Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

Kinda reminded me of Ben Folds Five

Aside from some songs by its splinter band Miracle Musical, Tally Hall has always been on the far periphery of my music taste, and until now I’ve never sat through a full album of theirs. I remember when a snippet of “Ruler of Everything” was considered comedy gold in meme communities, which I found annoying as balls and largely turned me off any further exploration. Now that I’ve listened to the whole thing I admit that I greatly enjoyed parts of it (yes, including “Ruler of Everything”), even if it was a little inconsistent in places. “Greener” and “Taken for a Ride” are definitely my favourites, and I love the old-timey sound of “Hidden In The Sand” (which really reminds me of They Might Be Giants). A lot of this enjoyment is weighed down by “Banana Man” which has a vaguely racist aura. No I will not elaborate. Otherwise, great submission!

This was fun!

Best Song: Banana Man. I would have preferred a whole album of just weird tracks like this. Worst Song: Haiku. Cringe as a category of song. Overall: It's very "buttoned-up white guy" music. It feels energetically a capella. I liked it when it was being silly, but too often it would lapse into these moments of a sort of earnest yearning, which I could do entirely without.

It sounds like a blend of They Might Be Giants with a pinch of Ween, but nerdier. It's well-made, but I don't see myself returning to it often.

This album really balanced between infuriating and enjoyable creativity. If someone asked me to give the most "white person" album of all time, this one would come forth quickly in my head. It would also be an acceptable answer to "most Tumblr sounding album."

2.4 Pretty disappointed by that. First track was alright but that was about all it offered. Didn't enjoy the reggae ones. Didn't enjoy the rapping, falls just the wrong side of the funny line that Beastie Boys trod so well. I thought I recognised Two Wuv when I realised it was a complete Islands in the Sun ripoff, which made sense given earlier on I thought they were ripping Weezer off. Not for me. Sounds like it came out in 2005, and I don't mean that in a good way. Also, how on earth do these have hundreds of millions of listens on Spotify?! Guessing a tiktok thing, which often explains why mediocre bands seem way too popular. Very undeserving imo.

Alternative rock, indie rock, power pop, baroque pop, garage rock, psychedelic rock. Ni fu ni fa.

2.5

Oddly I'm familiar with the actual Mechanical Museum but didn't feel a real connection with this record. It isn't quirky enough, and the pop styling not strong enough. Not bad, but not great.

I think this was supposed to be quirky and fun, but it just dragged on and on until I had reached my limit. But it still kept going, into bonus tracks even, but by then I had basically given up and was just enduring until it went quiet. When it did I figured it was worth one star.

Album #21 (1001 challenge extended): "Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum" by Tally Hall (2005) "Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum" is the debut studio album by American rock band Tally Hall. Alternative rock, indie rock, power pop, baroque pop, garage rock, psychedelic rock and hip hop are the Wiki-listed genres. All songs are finished versions of their demo tracks featured on previous EP's. The album's title was from a museum of mechanized curiosities in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The bandmembers included Rob Cantor (vocals, guitar, ukulele, percussion), Joe Hawley (vocals, guitars, ukulele, melodica), Zubin Sedghi (bass, vocals), Andrew Horowitz (keyboards, percussion, vocals) and Ross Federman (drums, percussion, marimba, vocals). A host of other musicians and backing vocalists also participated. Commercially, the album had word-of-mouth success according to Wiki and had generally positive reviews. "Good Day" opens the album. A vocal harmony chorus, a bouncy beat and piano led. Whimsical, poppy, lead guitar guitar fills, various lead vocals. An intro to the album which reminded me of Queen. "Welcome to Town Hall" begins with an auctioneer voice and crowd noise. Video game synth keys which goes to a hip hop beat, scratching and vocal rapping. It then transitions to music with a carnival-like organ and horns and ends with a gospel choir. Oh, boy! They're back to a bouncy beat in "The Bidding." A keyboard-led melody. Guitar slashes, horn fills, multiple vocalists and pace changes. They almost go full-on Ween in "Banana Man." A Caribbean beat, singing with a Jamaican accent, guitar strumming and jungle noises. I hope I get a Ween album in this extended challenge. In "Ruler of Everything," there are multiple vocalists asking questions, answering questions and even laughing. A song that starts out synth driven then changes to hard rock. Whimsical, power pop, bouncy, upbeat and gimmicky with areas driving into hip hop, baroque, country and Caribbean. Almost all songs change styles and pace within. The music and approach reminded me of They Might Be Giants, Ween, Queen, Weird Al Yankovic and indie pop lightweights AJR. In fact after the album stream, a They Might Be Giants' song came on. The problem is that I like those bands' albums (except for AJR) much better. The gimmick kind of wore thin for me quick. Not a bad album but I can't see myself listening to this again. However, if you like the whimsical and gimmicky, you might find this enjoyable. 2.5 out 5

Sorry, this is too precious for me. Also, the Olsen Twins song is weird.

