A Sleigh-Load of Christmas/Holiday CD Reviews

There's so much holiday music in the kids music genre that just listening to it all this year was a daunting task. I've got eight albums that grabbed my attention in one way or another; one of them is bound to please your family (unless you're looking for a solstice, Kwanzaa, or Festivus album). Let's start out with my 3 favorite albums of this particular season...

The most ambitious kids music holiday album of the year comes courtesy of The Hipwaders, whose A Kindie Christmas isn't so much an album of Christmas music as much as it is a Christmas concept album, covering the emotions and anticipation of the season. It's a collection of all-original tunes, done in the Hipwaders power-pop/rock style. "It's Wintertime" is a great dance tune, and "Santa's Train" sounds like an outtake to a Johnny Cash Christmas album, but my favorite track here, maybe of the season, is "There's Too Much Good," a very affirming sentiment at this time of year.

To say that the collaboration of Danny Adlerman, Kevin Kameraad, and Yosi finally bridges the divide between Christian and Jewish holiday traditions makes ...And a Happy New Year sound a lot duller than it really is. In reality, the three kids rockers mostly take turns in providing songs, alternately deeply sincere ("Starlight" and "Two Sets of Footprints") and goofy (the "12 Days of Christmas" reworking "A Pickle for my Christmas Tree" and a cover of Tom Lehrer's "I'm Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica"). Featuring the season's hardest-rocking tune, the trio's cover of "Frosty the Snowman," it's an interfaith collection worth exploring regardless of whether you light menorah or advent candles.

Robert Burke Warren, AKA Uncle Rock, spent time in London's West End performing a Broadway show but also rocked in far earthier terms. On Express Your Elf, Warren taps into both of those performing personalities. On the one hand, he offers a crooning take on "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and a peaceful "My Favorite Things" (a perfect holiday song, when you think about it). Those tracks share space with the rootsy ~~original~~ long-lost nugget "Santa's Coming in a Whirlybird" and a cover of "Feliz Navidad" that neatly weaves "La Bamba" into the mix. It's a tough (and close) call, but it's my favorite kids music holiday disk of the year. There are others for your listening pleasure. Read on for more...

Review: 76 Trombones - Dan Zanes and Friends

Let's stop for a moment to appreciate Dan Zanes' output over the past ten years -- 10 albums, 2 DVDs, a couple books, a ukulele, a Grammy, and the eternal gratitude of tens of thousands of families (not to mention dozens of musicians and reporters, who could always count on him for advice or a good quote). That's right -- in 1999, only a few folks around New York City had heard Zanes' "age-desegregated" music passed around on a home-recorded tape, but ten years later, his music's been heard Australia, the Middle East, off-Broadway, and, no doubt, a number of Starbucks locations. Well, now with 76 Trombones, his tenth album for families, he's finally made it to Broadway, covering a wide variety of Broadway tunes owned by Sir Paul McCartney's music publishing company. He and his friends (both his regular band and a bunch of Broadway stars such as Carol Channing, Matthew Broderick, and Brian Stokes Mitchell) have given melodies from the Great White Way the house party treatment, sounding less like a formal musical and more like a local parade (a noun that Zanes himself uses to describe the album in the liner notes). A key to any successful cover album is to find a kernel of truth in the song that the artist can then apply to their own style. Several songs here achieve that success -- the soulful rock of "I Won't Grow Up" from ~~Annie~~ Peter Pan, the parade of the title track (from The Music Man), or the jubilantly defiant "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles. And at other points, Zanes doesn't mess much with what's worked in the past, such as giving Frank Loesser's beautiful "The Inch Worm" a relatively untouched treatment. It's all here, the elements from every other fine Dan Zanes album -- the guest stars in abundance, the song in Spanish (Zanes' and Sonia de los Santos' bilingual take on "Tomorrow" from Annie), the skit and duet with Father Goose. And, yet, the album didn't move me like Zanes' other albums have. I've been thinking about why for a long time, and I'm not sure I have a great answer. Some songs don't work great (the duet on "Tomorrow," Peter Pan's "I'm Flying"), and perhaps it's because although Zanes has some great singers with him, and while Zanes has many strengths as a performer, his vocals don't necessarily carry songs which were written to be sung by singers whose voices can be belted across a stage. The best answer I could come up with relates to Zanes' own career and approach. When he released Sea Music and his Carl Sandburg cover album, those thematically and stylistically focused albums were interspersed between his five more standard "family" albums which culminated in the Grammy-winning Catch That Train!, which has to be on the short list for best kids music album of the decade. His concerts have been giant parties, melding cultures (musical and otherwise) and building communities. But his past three albums have been more narrowly focused -- a Spanish-language disk, a disk of ecunmenical religious tunes, and now this one. None of them have been bad, they're all worth just checking out. But it's been more than 3 1/2 years since the release of Catch That Train!, and I miss that potpourri. Like with all Zanes disks, the idea of an age range is a little silly, but I think kids ages 5 and up will most appreciate the themes and lyrical sophistication here. You can hear the title track here or samples at all your favorite digital e-tailers. I don't blame Dan Zanes for recording the album -- if Sir Paul McCartney's people asked me to narrate the phone book for an audiobook, it'd take me about 2 seconds before grabbing for the Yellow Pages. And I'm afraid that the tone of this review is more negative than the album merits, because it's filled with a number of really good songs, few duds, and is still better than 90% of the music being made for families today. I'm just used to Dan Zanes being better than 98% of the music being made for families today. 76 Trombones is recommended, though, and I expect Zanes' second decade recording music for families to be as joyful as the first. Disclosure: Dan Zanes' Festival Five Records provided me with a copy of the album for possible review.

