Here Comes Science, the new release from They Might Be Giants, is the greatest children’s album in the history of recorded music.

I don’t have children of my own, and I don’t have any close friends with children, and I don’t even particularly like children, so I know next-to-nothing about the music that is typically aimed at them. But seeing as a quick search on Amazon suggests such inane drivel as 20 Simply Super Singable Silly Songs and Choo Choo Soul, I feel safe in my assumption. I’m also leaving out such classics as The Tiger Lillies’ masterpiece Shockheaded Peter, because that isn’t actually an album for children so much as it is an album for people who hate children. That being said, whether or not Here Comes Science is literally the best children’s album ever, the fact remains that it’s really fucking good.

Here Comes Science is TMBG’s third educational album for children, following Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. Both earlier efforts have their merits; though the subject matter is, understandably, limited. How much can you really say in a song about learning how to count? This new effort, in contrast, gives the Giants ample room to shine, which will be no surprise to long-term fans familiar with TMBG classics (found on regular albums aimed at adults!) like “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “Mammal.”

In its purist form, Here Comes Science is an album about how awesome science is. “I Am a Paleontologist,” for example, is about how exciting it is to have a career in a scientific profession. “My Brother the Ape” is a song about coming to terms with the realization that all life on Earth stems from a single common ancestor (with joyful results). Other songs get down to the business of straight education to catchy rhythms and metaphors, like “The Bloodmobile” (which compares the circulatory system to mass transit), “Solid Liquid Gas,” (which features a neat little device where the singing speeds up or slows down in relation to the movement of the atoms in each state of matter), and “Roy G. Biv” (which is so catchy it could be a standard pop song instead of a kids’ song).

One thing I love about Here Comes Science is that it never feels condescending or dumbed-down. The information is accurate and loaded with big words that children may not know on their first listening, but which they will assimilate given time (in other words, kids who own this album are likely to have the best vocabularies in their classes — hint hint, parents). Parents can listen to the album with their kids without wanting to bang their heads against the wall, and the subject matter is sure to be genuinely thought-provoking.

The real greatness behind Here Comes Science, however, is that it features Stephen Colbert-sized balls. One would expect, in a country where the rational regularly bend over backward to avoid offending the staunchly irrational, that anything potentially controversial might be edited out. This is not the case, and They Might Be Giants are to be commended for their bravery in this matter above all else. The album’s opening song, “Science is Real,” begins with the following lyrics:

“I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science…”

When those lyrics were revealed earlier this month, P.Z. Myers (scientist/atheist blogger superhero) posted a quick commentary on his blog displaying some of the angry comments the album received on Amazon.com even before the album was released:

“As a Christian I’m offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical. End of story.”
–Some idiot.

Yeah. In other words, John and John are pissing off all the right people.

The best, and most potentially influential, song on Here Comes Science, in my opinion, is “Put it to the Test.” On its surface, it’s an educational song about the Scientific Method. In reality, it’s a scathing attack on all forms of bullshit. Relevant lyrics include:

“Are you sure that that thing is true?
Or did someone just tell it to you?
Come up with a test…

…Find a way to show what would happen
If you were incorrect
A fact is just a fantasy
Unless it can be checked…

…Don’t believe it ’cause they say it’s so
If it’s not true, you have a right to know
Put it to the test…”

Remember now, this is an album for children. And while the Scientific Method is the single greatest tool for every kind of experimentation, this song has a deeper meaning. TMBG is saying, “Hey kids! You know all those adults that tell you things? All those parents and teachers and politicians and clergymen? It’s quite possible that they’re full of shit. Don’t just take them at their word. Demand proof.” And that is the best lesson any child can learn. Thank you, very sincerely, Mr. Flansburgh and Mr. Linnell, for respecting us enough to try to save our future generations from becoming tomorrow’s gullible morons.

This morning before work I switched on the TV to learn the latest pirate news. And while I was eventually gratified, I had to spend a tedious five minutes sitting through a report, the thesis of which was essentially, “Holy shit, an ugly person can sing!” Over eight million hits on YouTube as of this evening confirm that, yes, people really are stupid enough to be surprised by this fairly simple and straightforward situation.

Here’s what happened: a woman named Susan Boyle showed up to sing on a UK television show called Britain’s Got Talent, which is apparently their equivalent of American Idol. I’ve never actually watched an episode of either show, but both involve unknowns performing and being either praised or ridiculed by an audience and a panel of judges, including someone named Simon Cowell. The fact that Simon Cowell has been name-dropped all over the place for years and I still don’t know who the hell he is leads me to believe that he should be the subject of a future installment of Codger Corner.

