Beware the music of a new parent.
Clouded by the biologically necessary attachment to a newcomer to the family, a normally rational person and musician can be fooled into thinking that these feelings are somehow unique to them, that nobody has ever felt like this before about their child. Which leads to rambling output that doesn't really say anything new. (Wait a minute. I'm talking about child-centric blog writers. No, wait, I'm talking new parent/musicians.) If you're going to sing about it, you'd better bring something new to the table.
So it was with a sense of relief that as I listened to
It's A Big World, released last week by the duo
Renee and Jeremy, that I realized that the duo had generally avoided recording parental pablum (or, when necessary, put that pablum in tasty form). The duo consists of Jeremy Toback, who released a couple of major-label solo albums in the '90s and formed the band Brad with Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, and Renee Stahl, who has also released a solo CD of her own. When they recorded the album, Toback's son was a year old and Stahl was pregnant with her first child. They recorded quickly (the room was soon to become Stahl's daughter's nursery) and deliberately sought out a raw, lo-fi sound.
The promo materials name-check Jack Johnson as a reference, and it's an appropriate one. (For a more kid-centric reference point, think Elizabeth Mitchell, especially the slow songs off her earlier kids' CDs.) There's little more than an acoustic guitar accompanying Stahl's and Toback's vocals, and especially on tracks like "Welcome To This World" (on which Toback sings lead), you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a Johnson-penned (and played) piece. The lyrics on that track, which ostensibly are a welcome to the world for a new child, work just as well for new parents too. But new parents will probably respond to the rest of the album's lyrics, which focus on a child's sense of wonder with the world around them and a parent's sense of protection and care for their child.
There are some stellar tracks here, most notably "Night Mantra," a gorgeous song which sounds like a somewhat happier Aimee Mann track and features Stahl's and Toback's best vocals. "Powder Blue," an original lullaby written by Stahl which would have fit in perfectly on the Innocence Mission's
Now the Day Is Over, is a great addition to the lullaby canon. Oddly enough, while many uptempo albums end with a slow song or three, this album, which is essentially a lullaby (or at least a quiet time) album, ends with its three most vigorous songs at the end. Bulked up with just a little more production, "Sleep My Love" and "Shoorahlaywho" could easily be hits on adult alternative radio.
Less successful are the time when the lyrics don't say very much. The leadoff track, "Miracle," begins with the wonderful lines "Are you the sun? / Are you the moon? / Are you the watermelon bug in June?" but ends up with the lines "You're a miracle / uh-huh / A little miracle / Oh yeah." If the song were two minutes long, that part would be tolerable, but dragged out over the song's 4-minute length, it's, well, not so much. And while I appreciated the overall mellow vibe of the CD, the exceedingly slow version of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" makes Mitchell's version sound positively raved-up in comparison.
I'm going to peg the age range for this 39-minute album at ages 0 through 5, picking up again at maybe age 30. You can hear three songs at the duo's
website, plus an additional track at their
myspace page. (At the moment, you can purchase the album at
CDBaby.)
If the review sounds negative, it's only because there are enough stellar songs here that I could hear the stone-cold classic this CD could have been. (Frankly, I can't wait to hear what they come up with after another couple years of parenting.) But even if the album's not perfect, I guarantee you that this album would make a great new-parent or baby shower gift. While it's really targeted at the parents more than the kids, it'll make great quiet-time music for the whole family, even when (or especially when) your child has moved from giggling to throwing very verbal tantrums. Definitely recommended.
Amidst the explosion of musical styles in recent kids music -- indie rock, country, rap, what have you -- the pure children’s pop tune or album has almost been forgotten. I don’t know whether it’ll ever make a complete comeback (Billy Joel isn't exactly burning up the adult pop charts nowadays, either), but Seth Decker and the Missing Piece won’t be to blame if it doesn’t.
Seth Decker and his wife Leah Decker founded the Red Door Playhouse in the Atlanta area in 2003, providing theater, music, and visual arts programs for kids and families. On their second album, 2006’s Intergalactic Tour, the band runs through a bunch of finely-honed original kids’ pop that sound like they’re the basis of an evening's show at the playhouse. Over the course of 42 minutes, the band covers every bit of hyphenated pop known to man -- the pop-country of “Call Me Anytime,” the swing-pop of “Bugville Boogie,” or the pop-rock of “Open the Door.”
A couple of songs stand out above the rest. “Edna the Elephant” is a simple piano-based pop tune reminiscent a little bit of Justin Roberts. It’s about a light-on-her-feet elephantine ballerina and is a minor classic of kids’ song storytelling. Less conventional perhaps is the dreamy “Trampoline,” which is one of the slowest tracks on the disk, its gentle tempo a nice match for the song’s subject. The songs do sound a bit like they’d fit into your local adult alternative radio stations amidst the Sheryl Crow and Maroon 5 tracks, though it’s doubtful those artists will be recording silly songs like the ‘70s-pop-with Mexican-accents “Taco Love” anytime soon. (Though at this point in their careers, I’d probably rather listen to “Taco Love.”)
I do feel like I’m missing something in listening to the album, and it’s probably the live show that sounds like it goes (or went) along with the songs. It’s structured as a tour through the galaxies, but the plot thread is weak on record. It’s an indication of the strengths of the hooks here and their execution that I’d be interested in hearing or seeing the, well, missing pieces.
I think this is right in the wheelhouse of 4 to 8-year-old kids. You can hear selections from the album here.
In the end Intergalactic Tour is simply an album of well-crafted pop tunes. While you might enjoy the songs more if you’ve seen the songs performed live, if your family likes the music of Justin Roberts, SteveSongs, or Ralph’s World, you’ll probably find the album worth exploring. Recommended.
There are singers, and there are entertainers. In the former camp, I'd put artists like Elizabeth Mitchell, whose interpreter of songs is rivaled by few in the kids music genre and who have glorious voices.
In the latter camp, I'd like to introduce Ashley Albert, lead singer, songwriter, and mastermind behind the New York-based 
New Jersey-based 
You know, it's a shame that the ice cream truck industry seems to have withered away. (At least it has in our neighborhood.) Who can resist ice-cream-on-demand? Well, perhaps the industry's demise can be traced to the lack of variety in ice cream songs, with parents and kids rushing indoors at the slightest hint of another overly familiar ice cream truck song.
Friends, 
Listening to Seattle-based 