DVD/CD Review: "Readeez Volume Two" / "Songeez" - Readeez

There are 3 operative points of comparison when discussing Readeez, the creation of Atlanta-based Michael Rachap -- Baby Einstein, Schoolhouse Rock, and Sesame Street. Or, at least, those were the three I thought of as I listened to the latest Readeez products, the Readeez Volume Two DVD and the Songeez CD. Let's start with Schoolhouse Rock, famously created to try to educate kids via advertising techniques. Rachap used to work in the advertising industry, but rather than deliver educational nuggets via 3-minute pop songs, he typically does it in about 60 seconds. Which means his educational scope, such as it is, is a little circumscribed -- it's hard enough to describe conjunctions in 3 minutes and essentially impossible in 60 seconds. So the songs that have some educational content, such as "A Special Name for Twelve" or "Circle and Square" (from the first DVD, but also on the Songeez disk), cover much narrower ground, which is fine. But if you're expecting "learning" from these two items, it's much more on the level of TMBG's Here Come the 123s (with some Dial-A-Song mixed in) than Here Comes Science. Let's move, then, to TMBG's Disney label mates, Baby Einstein. I know that it's easy to slag on the series, but if you set aside their overhyped claims for the product, their later stuff is competently produced and offers a wide variety of visual stimulation for young'uns. For an independently produced DVD, Volume 2 looks great. (It's what made this headline -- Readeez Company Acquired by Disney" -- so great. Yes, it's on both disks.) The attention to detail at times even surpasses Einstein's (note the timing of the placement of periods at the end of "The Land of I Don't Know"). The comparison does, however, highlight one of Readeez' ("Readeez's"?) few shortcomings, and that's the relative monotony of the visuals on the DVD. I like the concept of displaying the words as you hear them, and the crisp, clean look of the background and text is balm for a "Dear Teacher"-font world gone awry. But I long for more visual variety, as the Einstein videos employ. The occasional use of pictures or non-white backgrounds to offset the charmingly illustrated Julian and Isabel Waters (or live-action Rachap) would go a long way. Which brings us to Sesame Street. Forty years down the line, they've had some great songs written for the show. The best songs don't feel like they were written with education in mind. And while the Volume One DVD often felt like the "education" aspect played a more important role, Volume Two has much less of that feel, and, as a result is a more enjoyable experience sonically. (Though Volume One is not without considerable charm.)

Book Review: "Kids Go!" - They Might Be Giants

Books are so 20th century, right? Then why do people insist on continuing to write them? Who knows, but in the case of They Might Be Giants, their proficiency in the non-book world has led them to Kids Go!, their second book. It's a song they wrote for PBS converted to book format featuring the illustrations of Pascal Campion, who's animated a number of their videos for their "Here Comes...." series. As a book, it's fine, really. While song lyrics written on the page can look odd, especially given the verse-chorus-verse nature of most songs, Campion's energetic line drawings with muted colorings help move the plot of the book, such as it is, along. And, hey, it comes with a DVD video that mimics, though doesn't copy, the book illustrations. But I think a lot of parents, excited to get another TMBG item to go along with, say, Here Comes Science, will be disappointed. For the same price as the book (if not cheaper), you can get an entire DVD and CD of TMBG music. Even compared to TMBG's previous book foray (Bed Bed Bed, which featured a 4-song CD), the package is a little lacking. (And isn't it a little weird to read a book about putting books down and jumping around?) The book will be of most interest to kids ages 4 through 7. You can buy the book just about anywhere -- here the whole song here or watch a minute's worth of the DVD video here. It's a fun and might make a neat gift for the They Might Be Giants superfan in your family's life, but most folks can probably hold off. Until they figure out how to package the Kindle text and iTunes video download for $5.