Anyway, up comes this woman (I’d embed the video here, but YouTube has disabled embedding on this particular clip for some reason), looking exactly like the sort of women who attend Protestant churches: ugly, frumpy, mid-forties, bad hair, bad floral dress and a pleasant, disarming smile. You probably wouldn’t spend any time checking out her ass, but you would expect her to have some of the best double-chocolate caramel yum bars at the Bible Study picnic. And she walks out on stage, subjecting herself to a huge crowd of vapid twits, most of whom have very pretty faces and very dull personalities. They all smirk at the ugly woman and Simon Cowell regards her with what can only be described as a shit-eating eyebrow lift. Then the woman starts to sing, and it turns out that she has a fantastic (and well-trained) voice.

And that’s the entire story. Oh, except for the fact that everyone is very fucking surprised. Why, exactly? I hate to sound like Tipper Gore, but is this somehow MTV’s fault?

OK, follow me on this one. Once upon a time, musical talent was judged by talent. Then the music video was invented, and along came MTV. MTV quickly realized that when you’re looking at the musicians on television, often over and over again on a loop, viewership was influenced not just by how much they liked listening to the musician’s music, but also by how much they liked looking at the musician. Result: three decades of progressively sexier performers. Is it too far a logic leap to suggest that modern viewers of shows like American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent have actually been brainwashed into believing that good music can only be made by pretty people?

Yeah, I know, that sounds incredibly fucking stupid. But it’s also stupid that Simon Cowell was actually shocked at Susan Boyle’s talent. You be the judge.

“I’m a woman, hear me scream!”

-Amelia, Girls Rock!

“I hate myself already, so high school doesn’t, like, degrade me that much.”

-Laura, Girls Rock!

Speaking of documentaries (which I was), here’s another one for you: Girls Rock!, which I finally got to see a few days ago. The movie takes viewers into Portland’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, which is just as awesome as it sounds; girls ages 8-18 have a week to form bands with their fellow campers, take classes with actual lady-rockers, write a song, and perform it for an audience. Girls Rock! had the usual limited documentary release about a year ago, and I missed it. During the last year, though, I made everyone I know watch the trailer on YouTube, often more than once. Now it’s your turn:

You see why I was so anxious for the DVD?

Now that I’ve seen it, I can say that the film is far from perfect (although still quite good). The directors chose to focus on four campers, but we never quite get enough background on them. On top of that, the scenes of rehearsals and intra-band conflicts become repetitive, while the classroom scenes and the final concert are truncated. These issues could have easily crippled the film; luckily, the subject matter is interesting enough to make me forgive just about any directorial missteps.

Honestly, how could anyone hate a movie that features and eight-year-old who spends her time writing atonal dirges about her dog, and inventing new guitar chords with name like “Negative 10″? That’s Amelia, a.k.a. Am, an experimental visionary who happens to be a shy, thoughtful girl with a flower-shaped guitar. The directors also introduce us to Palace, a punk rock demon cleverly disguised as the world’s most angelic seven-year-old (she’s the one growling “Rock ‘n’ Roll!” at the beginning of the trailer). Seriously, she is so fucking punk rock it will make your eyes bleed. If you need proof, you can download her song “San Francisco Sucks Sometimes” and hear the magic for yourself.

In addition to these two, we also meet two teenage campers: Misty, a recovering drug addict, and Laura, who is — there’s no polite way to say this — a Korean-American death metal fan trapped in Oklahoma. Aside from offering a more mature perspective on the camp’s proceedings, they also provide a striking contrast with the younger girls. For all her shyness, Amelia can become quite chatty on camera, spinning theories about music and school and her dog Pippi; when she steps in front of a microphone, her inhibitions seem to vanish entirely. Laura, on the other hand, is talkative and social and genuinely funny at times, but will cheerfully admit to self-hatred when asked.

Much of the movie is dedicated to figuring out where and why this disconnect occurs. Scattered throughout the film are brief animated segments, which are really just a way to deliver statistics without resorting to captions or narration. Although I was ambivalent about the segments themselves (I found they broke up the flow of the movie, and took up running time that could have been better spent on the bands in concert), they provide answers to those questions, and raise several new, more difficult ones. What can girls do — indeed, what can anyone do — to get back in touch with the brilliantly uninhibited visionaries they were at age 8? There’s no obvious answer, but I suspect that the people in charge of Rock Camp are on the right track.

I could go on nitpicking, but I’d prefer to end on a positive note. Because for all its little flaws, this is still a movie about a fascinating subject. Without it, I probably wouldn’t even know that Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls existed, and I definitely wouldn’t have “San Francisco Sucks Sometimes” on my playlist. If they have to get a little preachy, or overstate a few points, fine. Those points — about society’s expectations of women, the numbing conformity of adolescence, the thrill of finding people like yourself — still need to be made, frequently and at a very high volume.

It also doesn’t hurt that the soundtrack kind of kicks ass.

“First of all… how good looking is my wife?”

