"Don't judge a book by its cover," goes an adage I tend to ignore when it comes to CDs. The aura of competence regarding album covers and inserts is often an indication of the competence of the music and production itself, particularly in children's music.
So this CD, with its cover picture a giant mouth that brings nothing to mind more than, "Let There Be Lips!" (that's a Rocky Horror Picture Show reference there, folks), worried me.
Thankfully, in this case, the old adage is actually true. Monty Harper's 2005 album, The Great Green Squishy Mean Concert CD, is a fun and occasionally funny album. (It certainly exceeded my cover-based expectations.) For his fourth CD, the Oklahoma-based Harper recorded three concerts with his "Thrice Upon a Time Band" in front audiences of kids and parents. The concept brings a couple strengths to the CD: 1) the full band (guitars, bass, drums) sounds really good, and 2) the audience participation songs have an audience to participate. Both make the CD very lively.
Harper writes straight-ahead rock (think "classic rock") tunes with a sense of humor and an occasional tendency toward "educational" lyrics. My favorite songs on the CD are the two songs leading off the album, "Loose Tooth," a cute pop-rocker about, er, a loose tooth, and "The Great Green Squishy Mean Bibliovore," with crunchy guitars (and lead character). While I tend to prefer his more story-based songs (like the two above), his "educational" songs aren't bad either -- young kids will probably eat up (pun mostly intended) "You're a Dinosaur," which introduces a whole bunch of dinosaurs in song. (It's one of 5 reptile/dinosaur songs on the CD, so if that's your child's thing, definitely check it out. I'm pretty sure it's the only album in the world with two songs about horned toads.)
The CD also comes with some CD-ROM bonuses -- I did like the two healthy-eating-based songs, "I Go Bananas," and "Gimme Vegetables," the latter of which had a very '80s synth-pop texture wholly unlike the concert itself. (Both are fun -- if Harper ever releases a B-sides/rarities disk, these seem like perfect candidates. Because I don't think I'm ever actually going to listen to the CD at the computer....)
I'd recommend the CD for kids aged 4 through 9. You can find it through the usual suspects (artist's website, CDBaby, Amazon, with samples available at the latter two). If you're looking for a CD of rockin' kids songs, check it out.
Review: Alphabet Songs Vol. II (Ivan Idea) - Steve Weeks
This review really revs up when the reader reconsiders her readily held notions regarding the realism referred to in this record...
OK, I admit it, it's hard to write (or "rite," to continue the motif) reviews by focusing on a single letter. And so it begs the question, why would an artist set up such an obstacle?
For that very reason, I had some trepidation upon my initial spin of Steve Weeks' 2004 album Alphabet Songs Vol. II (Ivan Idea). Each of the nine songs focuses on a single letter, I through Q, and I feared lyrics stretched beyond anything remotely resembling (stop it!) enjoyment. Luckily, the CD passes the enjoyment test with flying colors. The lyrics themselves focus on a single letter, but generally not in a way to call attention to them. (Only if you're listening closely will you notice all the words starting with the appropriate letter.)
On the CD's best songs, the letters seem almost secondary. "Kiki Kangaroo" is a bouncy song about a kangaroo with a mind of its own, "Look, Look!" a midtempo rocker about noticing what's all around, and, my favorite, "Monkeys" is an amusing, laid-back track about, well, monkeys. (The song, which includes a completely gratuitous "Sound of Music" reference, has a very Jack Johnson-like vibe, which is a little ironic given Johnson's work on the Curious George soundtrack.) Some songs tend to show the effort of focusing on a single letter a little more (see letters "N" and "Q"), but there isn't a weak track on the album.
The album is nicely produced -- fun acoustic guitar work, with some funky percussion tracks and even an occasional banjo. The songs are mostly gently uptempo folk-inflected rock. To put the album in adult terms, I'd describe it as Barenaked Ladies meets Phish. (Weeks' voice even reminds me of one of the Ladies' singers.)
