I can't say that my initial expectations for
Colours Are Brighter, the kids' music compilation put together by Belle & Sebastian trumpeter/bassist Mick Cooke, were very high. Franz Ferdinand doing kids' music, along with a whole bunch of other bands, only a few of which were familiar to these American ears? The whole thing sounded nothing more than a quickie album thrown together to cash in on the sudden popularity of music for kids. (OK, a quickie album designed to raise money for Save The Children's
"Rewrite the Future" campaign, but still.)
Fear and misinformation are poor bases for making decisions on many things, and kids and family music albums are no different, my friends.
To begin with, Cooke has been putting together the compilation for a couple years, so it's not like Cooke read the
Billboard charts in March and thought, hey, I can do that. More importantly, the music's pretty good.
Franz Ferdinand might just do the best job on the entire disk of putting together a kids' song that's in the spirit of the adult band. With its tinkling piano and scuffling drums, "Jackie Jackson" has enough of the more muscular sound of their music for adults, but the song's chief attribute is singer Alex Kapranos' spirited vocal turn on the story of greedy boy who likes to eat too many cakes. (The boy meets an unsavory, Roald Dahl-like ending.) Another band familiar to some are Snow Patrol, who resurrect an old song, "I Am An Astronaut," which seems like a picture book come to life (or sound), using swirly Snow Patrol sounds. (And, yes, "The Monkeys Are Breaking Out the Zoo" returns Belle and Sebastian to their more twee-pop sounds.)
The less-familiar artists sound good here, too -- Rasputina sounds a bit like Bjork on the funky, angular "A Skeleton Bang" while The Barcelona Pavilion (who hail from Canada, I believe) turn in a post-punk "Tidy Up Tidy Up" that sounds They Might Be Giants-ian echoes. My favorite tracks? Four Tet (featuring Princess Watermelon) doing the dance-track "Go Go Ninja Dinosaur" and the Ivor Cutler Trio singing "Mud," a track that sounds like it was recorded 80 years ago, but was in fact recorded only 40 years ago.
Not everything works great -- The Kooks' "The King and I" would sound good on their recent debut album, but if there was something that distinguished the song here from the rest of their work, I couldn't hear it. And the Flaming Lips' track, "The Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now" is a half-sung, half-spoken word track on which, unfortunately the spoken words are too difficult to understand.
There's nothing age-inappropriate here, but I'm guessing kids ages 3 through 9 are more likely to appreciate the music. If you want to hear the tracks, visit either the album's
website or its
Myspace page. The album is available as an import here Stateside, or you may want to go directly to
Amazon.co.uk or
CD-Wow.
Colours Are Brighter is subtitled "Songs for children and grown ups too," which isn't a bad description. The songs stretch across the spectrum from being targeted right at the younguns to being pretty much "starter songs" for the bands' adult work. It's not a perfect compilation and there's not much of a unifying theme, but there are enough decent songs that it's worth exploring, particularly if you're interested in hearing a cross-section of mostly British, mostly current, pop-rockers. Recommended.
There are those who, upon hearing Rockin' In the Forest With Farmer Jason, the recently-released second album from Farmer Jason, might wonder: Could this be the very same Jason Ringenberg who fronted "Jason and the Scorchers"? It sounds so... so... different.
Those of us who have heard A Day at the Farm..., his first kids' album, know that it's definitely him.
The hard part for older listeners to get used to when listening to Rockin' In the Forest is the sheer exuberance of the whole thing -- shiny, gleaming horns on the poppy leadoff track "The Forest Oh!" or the modern country production of the slightly mournful melody of "Arrowhead." The wellspring of exuberance, however, is Farmer Jason himself, who is just so darn enthusiastic that it might drive some parents nuts. Except that he goes so far beyond the line that there's that glimmer of "yes, I know this is all a little too much, but your kids are eating this up, aren't they?, so just play along." I love the deadpan way he says he's going to "sing a song about a moose on the loose called... 'He's a Moose... on the Loose.'"
Ringenberg knows his way around a bunch of musical styles, from the spaghetti western stylings of "Ode to a Toad" to the Django Reinhardt violin noodlings of "A Butterfly Speaks" to smallest, simplest (and perhaps best) song on the whole disk, the virtually a cappella "Mrs. Mouse." He wraps the melodic nuggets around lyrics that introduce young listeners to different animals in the forest (natch). While the cover and liner note art suggest very anthropomorphized approaches (ugh -- did I just use the phrase "anthropomorphized approaches"?) to the subject, the actual lyrics play it straight for the most part.