–President Barack Obama

I had to work during the Inauguration, and was subsequently far from both my TV and computer for the entire day yesterday when all the real news was going on. Varius handled the entire thing just fine, of course. But to compensate, and because I was too sleepy to bother doing much else, I decided to watch some of the coverage of the Inaugural Balls that went on all last evening.

The above quote was spoken by our new president at the Neighborhood Ball around 8:30 PM, to a cheering crowd of gowned and tuxedoed partygoers. The President then said a few words about the importance of neighborliness, and then Barack and Michelle danced the first dance, to a song sung by Beyonce. Interesting fact: I don’t know if this has anything to do with the shoes that Mrs. Obama was wearing, but during that dance, the Obamas were of exactly equal height. More amusing fact: Keith Olberman was hilariously flustered while trying to discuss the designer of Michelle’s dress.

An extraordinary amount of news coverage was given last night to Michelle’s aforementioned dress, a frilly white number with a single shoulder strap designed by somebody named Jason Wu. Don’t worry if you don’t know who that is; it’s not going to be on the test. Of course Mrs. Obama looked super gorgeous and wonderful and sexy, but I don’t want to be inappropriate about this, because she’s Our Mom Now. Show some respect.

The Neighborhood Ball was followed up by the Home States Ball, which featured a less amusing opening statement by the president, but perhaps more spins and stunts in the obligatory dance. Cut to a Joe Biden speech at the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball, where later Barack and Michelle split up to dance with grinning soldiers, and later, over at CNN, Gary Tuchman attempted to describe the Youth Ball on Anderson Cooper 360. He explained that it was the “loud ball” and the “funky ball,” full of 18-to-35-year-olds, where some of the men were demonstrating their youth by wearing boots with their tuxedos. There were six more balls after that, but you get the idea.

Now, if you’re beginning to think that this sounds like nothing more than overpriced socialite pageantry better suited for the 19th century, you’d be right. You can look up Wikipedia’s entry on the subject, but all it says is that a ball is where people dress up and dance, so don’t bother. This is, apparently, how the upper echelon of D.C. likes to party, and presumably network. I’m guessing anytime more than two people gather together in Washington, networking is a factor. According to Rachel Maddow, hundreds of tickets for these balls are given to senators and House reps. to distribute as they see fit. Perhaps they go out to campaign donors, I don’t really know. Not that I’d want to go myself, of course. Unless one of the balls was hosted by the Ghost of Bon Scott:

I know that’s gratuitous, but you just don’t see enough AC/DC references in political commentary these days. You’re fucking welcome.

Oh, by the way, there have been a lot of rumors crossing my desk about Bush’s “Midnight Regulations,” which is a cryptic way of saying, “the shady shit Bush tried to do at the last possible second.” Like all the other political commentators, we should probably stop talking about pretty dresses and start looking into that shit.

It’s a basic holiday fact that for every truly wonderful and original Christmas song, there are about a thousand horrible ones. But in the right hands, even the worst Christmas music has high comedic potential. And in the realm of turning coal to gold, few hands are more capable than Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, creators of the excellent Adult Swim series, The Venture Bros. Every Christmas since 2004, Publick and Hammer have crafted special Venture Bros. Christmas songs for Quick Stop Entertainment. The songs are covers of dubious classics, performed by characters from the TV show. This year’s song just went online today, and it does not disappoint.

(Note: If you’ve never seen an episode of The Venture Bros., I’m in no mood to summarize it for you. Instead, here are some episodes you can stream.)

This year, Henchmen #21 and #24 sing a cover of Paul McCartney’s 1979 classic, “Wonderful Christmastime.” They butcher the song terribly, and ad lib when McCartney’s original lyrics start to get repetitive, and it’s all quite hilarious and fun.

But there’s a deeper subtext here, relating to the broader plot of the show. As anyone who’s seen the finale of season 3 knows, 24 dies at the end, his head flying out of an exploding car in the final moments of the episode. So how does this song fit in with the canon? As 21 explains in the introduction, they recorded the song in June so that they’d have it out of the way when Christmas came, in order to focus on the plans for their big Christmas Break vacation to Cancun. Their spirits are high, and all seems well for The Monarch’s two most unkillable minions. But, alas, shortly after this recording, 24 is indeed killed, robbing 21 of his best buddy in the world. And then Christmas rolls around, and because Quick Stop Entertainment demands satisfaction, 21 is forced to send in the song anyway, the shipping envelope’s adhesive sealed with his own tears. That, dear readers, is some unquestionably rich and brutal subtext to a seemingly goofy holiday song. I hope you’re taking notes.

Publick and Hammer’s previous holiday forays are equally brilliant. In 2004, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend reenacted a 1977 sketch performed by David Bowie and Bing Crosby. Verbatim. With The Monarch taking the part of Bowie and Dr. Girlfriend taking the part of Crosby, they sing “The Little Drummer Boy,” banter, and even replicate all of Crosby’s cheesy jokes about how ancient he is. Not only is it surreal, but it also has this wonderful, “holy shit they’re really going to do the whole thing,” quality.

