DialASong.com

From This Might Be A Wiki
This article is about the website, DialASong.com. For the phone service, see Dial-A-Song.

DialASong.com is the website They Might Be Giants uses to promote Dial-A-Song and to distribute the other free material they have released over the Internet.

Originally, from 1998 to 2000, DialASong.com hosted Free Tunes via a QuickTime player. In the early 2000s, it evolved into a Flash site that acted as an online version of Dial-A-Song, providing new songs and rarities. After Dial-A-Song was retired, the site was used to promote its stand-in, the They Might Be Giants Podcast. In 2014, the band announced that it would become the home of their Dial-A-Song project for 2015.

Current site (October 2014 - present)

In October 2014, the band posted a teaser video to DialASong.com revealing the return of the Dial-A-Song website for January 2015. The description of the video reads, "For 2015 They Might Be Giants will be posting a new song online every week at dialasong.com. Yep. Exactly." When asked if the content on the new Dial-A-Song site would be demos, new material, or old rarities, John Flansburgh replied that "it will be all those things".

The redesigned site was launched on December 8, 2014 with "Got Getting Up So Down (Extended)" as a "test" track. For the rest of December, the site has played "I Wasn't Listening", a new song about the return of Dial-A-Song. The site also heralded the return of Clock Radio in 2015, though that feature never actually appeared.

Upon loading, the site plays a brief clip from Glean's title track over an introductory video, then cuts to a looping animation of a telephone with the name of the current track superimposed over it. From this point, visitors can click "listen" to hear the current track or navigate to previous tracks using the arrows on either side of the page. The "Dial-A-Song" bell in the top-right corner is a navigation button.

Previous versions

QuickTime MOVs (July 1998 to March 2000)

Initially, DialASong.com hosted a QuickTime player that offered a new track once or twice a month, including both new studio tracks and a few Dial-A-Song demos in better-than-phone fidelity.

A full list is available on the Free Tunes page.

Flash site (March 2000 to August 2006)

The DialASong.com Flash site

From March 2000 to August 2006, DialASong.com was an online version of the Dial-A-Song service that let fans listen to unreleased or rare songs, demos, and other They Might Be Giants songs. The Chopping Block design for the site seemed to be modeled after a sinister carnival. A random song was played when a visitor clicked on an animated target, at which point an cartoon mustachioed man would crank his music box to reveal a telephone playing a song.

Tracks featured

Titles are given as they appeared on the website.

  1. A Chopping Block Testimonial
  2. A Shooting Star is Not a Star
  3. Alienation's For the Rich (Demo)
  4. All Alone
  5. Another First Kiss
  6. Ant
  7. Bangs
  8. Become a Robot
  9. Best of Spin the Country Dial
  10. Best of Spin the Dial
  11. Blind (Demchuk)
  12. Boss Of Me
  13. Bottom of the Sea
  14. Budnitz 1
  15. Cabbagetown (Demo)
  16. Chaos By Design (Colorwheel)
  17. Clowntown
  18. Concrete and Clay
  19. Cut The Strings (Demchuk)
  20. Cyclops Rock
  21. Dan Hickey's Actual Drums
  22. Dollar For Dollar
  23. Don't Cry
  24. Drink!
  25. Drinkin (Live Radio)
  26. European Ska
  27. Even My T-Shirt
  28. Finished With Lies
  29. Getting All McGyver on it
  30. Happy
  31. Headless (Naykid Eyez)
  32. Hi Honey, I'm Home
  33. Hovering Sombrero (Demo 2)
  34. I Am the Biggest One
  35. I'm Your Boyfriend Now (Demo)
  36. Indian Ocean
  37. Indiana Wants Me
  38. Its Getting Late
  39. It's Not My Birthday
  40. It's So Loud In Here
  41. I've Got a Fang
  42. Kid's Are Different Now! (Spool 409)
  43. Kings Of The Cave
  44. Lincoln, Washington and that Jefferson Guy
  45. Lines Upon A Tranquil Brow
  46. Maybe I Know (A Wax Cylinder Special)
  47. Medley: 1999 - Cowtown (Live)
  48. Medley: Where Your Eyes Don't Go - Why Does the Sun Shine?
  49. Mink Car (Demo)
  50. Mister Me (Demo)
  51. Monster
  52. Monsters of Mud
  53. Museum of Idiots
  54. Mystery Track
  55. Oh Do Not Forsake Me (Demo)
  56. Oranges and Graphic Design
  57. Outboard Part of Man
  58. Particle Man (Demo)
  59. Pencil Rain
  60. Ram On (Paul McCartney)
  61. Reprehensible
  62. Rhythm Section Want Ad (Demo)
  63. Robert Lowell
  64. Rocket Ship (early version of Spiraling Shape)
  65. Sally Boy
  66. Save Your Life (Bog Standard)
  67. Seven Eleven
  68. Somebody's Body
  69. Something You'd Like To See (Little Lisa Whitman)
  70. Spy
  71. The Armys Tired Now
  72. The Big Big Whoredom
  73. The Bloodboat
  74. Theme From Unlimited
  75. They Might Be Giants (Demo)
  76. They Might Be Giants (Rough Cut)
  77. Tigerella
  78. Tiny Doctors
  79. To the Bubblecraft (With Elegant Too)
  80. Too Cool Girls (With the Velcro Horns)
  81. Truth In Words
  82. Two Plus Three Equals One
  83. We're All Alone
  84. Why Does The Sun Shine?
  85. WMOB Radio
  86. Words Are Like (The Crummer Family)
  87. Your Mom's Allright (with Doughty)

Trivia

  • Clicking on the man's tie caused it to spin around.

They Might Be Giants Podcast site (August 2006 to October 2014)

The website opened up displaying a large crowd of people holding up their cell phones to make a glowing galaxy of LCD screen lights. It then redirected to the main page after five seconds. The main page had links to three secondary pages, all revolving around the They Might Be Giants Podcast. (All references to the actual Dial-A-Song service are gone.) The first of three pages had information regarding subscription to the podcast, the second also told how to subscribe and also contains Their "second legal notice ever," saying that the songs and podcasts by They Might Be Giants are solely Their property and that fans should not exploit TMBG's generosity. The third page contained an archive of all of the podcasts to download, with the links hidden off far to the right side of the page in front of somebody reading a copy of The Skeleton in the Closet, an essay from Clarence S. Darrow's Little Blue Book Series (circa 1920s).

On every page, there were a few seemingly random pictures used as backgrounds, including photographs of an old newspaper, a series of radio knobs, a drum set, and a coastal town. When a mouse moved over certain pictures, their colors became inverted, and if clicked (which eludes some people, as it is not the most user-friendly interface), a window with the DialASong.com media player popped up.

Originally, clicking 'TMBG' in the player produced a download link, but the links were not functional and were quickly removed.

Tracks featured

  1. Cast Your Pod To The Wind
  2. Homunculus
  3. Podcast Remix
  4. Yeah, The Deranged Millionaire
  5. Turtle Songs Of North America
  6. E Eats Everything (Elegant Too Remix)
  7. La Dolce Malcolm

Trivia

  • The title at the very top of each page, the band's name is rendered "They MIght Be GIants".
  • When one clicked the photo of a bird that leds to "Homunculus", the bird was given a mustache in addition to inverted colors.

See also

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