Very theatrical sounding out of the gate on Good Day -- reminds me of Jellyfish (and by proxy Queen). Welcome to Tally Hall is goofy AF, but is surprisingly fun. Almost taps into a Thomas Dolby tone. I'm not so sure about Banana Man -- its a fat toe over the line that is my silliness threshold. Ultimately I found this to be a pretty mixed bag. I feel like for a quirky indie boy band it is more enjoyable that I would have expected. But it was a bit tough to go 50 straight minutes through it. For me this is a low 3.

Pretty whacky and fun. Not the most serious album, but they don't all need to be. I'll go high 3 here, maybe I'll play it for the boys.

That was one of the whackier albums I have listened to in a while. Took me a while to get with it but about half way through I really started liking it in a weird way. Two Wuv was the most 2000s alternative song I have ever heard but it was quite a bop. A pretty low 4 but was just fun and unique enough to get it there.

Fun Mario sounds on Welcome to Tally Hall. This songs actually super fun. Banana Man needs to be added to all of your children’s playlists. What a silly fun song. This is just a band having fun and not taking themselves too seriously which I can appreciate. Not going to be coming back to this anytime soon, but I gotta go low 4 for the creativity.

Det här lite kul. En hel del finfina låtar. En bra nominering.

This is something that could only have reached the popularity it did at the time that it did. A comedic alt-rock act that really takes the They Might Be Giants concept and takes a couple of steps toward the comedy side, but without embracing the over-the-top comedy style of someone like Weird Al. A lot of the comedy here revolves around just being weird, which doesn't seem funny anymore in 2026. This also could have been a lot shorter. A 30 minute album if this would have been interesting, but this is really overstaying its welcome. There are a lot of tracks that could’ve just been dropped. There are also several songs that just devolve into beeps and boops and honestly sound like errors in the audio track.

Ça c’est un des albums que j’ai vu dans la user list et je me suis retenu d’écouter en entier, j’avais donc pas mal d’attente. En vrai, je suis pas déçu! C’est weird, groovy et franchement rafraîchissant! Je déduis 1 étoile essentiellement parce que je trouve le milieu un peu filler, genre le début est tellement éclaté et énergisant, pis après t’enchaîne 6 tounes de band de garage d’ado (c’était probablement leur matériel de début de carrière). À réécouter, je risque de repasser mettre un 5 RÉVISION DE L’AVENIR: NAH BRO, 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

My kids introduced me to Tally Hall a while back, so this was familiar territory — nice to revisit. Good Day, Welcome to Tally Hall, The Bidding, Banana Man, Two Wuv, Haiku, and the bonus track Mucka Blucka are all great. A high 4, but not something I'm rushing back to.

Hmmmm, this feels Barenaked Ladies-adjacent, so should be my kinda thing in theory, but somehow it doesn't quite land. I dunno, it's got that glee club manic energy where there's lots of harmonies and flourishes, but it all comes across as a bit sterile. They feel more like skits than songs.🤷 "Two Wuv" was pretty cringe, and had me googling how old the Olsen twins (and the band) were in 2005. 🤨 Fave tracks - "Taken For A Ride" and "Ruler of Everything"

Childish, infantile, and a poor imitation of The Might Be Giants

Oh I quite liked this in its way

I've never actually listened to tally hall before because their fans are so damn annoying. Turns out the music is... also very annoying.

I’ve never heard of Tally Hall before, but I hope they’re better than Tammany Hall! No Gilded Age fans here? That’s okay, I don’t watch it either. I prefer to get my Carrie Coon fix by rewatching The Leftovers. But I digress. Time for a trip to Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, which I hope is better than Mr. Magorium’s… I’ll see myself out. MMMM isn’t really my cup of tea, but I thought it was a pretty good album. Tally Hall has some fun songs on this album, and I thought their lush arrangements and vocal harmonies were unique and refreshing. Their best lyrics were pretty fun, but sometimes these songs descended into something annoying, cringeworthy, or both. But this record shows that Tally Hall was out to have a good time, and that they wanted their audience to feel that sense of fun as much as they were. This album didn’t always work, but when it did, it produced some bright, toe-tapping songs that were fun to get sucked into.

