. Polk," and the art trivia like "Meet James Ensor." And don't get me started on their cuneiform-heavy explanation of "The Mesopotamians."

So it comes as no surprise that TMBG has come out with a CD/DVD combo release called Here Comes Science (link opens iTunes), again combining facts with pop, but finally aiming their laserbeam of awesomeness at one of my favorite topics: science. From an interview with the Underwire blog, the two Johns say:

"We wanted to be sure to get our facts right, so we brought in a wonderful fellow named Eric Siegel, who is the director of the New York Hall of Science," Flansburgh said. "Hopefully, that vetting process was rigorous enough to stave off a cultural boycott from the scientific community. We covered mostly the classic stuff: the elements, astronomy, the circulatory system, cells, photosynthesis and the light spectrum. But there isn't a lot of material about applied science on the album, although there is a song about computer-assisted design that has a mind-bending video on the DVD."

And here's the charming video for "Electric Car" off the new release, featuring vocals from Robin Goldwasser:

More Awesome TMBG Stuff for Kids

TMBG have now done four albums aimed at kids. Links below open iTunes, though these are also available as CDs and in the case of Here Come the 123s as a CD/DVD set.

TMBG Kids Stuff: Here Come the ABCs -- the fun way to learn the ABCs; Here Come the 123s -- a video/audio combo for learnin' your numbers; and No! -- an album about being a kid and being different.