I was techically first introduced to Brooklyn's Ambassadors of Love through Playhouse Disney as a child with the theme songs of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Higglytown Heroes. But of course, I had no idea who actually made those songs until I got into animation YouTubers when I was 9 or 10. Because TMBG did so many songs for cartoons, there was a lot of discussion of them in animation fandom spaces. The Mysterious Mr. Enter, most known for his scathing SpongeBob reviews, used "Particle Man" in a video about "Squidward torture porn", which is when I heard my first snippet of a real TMBG song. The first full song I'd ever heard was "Meet The Elements" in my 7th grade science class. My teacher would play it multiple times a day so we'd memorize it.
Fast-foward a couple years to my freshman year of high school. I was addicted to bands like Tally Hall, Lemon Demon, Mother Mother, that whole genre because I was a trans 15-year-old who wasn't allowed out of their house for a year. Spotify would always reccomend TMBG along with these artists (which has never made sense to me btw), but I'd always been a little hesitant. That was, until one day in April of 2021 when "Birdhouse In Your Soul" came on and I decided to listen. It quickly became one of my favorite songs, and I turned on Flood and listened to the whole album while probably making kandi bracelets.
The months leading into September 2021 and the official start of my TMBG special interest would be filled with me randomly being reccomended different TMBG songs and adding them to my mega-playlist. And then, I decided to officially give their other albums a listen, starting with Pink. Truthfully, it wasn't an immediate click, but then one day I revisited an old favorite: "Meet the Elements". In the trunk of my grandma's car as she picked my brother up from a trampoline park. And it was fucking awesome. I tried to listen to literally everything they ever made after that, I watched all their music videos and interviews and obscure clips from shows. A couple months later, BOOK came out, and I had my earbuds in all day at school listening to it. I thought it was just a hyperfixation at first, but it's lasted for the past 4 years so it's officially crossed into special interest territory.
As of now, I've gone to 2 TMBG shows (3 next week!), tune into TMBPTMBG every year, and have probably listened to Mink Car almost 100 times (more on that later). TMBG got me through some of the lowest points in my life and was the soundtrack so some of the highest points, and They are definitively the greatest band of all time.
During my great listening of all TMBG albums in 2021, one that I was a little hesitant to explore was Mink Car. This was mainly because of some of the bad discussion of it I'd seen in fandom spaces. I'm not sure why I decided to listen to these people instead of just listening to it myself and judging whether or not I liked it like a normal person, but I was persuaded that it was the "bad" TMBG album (instead of Long Tall Weekend...which I don't necessarily think is bad, either!). It was treated more like a fandom inside joke because of its release date than a memorable album. I think the first time I tried listening to it, I only got to "Yeh Yeh". But I did love "Man, It's So Loud In Here".
In early 2022, TMBG released an expanded edition of Mink Car to streaming. I decided, "Hey, why not give it a re-listen?". And then I realized, "Hey, this is actually sick as fuck!".