I think I may have loved this if it had been on my radar while I was in college when it came out.... this sounds VERY 2005. Not really my cup of tea in the present day.

Tally Hall's musicianship is objectively worthy of admiration. They know their way around rich instrumentation, harmonic modulations, chromatic flourishes and the likes. This allows them to dabble in many genres going from mock-sixties shenanigans (pre-prog psychedelia, zany folk...) to pastiche nineties alt-rock -- like a version of They Might Be Giants' conversational shtick with more ambitious production values. The thing is, in spite of all those assets, Tally Hall are pretty lame when it comes to write balanced compositions that could stick the landing, at least in this one record (I didn't dare delve further into their discography -- my mental health was at stake here, you see). So many things are thrown onto the wall during the course of *Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum*, and most of them instantly fall flat to the floor. Sections follow one another without ever making sense on a global scale. And there's not a single build-up here that could make you forget the novelty-act stench in their "artistry". How can you write so many pop melodies in an album without ever making one of them slightly memorable? As for the lyrics, it's either the now all-too-familiar case of a band being either too smart for their own good, or actually being not as smart as they think they are. I don't know, maybe I'm the dumb one here .. Yet I couldn't care less about what it was that Tally Hall wanted to say with either the individual songs listed here, or through the overall concept of the album. And it's probably because the whole thing seemed all too calculated and "controlled" for me to take interest in it anyway. On a surface level, those lyrics reminded me of the unfunny dithering of Adam Green. And on a deeper level, I don't know what they could evoke to me. Because, there again, I didn't care delving further. The lyrics of one tongue-in-cheek tune, "Haiku", made me smile though, I readily admit it. But let's be honest here, it's also because I interpreted those lyrics as a confession of sorts from the songwriter. Instead of penning something truly beautiful, inspiring, groundbreaking or genuinely challenging -- whether lyrically or musically -- all you got here is the personal ratiocinations that happen in your head when you realize you don't have what it takes to reach that sort of creative level. Under a certain angle, this "meta" aspect makes the song listenable -- in the sense that you can listen to it once and think: "OK, that's kind of witty". But under another angle, those ratiocinations are still a drag to go through, just like the rest of the record -- and this even when you know self-irony propels a lot of it. There is absolutely zero replay factor for me here. Including in that one song. Worse, why are the vocalists sounding so... *constipated* throughout this record? I can be OK with happy-go-lucky "mannerisms" at times. But I can't condone the sort of creepy Cheshire Cat smile those vocals are conveying in my mind. Beyond the cultural reference explaining the title of this album, it really feels like those very performative songs are gathered into a "mechanical museum" indeed, lacking in spontaneity or sincerity. And just when you think the performance couldn't get more stilted than what you have had to bear on the first couple of tracks, Tally Hall inflicts one of the most odious musical crimes you can find on the surface of the Earth: nerdy-sounding "white rappin'", overdosing on cheese and checking quite a few boxes of the bad taste book of infamous missteps. That sort of thing can be fun for a comedy act using music as a medium, such as Flights Of The Conchords. But it clearly becomes obnoxious for an act that considers itself a band with genuine artistic ambitions. Humour can't buy your way out of creative dead-ends. Reading myself again, I realize one thing: maybe I should have taken my own medicine at some point. Maybe I should have avoided certain "mannerisms" in my review as well. So let me blunt and sum up the whole idea behind my rant: I hate this album. To be clear, I don't hate the players, or the styles used, or the intents I can spot in this thing. I simply hate the results. And for once, I don't care if I'm being unfair towards a band that's obviously technically talented and put some real effort creating something they thought was original. It's just that I don't want to be part of that particular "mechanical museum". I want some air, and I just can't find any in it. Looks like Tally Hall has momentarily turned me into a Luddite, and I'm gonna have to listen to Kraftwerk's complete discography to fix that. Wish me good luck. 0.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 1. 5.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 0.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 75 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 91 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 179 (including this one) ---- Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham

I liked this album. I did not expect to want to listen to it 4 times. Turns out I love this album.