In 2005, The Monarch and Henchmen #21 and #24 sing the song “Hard Candy Christmas,” from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, made famous by Dolly Parton. At this time in the series The Monarch is incarcerated in a prison full of supervillains, and Dr. Girlfriend has left him for Phantom Limb. The Monarch is thus at his lowest point, and easily matches the despair of Parton’s prostitute. 21 and 24, taking on the roles of all the other whores, provide comic relief.

Focus shifted from the villains somewhat in 2006, when Dr. Thaddeus Venture assembled his family, friends, and enemies for Venture Aid 2006 and performed “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The original song was performed by Band Aid, a fundraising group created by Bob Geldof and featuring a large section of the best pop musicians 1984 had to offer. In 2006, instead of Freddie Mercury, Simon Le Bon, George Michael and Bono, Venture Industries assembled the likes of Dr. Byron Orpheus, Pete White, Master Billy Quizboy, Hank and Dean Venture, and the entire Monarch Horde. Far from the well-meaning post-colonial famine-induced sympathy of the original, Venture’s version highlights the sinister implications of the song’s lyrics. One feels distinctly uneasy as Orpheus sings of “the clanging chimes of doom,” and delightfully horrified when Dean Venture enthusiastically shouts, “Thanks, God!” that it’s the Ethiopians, and not him, who are starving.

In 2007, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend treated us to a rendition of The Pogues’ beautiful and tragic holiday song of love, entrapment, and desperation, “Fairytale of New York.” The song tells the story of a young Irish couple who emigrate to New York City, fall in love, and make each other’s lives miserable. The pain and devotion mirror The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend’s own storyline, as they (at the end of season 2), reunite and get married.

Taken as a whole, the annual Venture Bros. Christmas songs are both delicious fan candy and a welcome departure from the sentimentality typically found in most holiday music. Hopefully they’ll keep it up, at least as long as the series runs on television. At any rate, enjoy these songs, and enjoy the genius of The Venture Bros. in general. But keep an eye out on Christmas Eve, lest the Krampus appear at your house to punish the wicked:

We’ve been naughty, too. Oh, and if you want to see “A Very Venture Christmas” in its entirety, click here for a free stream courtesy of Adult Swim.

I am not a fan of Huffington Post. It’s like they said, “Let’s ask some writers to produce an even 50-50 mix of important political stories and inane crap, then put it on a completely unnavigable page and let everyone just have at it. Also, there should be videos.”

So appreciate the trouble I went through getting this little gem, a roundup of articles about all the songs the McCain campaign has been asked to stop using. The campaign has “borrowed” songs from numerous artists, from Frankie Valli to Van Halen, and the people who wrote those songs are not happy.

Even if their appropriation of the songs fell under the heading of Fair Use (it probably doesn’t), it’s still going to piss off the artists, who are by and large a liberal bunch. Most of the songs would be wildly inappropriate if anyone on the campaign had bothered listening to them, and the few that actually fit were still used without permission. Presidential campaigns have piles of money, record labels are run by slimy bastards, and both retain a collection of the foulest lawyers ever to claw their way out of Hell, but somehow they can’t work out a way to use these songs legally (possibly going against the artists’ wishes in the process, but still)?

The thing is, this is an old story. It’s so old, in fact, that I can skip telling it and just give a one-sentence summary: way back in 1984, Ronald Reagan tried using Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” at campaign events, and the Boss was displeased because Reagan clearly hadn’t listened to the lyrics.

Twenty-four years later, the GOP still hasn’t learned. For fuck’s sake, Ann Wilson did not spend the 80’s hiding behind boxes and smoke machines only to see John McCain’s wrinkly ass strutting around the convention stage to “Barracuda.” Van Halen’s “Right Now” has finally suffered an indignity greater than its use in those Crystal Pepsi commercials, courtesy of Sarah Palin. And hell, Springsteen is probably just mad on principle, because he’s that kind of guy.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m a big fan of reforming copyright law, I love Creative Commons and EFF, and I’ve “borrowed” more media than will comfortably fit on an above-average iPod. Do I have room to criticize the McCain campaign here?

Yes. Yes I do. You know why? Because I never downloaded a song and then used it to endorse John McCain. I download songs and do things that are cool, like listening to them and telling my friends, “Oh, you should check out this band,” and not implying that the people who wrote and recorded the songs are endorsing the guy who thinks Bush did a good job.

On the other hand, maybe stealing inappropriate songs is just the way you win elections. Maybe Obama should start using some Ted Nugent, or some Toby Kieth, or…

Well, that’s about it. Maybe some Republicans should write some better fucking music so we’ll have something to steal.