John Sidney Linnell (born June 12, 1959,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
musicianA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
, is known primarily as one half of
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
, New York
alternative rockAlternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s...
duo
They Might Be GiantsThey Might Be Giants is a double Grammy Award-winning American alternative rock band which began as a duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, and currently also includes Marty Beller, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkauf. Formed in 1982, they are best known for an unconventional and experimental style...
. In addition to
singingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist...
and songwriting, he plays
accordionThe accordion is a portable box-shaped musical instrument of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox...
,
baritoneThe baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the larger and lower pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax...
and
bass saxophoneThe bass saxophone is the second largest existing member of the saxophone family . It is similar in design to a baritone saxophone, but it is larger, with a longer loop near the mouthpiece. Unlike the baritone, the bass saxophone is not commonly used...
,
clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet...
, and
keyboardsA keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include various types of organs as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
for the group.
Linnell's lyrics are perhaps most well-known for their inclusion of strange subject matter and
wordplayWordplay can mean:* Word play, a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work Wordplay can mean:* Word play, a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work Wordplay can mean:*...
. Persistent themes include aging, delusional behavior, bad relationships, death, and the
personificationPersonification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person.The term "personification" may apply to:...
of inanimate objects. Conversely, the accompanying melodies are usually cascading and upbeat.
He is married and has a son, Henry. Henry appeared as a performer on They Might Be Giants February 2005 children's release
Here Come the ABCsHere Come the ABCs is a 2005 DVD and audio CD release by They Might Be Giants, aimed at young children learning the alphabet. The CD and DVD were originally released separately, but since have been released together as a combo....
as well as They Might Be Giants February 2008 children's release
Here Come the 123sHere Come the 123s is the Grammy-award winning thirteenth studio album by They Might Be Giants. It is the sequel to the group's 2005 album Here Come the ABCs. The songs are edutainment music aimed at kids, this time dealing with numbers. Like ABCs, there is a CD and DVD...
.
They Might Be Giants
Linnell co-founded
They Might Be GiantsThey Might Be Giants is a double Grammy Award-winning American alternative rock band which began as a duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, and currently also includes Marty Beller, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkauf. Formed in 1982, they are best known for an unconventional and experimental style...
in 1982 with high school friend
John FlansburghJohn Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the longstanding Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, for which he writes, sings and plays rhythm guitar...
. While the two split singing and songwriting duties roughly in half, Linnell's songs enjoyed the most commercial success in their early years: singles like "
Don't Let's Start"Don't Let's Start" is a They Might Be Giants song originally from the self-titled They Might Be Giants album. It was released as a single at this time...
" and "
Ana Ng"Ana Ng" is a 1988 song by They Might Be Giants. It was originally from the album Lincoln, but has also appeared on Then: The Earlier Years , Severe Tire Damage, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants and A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants...
" introduced the band to
college radioCampus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the station is based...
, and they made waves on the Billboard charts in 1990 with "
Birdhouse in Your Soul"Birdhouse in Your Soul" is a song by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released in March 1990 as a single from the album Flood. It reached #3 on the United States Modern Rock Tracks chart and #6 on the UK Singles Chart and remains their highest-charting single in both...
."
Linnell described his role in the group during an interview for Splatter Effect in 1994:
In December 2005, the band began to produce a twice-monthly podcast. Early on, Linnell frequently contributed humorous spoken-word pieces to the program.
Side projects
Since 1994, Linnell has done some solo work: in that year he released the
State SongsState Songs is an album released by John Linnell of They Might Be Giants in 1999. It was Linnell's second full solo album, following 1996's House of Mayors. Four of the tracks on the album featured the carousel organ. This concept album features almost entirely tracks that are named after, and are...
EPAn extended play is a vinyl record, CD, or music download which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as an LP. Usually, a CD single has around 10–28 minutes of music, an EP has up to 36 minutes, and an album generally has 30–80 minutes. Mini-LPs generally contain 20–30...
, which he expanded to a full-length album in 1999. The EP and album's concept is intentionally misleading: U.S. states feature prominently in the title and chorus of each song, but have very little to do with their actual narratives: "Montana", for instance, is about the insane ramblings of somebody who is about to die; "Idaho" explores a famous rock story in which
John LennonJohn Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English rock musician, singer-songwriter, author, and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles...
, having consumed hallucinogenic drugs, believed he could drive his house; "South Carolina" is about getting rich off of a bicycle accident.
Other side-projects include the limited-release House of Mayors
EP in 1996, and playing the accordion on David ByrneDavid Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer...
's 2004 effort, Grown BackwardsGrown Backwards is an album by David Byrne, released March 16, 2004.-Track listing:Tracks written by David Byrne, except where noted.#"Glass, Concrete & Stone" – 4:13#"The Man who Loved Beer" – 2:41...
.
In 2009 he sang "Other Father Song" in the movie,
CoralineCoraline is a American animated stop-motion 3-D fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel of the same name. It was produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features...
.
People magazine poll
In a People Magazine online poll - "The Most Beautiful People of 1998" - John Linnell finished ninth (with 4,189 votes, eight ahead of Sarah Michelle Gellar, and 1,038 behind Madonna). He responded to the curious poll results with
an op-ed piece in the New York Times:
He went on to say, of online voting:
External links