Review Two-Fer: Best of the Land of Nod Music Store, Vol. 1 & 2 - Various Artists
It's a little odd, given the wave of popularity kids' music is riding right now, that there aren't more best-of compilations. They're not unheard of, mind you (and, no, the Rachael Ray compilation doesn't count), but they're certainly not crowding the shelves either, are they? In part, I'm guessing it has something to do with the very independent nature of 99% of the kids' music produced. Sure, there are artists like They Might Be Giants or Ralph's World who are recording for a major label, but the vast majority of albums are self-released.
So perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the Land of Nod's first kids' music compilation, Best of the Land of Nod Store Music, Volume 1, originally released in 2004, is that it actually attempts to provide an overview kids' musicians of the past and present, off labels major and not, fitting the bill like little else on the market. You have the great quartet of Smithsonian Folkways artists -- Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie -- making an appearance alongside current stars Dan Zanes, Justin Roberts, Ralph's World, and They Might Be Giants. With the exception of maybe Roberts' "Yellow Bus" and Zanes' "All Around the Kitchen," there are no absolute must-have tracks here by the artists above, though the tracks chosen are solid, and picking just one track out of the many by each of those artists would be exceedingly difficult. Of the lesser-known artists, Rosie Flores' "Red, Red Robin" (off Bloodshot's Bottle Let Me Down comp) and Peter Himmelman's "Sherm the Worm" shine out most brightly here.
If Vol. 1 is a solid, if safe, collection that you could give to your parents for them to play when they have the grandkids over, Best of the Land of Nod Store Music, Volume 2, released in 2005, makes an attempt to speak to parents who might actually buy the CD for themselves. To some extent, it goes over the same ground as Volume 1 -- Zanes, Roberts, Mitchell, and Himmelman make a repeat appearance, as does Lead Belly. It's the new stuff that skews considerably younger. Cake's funky reworking of "Mahna Mahna" or the Mr. T Experience's rollicking "Unpack Your Adjectives" aren't necessarily seminal kids' music tracks, but they're a heck of a lot of fun. Andy Partridge from XTC provides not one but two excellent tracks of music originally written for Disney's James and the Giant Peach. (It was rejected in favor of music by Randy Newman -- hey, I love Randy Newman, but let somebody else do the Disney movies for a change.) If the first volume had more of an establishment view of the kids' music universe, this volume includes more newer and less conventional music to give a better sense of the possibilities inherent in the genre.
At 38 and 40 minutes long, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are a good mixtape length. You can find them at any major internet retailer as well as the Land of Nod itself, natch.
Regular readers of this website will probably be familiar with many of the artists on the two CDs, and will even have a number of the tracks' original releases in their families' collections. If I had to recommend just one CD, I'd probably go with Vol. 2, just because I think the less-familiar songs are stronger. Having said that, both collections are strong and would be a nice introduction for your doubting neighbor or relative that there isn't some great music being made for kids now (or 50 years ago). Recommended.
Obviously, there are some conflict-of-interest issues here, seeing as my reviews (warts and all) are also used on the Land of Nod website. All I can say is that the collections here were one of the reasons why I decided to sign on with them. I'd be posting the exact same review even if I had no association with them.
In reviewing this CD, let me be clear from the start that ours is not, for the most part, a television-watching household. It's not really a principled stand as much as it is a reflection of our busy lives. We just don't have much time to watch TV if we want to do other things like, you know, bathe and eat.
"Boots and Dora walk to school and bump into Boots’ music teacher, La Maestra de Música, who is singing Boots’ favorite song, “Hola, Hola.” When the chain breaks on La Maestra’s bicycle, she needs Dora, Boots and the preschoolers at home to help her figure out the quickest way to get to school..."
In 2002, Belinda and Hova compiled their first Greasy Kid Stuff collection, filled with their broadcast's most popular songs from 7 years of Saturday-morning radio shows. This collection has a very goofy vibe to it that owes as much of its energy to Dr. Demento as it does 120 Minutes. Finding out from the liner notes that the very odd "There's a New Sound (The Sound of Worms)" was "without a doubt the most-requested song" on the show in the mid-'90s is a bracing tonic in thinking about what kids actually like to hear. Although I think the silly outweighs the rock, even the silly has a lot of rock to it (check out the surf "Ants in My Pants"), and the rock -- exemplified by the Mr. T Experience's cover of "Up and Down" from Schoolhouse Rock and the by-now-immortal "Jockey Monkey" from James Kochalka Superstar.
The sequel, released a couple years later, is more at the 120 Minutes-end of the GKS spectrum. With tracks from Cub, Supernova, and They Might Be Giants, the album has much more of an indie-rock feel. "Dictionary" is another great indie-rock track, done by Muckafurgason (two-thirds of which would later become the kids' band The Quiet Two. But the less-familiar names also turn in enjoyable tracks, most notably the surprisingly sweet (with pointed commentary near the end) "The Dinosaur Song," from Drew Farmer.
Two is better than one. Or, in this particular case, fifty-one is better than two.
My Best Friend is a Salamander, released in 1997, was Himmelman's first album for kids and families, and the first thing you might be struck by in listening to it is how it could have been released this year. Ten years later, and Himmelman's still taking socially exciting trips. What is different is just how... odd those first songs were. While on his excellent 2007 release My Green Kite he's singing about kites or feet --fairly recognizable subjects treated in mostly recognizable ways -- early on he had a much more skewed, Shel Silverstein-esque approach. He sings about his best friend... who's a salamander. In "Larry's a Sunflower Now," a dreamy adult-sounding pop tune, the narrator (who poured water all around the subject to help him grow) tells Larry's worried mom," Look at the bright side / There's nothing you can do / Larry's gettin' lots of fresh air / The sun is on his faces and / Birds are in his hair today." Himmelman's fascination with rhyming wordplay -- which continues today -- is most evident here on the gentle "An Ant Named Jane," though a number of other songs have the touch of spoken-word.
... Himmelman released My Lemonade Stand in 2004. After the very-weird-at-times My Fabulous Plum (
Like many people my age, I grew up on PBS shows. Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- all of them great. (And so was Scooby-Doo, but that's not relevant here.) So it's been a little weird to me that the great TV kids' music show of this generation -- Jack's Big Music Show -- has never been anywhere near PBS.
What's that? Oh, yeah, this is a TV show. And while the CD, made up of bits from the TV show, holds up OK as an audio-only artifact, I think the Biscuit Brothers concept works best viewed as it was intended -- as a TV show. I'm not going to review the whole thing here, if only because a) this review is long enough as it is, and b) my copy, probably through family user error, got a nice big scratch, rendering one of the three episodes here from the show's first season inaccessible. But even with just two episodes and the bonus material, it's a nice collection. The first episode introduces the characters and the farm and like many pilots, is a bit slow. The second episode, "Rhythm," is easier to watch. The episodes are structured like many "educational" shows -- a common theme illustrated in many ways, such as live action, videos, features with "real kids" -- but, as I said before, the show doesn't take a very hard didactic approach. And the show is very sharply produced -- it looks great. (OK, maybe the animated animal bits aren't Pixar-quality.) The bonus material -- the featured songs from the episodes, plus bonus songs and interviews -- make it a worthy package in general. A second collection, featuring three episodes from the second season, is also available.