Kids ages 3 through 8 are the ones most likely to appreciate Jason's enthusiastic approach and lyrical focus here. You can hear samples wherever fine kids' music is sold (on the Internet, anyway).
If you liked A Day at the Farm..., you'll also like this new album, as it's very similar in tone, maybe a little broader musically. I'm giving this album a "Recommended," but it's with the warning that you're going to have to detach that little parental "I'm too cool for this" monitor in your head -- if you can do that (your kids don't -- or shouldn't -- have one yet), you'll enjoy this just fine. Recommended.
Not For Kids Only, the 1993 album from David Grisman and Jerry Garcia, is great idea for a kids' album. Two stellar musicians playing songs meant for singing along with, as the liner notes ask the listener to imagine hearing Grisman and Garcia playing songs after a large dinner gathering. (Can I be invited? I make a killer cranberry sauce.)
In execution, this album meets the standard set by the idea. Grisman's and Garcia's mandolin and guitar playing, respectively, are sharp and they're backed by a set of rotating sidemen playing assorted percussion or other instruments. The song selection is a nice mixture of songs well-known ("Freight Train," "Teddy Bears' Picnic") and not-so-well-known ("Three Men Went A-Hunting" or "When First Unto This Country"). The songs are given primarily (though not exclusively) bluegrass/folk treatments -- appropriate, of course, for the material at hand.
And despite all that, after repeatedly listens, the album itself is unlikely to make much of an impact on you or your family. It's just too... pleasant. There's no grit here, it's all so darn genial that while it'll make great "quiet time" music for lazy afternoons, there's little that will make you say, "listen to this!, my kids love this song!" Some of the songs, like the gently peppy "Hopalong Peter" or the slow Dixieland swing of "Teddy Bears' Picnic" do break out of the mold (and mood) of the rest of the album. But they're the exception, not the rule.
I think kids ages 3 through 7 are most likely to enjoy the CD. The album itself is so old there's no website for it (can you believe it? do those albums even exist anymore?), so find yourself your favorite online retailer for music samples.
I do want to make clear that Not For Kids Only is not a bad album. The musicianship is top-notch and the very idea that people should go ahead and sing for their own families is what inspired artists such as Dan Zanes. But it's not likely to be the first disk you or your kids reach for when you or they want to hear something that moves them.
dyspeptic, adj., or, causing, or having dyspepsia (impaired digestion; indigestion).
How you respond to Tummy Talk, the 2nd album from Florida-based musician 
The first thing you need to know about 
Detroit is not afraid of you and will beat your... OK, this is a family website, but it's true.The Detroit Tigers are back in the World Series and if The Family Hootenanny is any indication, they can turn out kid-rock with the best of 'em.(Well, they can turn out Kid Rock, too, but that's for another set of music blogs altogether.)
Released earlier this year, the album is inspired by years of occasional Family Hootenanny concerts in which Detroit rockers let their hair down (or, as the promo materials put it, "pulled it from their faces") for family-oriented shows.While the word "hootenanny" implies a folk-centric approach, the CD collects artists from across the musical spectrum, from the punk of all-mom bands The Mydols ("Run Crazy Baby") and CandyBand (the previously released but totally awesome "Get Up Already") to the faithful cover of Schoolhouse Rock's "Interjections" by the Katzenjammer Kids.
I wouldn't have expected it, but the crazy melding of styles works, mostly because the songs are each great in their own way.The Go! (Jack White's old band) puts together the closest thing to a lead single with "Knock Knock Banana," which sounds like an incredibly skewed Saturday morning theme song from 1975.That song is followed by "Stuck in the Playpen (Again)" by Old Man Miller (Dan John Miller of Blanche), a country-blues with the lines "I wonder if my momma even loves me / In the pen you don't get nothin' to eat / Just some plastic blocks / Some dirty old socks / A bunch of books that I'm too young to read."(As Homer Simpson would say, it's funny 'cause it's true.)The two songs have no business being on the same disk except they're both fabulous songs.
And so on through punk, country, pop, Americana.For the most part, the songs are originals, but even the traditional songs are given vigorous new readings.Loretta Lucas (and the Larkspurs) turn in some great harmonies on "Down By the Bay" while the Saltminers' uptempo (and whoo-whoo-enhanced) "Freight Train" is energetic and, well, fun.
Kids between the ages of 3 and 9 will most appreciate the album.(Heck, Chloe Crawford -- age 5 -- sings on "A Peacock Day" with her two younger sisters.)You can hear 4 full tracks at the compilation's 