Too quirky for it's own good. I'm glad someone enjoyed this in their university days, I too went through a phase where I was looking for anything idiosyncratic to liven up my dreary suburban existence, but this one ain't it. Once the rapping started I had to pull the plug.

Crisp and sprightly throughout and generally likable and enjoyable. One fully endorses the view of this having excess theater kid vibes – In a different era, they mighta had a TV variety show, no? There is such youthful energy and enthusiasm and maybe idealism and innocence, too that one feels grouchy for not actually liking very much. But one gets to feeling sort of exhausted, as one does by overcute and otherwise harmless puppies wanting to play endlessly. Album title is too suggestive of novelty acts and coudln't have smoothed the path to mainstream exposure. Maybe slightly ahead of its time in setting up overdone hyperpop and let's-try-every-genre-known-to-man sense of many of today's billionaire stars. Maybe sticking to one or four lanes (less than eight anyway) mighta been more (as less almost invariably is). One could live with this on list proper if switching out this earnestness for the rather more louchely theatrical Alex Harvey or Softcell.

Is this what TMBG sounds like to people who weren't in college when they were popular? I want to like this but I just don't. After the album was done Spotify played some Oingo Boingo for me, a song I'm not particularly familiar with, and my ears were immediately happier. Apparently people's tastes are not just different from other people's but also from their previous selves'.

Worth the listen.

This album was fun, I think a bunch of the songs have potential. Interesting recommendation!

Favorite songs: Two Wuv, The Bidding, Welcome to Tally Hall, Be Born Least favorite songs: Ruler of Everything, Dream, Mucka Blucka 2/5

This is all over the place in the best way possible. You never know what the fuck is coming next. Ranging from genre to genre to genre so effortlessly. I know a guy who swears that Tally Hall is the best band to ever exist. I don’t doubt for a second that he believes that with his whole heart. They’re certainly very unique. The songwriting is great, if a little scattered, but the production, instrumentation, and lyrics are all fairly solid. I enjoy them. 4/5

I like the variety of styles in the same album, even with a clear case of jack of trades, master of none result. I'll give it an extra star for the beat boxing. I believe it is the first (clearly identified) in the whole list.

Actually nice vocals on this album, everyone is definitely above average, but unfortunately the instrumental part is as average as it gets. Nice record to listen to in the background, but nothing more exciting than that.

Tally Hall has always been a fun band, and this is no exception

Buen disco optimista y divertido con variedad de melodías, con estilo mezcla entre pop, algo de rock, algo de punk suave,... Sin llegar a entusiasmar, se puede escuchar por ser algo diferente y refrescante

Genre whiplash. And it was tolerable at most genres, if not good at any of them, until the casual stereotyping and accented appropriation of "Banana Man." It's too bad - there's definitely talent there, but it rarely comes through for a full song.

I liked this much more than expected and, oddly, my fav song was the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen one. 🤷‍♀️

Sounds like the vocalist has a theatrical background.

TMBG fans take note, don't sleep on this one.

Tally Hall are one of those bands I’ve heard about quite a bit but just never got around to checking out - and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Some of it was quite charming, and it’s a very eclectic baroque pop album - there’s a clear Queen influence and I’m getting some Sgt. Peppers-era Beatles as well - while also really feeling like it’s of that early YouTube scene with Lemon Demon etc. It experiments quite a lot with its style and some of it really works, while some of it really really doesn’t - the few rap sections here and there and the awkward reggae of Banana Man were difficult to get through. I’ve seen a couple of comparisons to AJR and I really get that - the ukulele-heavy tracks also reminded me of Twenty One Pilots at their most insipid. Still a lot to enjoy in places though - I appreciated the overall ambition and the Haiku song was cute, but it just didn’t work for me

ok this is catchy. I have to give it a 5 cause i listened to it twice. maybe a 3rd.

Fountains of Theater Kids

This album feels like one I shouldn't enjoy that much. I don't particularly enjoy a lot of the individual musical choices they made here. And yet, I kept finding myself enjoying it in spite of myself. It's just one of those things that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts because its incredibly well executed. Also, I'm a sucker for harmonies, and they use them to incredible effect here 4/5

Ah, the pop darlings of Ann Arbor! I’m surprised to find this slice of personal nostalgia here - I know some of the backup singers listed on this disc personally. It’s bubble-gummy in a quirky turn of the millennium kind of way. It makes me want some Zingerman’s. I’ve probably rated it higher than it deserves based on my bias. It’s cute.