DVD Review: Trying Funny Stuff - The Jimmies

As a reviewer, I tend to dislike absolute statements because you never know what you'll hear or read or see afterwards that will cause you to regret your previous absolute. So with that in mind, let me say this with no "possibly"s or "maybe"s to get in the way: Nobody makes better kids music videos than the Jimmies. Nobody. Don't get me wrong, They Might Be Giants draw a lot of talent to their videos, Recess Monkey does a lot with a little, and folks like Gustafer Yellowgold and Readeez crank out a lot of great music via their primarily video-based format. And various artists might crank out an excellent video or two. But when it comes to creating those 3-minute videos we used to watch MTV for, the Jimmies consistently are the cream of the crop. It's no surprise, therefore, that the chief draw of Trying Funny Stuff, the new DVD from the New York band The Jimmies are the six videos on the set. "Do The Elephant," "Spanimals," "Cool To Be Uncool," "Bedhead," and "Taddy" are here (all available on their YouTube channel or here), along with the new-to-you video for "What's That Sound?," which is every bit as eye-popping as the other three (love the cloud dress). The production values Jimmies mastermind Ashley Albert and director Michael Slavens bring to the videos are pretty stunning -- they impress (and the songs they back up are pretty decent, too). They try lots of stuff, some funny and some just cool. The "behind-the-scenes" documentary starts out goofy, and I thought it was going to be one of those throwaway EPK documentaries, but maybe about five minutes in, you realize, hey, this is interesting, and not in a "interesting-for-the-parents, deathly-dull-for-the-kids" sort of way, but Slavens and Albert actually walk through how they created the effects for the videos and talk to kids rather than the adults. (Oh, and they run through a good dozen chicken-related puns in the span of about a minute, but they're not perfect.) The rest of the package is gravy. The karaoke setting for the videos, is cool, though I don't expect it'll get much use. And the concert video is fun, with the band rocking out in a New York auditorium, complete with guest banjo artists, gratuitous egg shaker solo, and Soaper the Scaredybot (you just have to see it). If you've seen the band in concert, then you know what to expect from the concert. They play songs both from Make Your Own Someday and the upcoming (at some point) Everyday's a Holiday. The DVD also comes packaged with a CD of the concert -- in other words, there's a lot of video and audio to enjoy. Kids ages 4 through 8 will most enjoy the DVD, which features nearly 90 minutes of video (besides the karaoke). You can buy the DVD here or at Barnes & Noble. To watch the Jimmies is to become a fan of the Jimmies. And sometimes you want to watch videos with your kids on something larger than a 3-inch YouTube screen. For those reasons alone, Trying Funny Stuff is worth your time. Definitely recommended.

DVD Review: Field Trips with Recess Monkey

The advantage of Field Trips with Recess Monkey, the first DVD from Seattle's Recess Monkey, is that it does a good job of conveying the band's essential nature, that of kids music's funniest band. This is not to say they're "ha ha Weird Al" funny (usually), more that their joy and sense of humor is way up front, part and parcel of all they do. (For example, the band continues to put on their materials, "Unauthorized duplication or other use prohibited by law and by Mayor Monkey, our hand puppet band manager.") The DVD consists of 4 episodes, each roughly 23 minutes in length, containing some combination of videos (the band consistently makes good cheap but good-looking and effective videos), concert footage, field trips, and natterings from Mayor Monkey. (I have been on the record with my adoration for MayMo. "Natterings" is a term of love.) If you had to watch all the field trips (to Seattle institutions like Pike Place Market or the Fremont Bridge) in a row, it would make for dull viewing (as would the concert video), but all mixed together, it's a reasonably entertaining sequence. I particularly enjoyed the trip to illustrator Matt Hawk's studio (he did the art for Field Trip) and the "Yellow Trike Races." In all the segments, you can tell the band's having fun, joking around, sometimes for the kids' benefit, and occasionally for the parents'. This video will be of most interest to kids ages 3 through 7. You can purchase the video at Amazon and see assorted clips (the videos and concert stuff) at the band's YouTube channel. Hopefully the fact that the band's continuing to produce videos means that this isn't the last set of episodes. I can't expect that many readers of this review aren't familiar with Recess Monkey. If you're not familiar with the band, Field Trips with Recess Monkey is a decent introduction to the band's killer songwriting and sense of humor. And if you are familiar with the band, then you'll appreciate the whole package here. Even (and especially) Mayor Monkey. Recommended.