If you've been friends with me at any point from october 2023 on you know how annoying I am about this band and anything related to it. So why does it make me insane? I think growing up in a household that was very fond of danny elfman and latching onto his music immediately pre-programmed me to love oingo boingo. Now I'm trapped in the clown dungeon, oh well! There's something about music that is satirical and more character or story focused that really inspires me and sticks with me. It's the same appeal of Frank Zappa's music or Sparks or lots of others. I like comedy and I like dark comedy with something to say even better and I like using music to convey that! And dammit if there's also some funky synth and a fun horns section attached that's great.

My Favorite Boingo Songs:

Albums

Rating:.5

First actual album though there was an ep before this that was a real banger! This album has a more ska and rock sound with the usual instruments and a horns sections. There's pretty much only satirical songs from the pov of some character since they were coming from a theatrical viewpoint of songwriting from Mystic Knights. The only song on there that's genuine I belive is imposter which I think is hilarious. Lots of social commentary and punk feel especially if you watch live performances there's just a lot of rage and high energy. The singing style is more punk and rock n roll and screamy to sort of get across it's fucking with you.

Rating:

Definitely my favorite album! I don't know what juice they put into these songs but it makes me feel insane and is so brainscratchy. Less social commentary and more just weird little songs. A lot more fun playing with synth in this album that mixes really well with Danny Elfman's obsession with xylophones and marimbas and fun noises. It's just a really good sound combination and there's a good amount of screamin that makes you want to scream too.Just a solid little album!

Rating:

A fast and hard and sweaty and nasty album!!! Still sort of satirical songs and goofy little spooky songs. Also a lot of fun sampling in this and messing with using lots of weird little noises in their stuff. Still some social commentary and satire and whatnot. Who do you want to be is a trans banger to me.

Rating:.5

Yeah it's the famous one. The gateway Oingo Boingo album if you will (and you will). The most banger halloween album ever that's not even a halloween album, more of a day of the dead album. What if death and dying and skeletons and ghosts but it was a party and all your friends were there and also there was banger music playing. It feels like an embrace of death instead of fear of it. There's definitely something special about this album, not a single skip honestly. It feels like they found a really solid sound here, including the vocals becoming more melodic and smooth.

Rating:.5

A real dancy album that has now veered completely away from the spookiness! Except maybe home again? More lighthearted and genuine songs that you wanna get up and grooooove to. This sounds terrible but it sounds more like generic 80s music, more just for fun. NOT halloweenie...

Rating:

Ironically not all that dark of an album, certainly not their darkest when you compare it to their last album. Honestly this album is more hopeful, more genuine. There's a song that they wrote to combat teen suicide and overall its just a comforting album. Even the darker overall content of the album doesn't stop it from being uplifting. It's bad now but we have to hope and believe it gets better!

Rating:

This is overall such a heartbreaking album to me, even though it has a lot of the same boingo weirdness it feels overall like it came from a very personal place. A lot of the songs on this one are clearly breakup songs or songs about being trapped or not knowing where the world is heading. A lot of turmoil and hate and love and sadness. If Dark at the end of the Tunnel is hope this album is welp, I've lost all hope. There's also a much bigger shift in genre where the style sounds to me like primus, nine inch nails, and nirvana. Very guitar heavy and slap bassy but also some influences of psychadelia and late beatles sound.

Influences:

These are all taken from various interviews with Danny Elfman where he usually mentions the same stuff over and over that influenced him and every time I find a new interview I hope he says something else but nope! I have reached the end of the boingo knowledge.

Lyric Parallels