I hate theater kids.

Me: “AI- create an album by an imaginary band using the following prompts ‘Imagine if Weezer cover band tried to make something that sounded like Sgt. Peppers. But also make it sound like the band Barenaked Ladies somehow.’” AI: “processing…processing. Done. Please enjoy Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum by Tally Hall” Me (after listening): “It’s not bad but AI has long way to go before it can replace real music”

This was very cool and perfect for the list. Eclectic, diverse, creative, thematic...

This was a fun listen

One of those cult-favorite, internet-loved oddities. It feels like a quirky student band, in the best and worst sense. colour-coded ties, barbershop harmonies, theatrical arrangements, and a kind of nerdy songwriting. Focusing on cleverness rather than emotion. It's fine for what it is.

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is something of a whistle-stop tour of genres, like a 7/10 food buffet that tries to give you a taste of everything rather than focusing on a single cuisine really well. It's charming because of it but it has limited mileage as a result. Like there were times I got 80s glam rock notes, then stuff that sounds like ELO because of the vocoder/talk box stuff, then a bunch of it sounds like Weezer in their lighter moments, and we even get some sprinklings of ska/reggae and big band and nu-metal that sounds like Zebrahead :D It's chaotic without ever sensing like it's getting out of their control, it runs too long but I think it gets a low 3/5 because it's more interesting than 90% of what we've had on offer. Mental album.

Not my cuppa tea. This is an inoffensive quirky album that never meant nobody no harm.

Quirky choice which is a bit "They Might be Giants." Wholesome and maybe a bit annoying. To be honest I dont know what to feel.

Yeah, this is a distillation of the nerd energy of TMBG, Jonathan Coulton, Flight of the Conchords and the like. It sounds amateurish, and I'm absolutely not surprised to read that they were relatively short-lived, producing only two albums and a few episodes of a web TV show. I suspect that the cross-over between people who watched the web TV show and people who watched Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog would have been considerable, obviously the latter with a far higher viewership. It isn't unpleasant to listen to, but I just haven't got that switch that keys me into it.

Weird... parts of it want to be Weezer, other bits are just trying to be wacky

I am into this! I vaguely remember listening to this after finding another Tally Hall album, maybe Good & Evil, definitely because of Turn the Lights Off ? A very cool and weird little album.

Quirky, and sometimes interesting, as a whole though not memorable

Interesting album started off enjoying this but then got a bit irritated by it.

It was quite nice

Wasn't really sure what to do with this until learning that the Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf guy was part of this group. It's ~EcLeCtIc~, you see. I was a TMBG guy back in my youth, probably would have gone wild for this shit if I'd heard it when it came out

Silly but fun, nice selection

Gauge your eyes out type beat

It was the right side of quirky for me. Enjoyed!

The whitest music of all time? Quite possibly. A fun time? Hell yeah. I'm not too proud to enjoy this

Never heard of this band. Within seconds I was like "these are a bunch of nerdy white guys aren't they?" Yes. It gives off the quirky vibe that is just... ehh. Listening to the rest of the album it's somewhat exhausting with the rapid shifts. Very musical theatre energy. Sometimes this style of music works with me but other times not. For example, Panic! At the Disco really give me those vibes (btw why aren't they on the list?) but it works for me. Ultimately this didn't resonate with me but I can see why it would. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Sure why not. Replace one of the numerous garbage 90s acts. Even though I'm not a huge fan, at least it was interesting.

Like a poor man’s Weezer

Quirky, irregular music with a great vibe

Fun album

I really love how insane this album is. Some of it works better, some of it falls completely flat on its face, but the one thing that's consistent, is that you have no clue what the next song is going to be. Gotta be the only album in existence to have both the "Baroque Pop" and the "Hip Hop" tags in its Wikipedia infobox.

Reminder to come back and listen to this album again

Somewhere between a quirky musical and pop rock record. Definite Sparks vibes. A lot of fun! Rating: 4 Playlist track: Good Day Date listened: 06/12/24

Hmm. There were bits I loved, especially when it went full 70s overblown fun. It was wildly varied as well. For ambition I'd give it five stars. However, none of the songs stuck in my brain or hit me emotionally, so it doesn't quite hit it. It's still glorious, but for me it's just got those final few inches to be five stars.

Nice little album. While listening I enjoyed reading about Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum itself.

It's fine. It kind of reminds me of a less entertaining Ween in some regards. I could see how others would enjoy it.

I love this album so much and I'd never heard it before or knew anything about this weird little group of oddball with their hearts of gold! It's fun! Mucka Blucka might be the greatest bonus track ever recorded. I am delighted by the strangeness and the harmony of this album. Do you want a banana? YES! I'll take several bunches please!!

Weirdly, I could place what year this album was from by looking at the band's promo photo. The title and name gave me big 70s vibes, which, after listening, is definitely what they're going for: harmonies that remind me of the Beach Boys, and really swinging for the magnum opus-likes of "Sgt. Pepper's". Occasionally flits into musical theater territory. On a personal level, it reminds me of the band I Fight Dragons if they weren't video-game-dorks and were just regular-dorks. Overall feeling? It's fine. It swings into "bad" territory whenever any of the members try to rap (not that they can't, it's just that it's... earnest but cringe-worthy), and "Banana Man" for being a liiiiittle, well, you know. With all due respect, it makes me think of TV shows like The Office or How I Met Your Mother: twee, adorkable, and maybe just a little too saccharine. Favorite tracks: "Greener", "Just Apathy"

Ajr ass theater kid ass music even if I secretly enjoyed a couple tracks I hated the experience.

Skemmtilegt stöff, ansi original á sumum stöðum.

I loved being introduced to this. They do like to play it all. So much fun! Five stars for five neat guys!

Great!

Quirky and fun.

Some silly fun here… kind of reminded me of the Barenaked Ladies or something along those lines. I really liked “Just Apathy” then “Spring and a Storm” had me full on in love. I’m sold on this album. A love song to Mary-Kate and Ashley? I’m in! “Ruler of Everything” is fantastic. The bonus tracks were well worth a listen. I loved the chicken song “Mucka Blucka”. Loads of fun! Catchy and terrific!

It's like TMBG for more modern theater kids

Alternative rock, indie rock, power pop, baroque pop, garage rock, psychedelic rock. Ni fu ni fa.

It's got a lot of Ben Folds in it. Pretty decent album. Different than what the title implies. I'd listen to it again.

Fun and unexpected. Quirky, melodic and really enjoyable. Reminds me of something in the vein of Ben Folds, Jellyfish, Fountains of Wayne and Barenaked Ladies. Though some of the songs become a bit goofy, Banana Man, Two Wuv, they all have pretty good hooks which make the album a great surprise.

Painfully hipster-y, nerd rap, video game samples, ukelele; I dislike a lot about this, 1 is a bit harsh but found myself either skipping or hoping every single song would end sooner. I got to "do you like how I dance, I have zirconium pants" and threw in the towel.

Just ok

Frequently quirky, occasionally catchy and pleasant. Attempts to be lyrically clever fall flat more often than not. This feels like a band who took all the wrong lessons from a bunch of artists who are more talented than they are. I struggled a bit between the 2 and 3 on this one. It has its moments, and I generally appreciate Tally Hall's oddball sensibility. But, more often than not, I also find these guys to be pretty insufferable. Fave Songs: Greener, The Bidding, Spring and a Storm, Be Born

If you’re listening to this and wondering what does any of this mean, then you perfectly understand what makes Ann Arbor great and awful at the same time. Mix in the quirky ness of weird comedy in the 00s, 5 artists from U of M and you get this album. It’s easy to see exactly why they didn’t maintain their popularity as the quirky comedy trope died in the 00s. And lastly, Go Green! Biased rating but this is rough. 2.5/10

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Taken for a ride, Be born

An amazing amount of 5s for what is a fairly insufferable album. I don't mind a comedy album if it's done well. This is just shite.

It was certainly an eccentric album. I had never heard of the album, the band, or any songs previously. I do not have a need to revisit.

lmao 3 4 wtf is banana man 3

Reminds me of They Might Be Giants. Very quirky, amusing pop with guitar riffs, but a touch too much barbershop-style vintage vocals a bit like what Freddie Mercury and Queen liked to do.

This is why I love this project. This album is a strange mix of 2000s indie rock, baroque pop, experimental rock, jazz, and Americana. The result is a whimsical album that isn’t afraid to explore its own weirdness while remaining accessible and memorable. It reminds me of a mix between Weezer and Beck though that doesn’t quite encompass what Tally Hall are doing. I will be listening to it again for sure.