I'd recommend the album for children aged 5 through 9. It's a fun album (or, to end the motif, "really rockin'") and would probably work in a school setting (though it'd work outside of such a setting, too). You can get the album through the usual online retailing suspects and through Weeks' website.
Review: Rocket Ship Beach - Dan Zanes and Friends
Rocket Ship Beach was the first Dan Zanes album I ever heard. This was maybe 4 years ago or so. I liked it, but it didn't quite grab me at the time the way his 3 subsequent albums did. In going back to the album for the purposes of this review, I tried to figure out why.
Let's start out with the stuff I liked then, and still do. You wouldn't think that "Bushel and a Peck" from the Broadway musical "Guys and Dolls" would be a great fit for a chorus of elementary school children (whom I generally dislike hearing on record), but they sound great in the song. It's 180 degrees different from the Olive Oyl-stylings of Faith Prince in the Broadway revival from a few years ago, but lots of fun. My other favorite track on the record is Suzanne Vega's take on the "Erie Canal," which is... well, I don't want to say "eerie" (that would be too easy), but Vega's voice and Zanes' lap steel guitar blend together in a wonderful duet.
The rest of the album is... maybe it's just too folk- and bluegrass-based for an entire album for my tastes. Yes, Father Goose and the Sandy Girls make their appearances, as does Barbara Brousal, but the overall feel of the album is definitely more "folk festival" than the other Zanes and Friends CDs. Maybe part of that is that there's only one Zanes original ("Hello," on which Brousal duets). In any case, the album is less diverse musically (if no less technically and musically accomplished).
Don't get me wrong, I like the CD and I'm glad to have it in my collection, but I guess unless you're a big folk music fan, I would recommend one of Zanes' other CDs (probably "House Party") as an introduction to his stuff. The CD is best for kids ages 3 through 7 or 8, though like all of Zanes' work, it's definitely appropriate for people of all ages. Zanes' music is available in most stores with a children's music section. Recommended.
Review: Bottle of Sunshine - Milkshake
Children's artists can walk a fine line between sweet and sappy. Childhood is full of wonder, and trying to convey that can lead musicians into mushy-headedness.
For the most part, Milkshake avoids the Head of Mushy on their second album, Bottle of Sunshine. Milkshake, a duo from Baltimore, has two strong assets -- the sweet vocals of Lisa Mathews and the melodic and occasionally crunchy guitars of Mikel Gehl. Backed by a full band, Bottle contains a broad variety of children's pop, uptempo and down-, that does a good job of showcasing those assets.
The best songs on the album are the ones that stay away from mushiness. "Woo-woo" is a fun pop song leavened with humor about playing underwater ("If you find lost treasure on the ocean floor / please bring it back up to me.") "Boom Boom" is a country-tinged tune about dancing. And while "Book of Dreams" is a sweet pop song, elegantly produced, "Sleepytown" is a simple album-closer. (Is there some sort of union rule requiring closing a kids' music album with a slow, sleep-related song? Just wondering out loud here.)
As someone whose tolerance for mushy is perhaps lower than many, some tunes don't work as well for me. While I liked "Book of Dreams," "One Wish" reached too hard for the sense of wonder for my tastes and was fairly bland. And while I'm not against namechecking one's own band in song, which Milkshake does twice here, it has to be really catchy (paging Morningwood to the review, paging Morningwood to the review), which isn't quite the case here. (Still, I could see those two songs being fun for preschoolers in concert.)
The album is best for kids age 3 through 7. It's available at the usual online suspects. While I recommend the album, if you like me have a low tolerance for mushy, you may want to listen to some samples online before committing to the CD.
Review: Lullabies: A Songbook Companion - Baird, et a
Most lullaby CDs are a little bit painful for the parents to listen to. Cheesy instrumentation and American Idol-style over-emoting. Not to mention the same ten songs on each CD. There's only so many ways you can sing "All the Pretty Little Horses." (Or at least there are only so many ways I've heard.)
Thankfully the purpose of most lullaby CDs is such that we parents will not listen to them. But there are times, especially early on in a baby's life, when a little lullaby background music is nice for nursings or bottle-feedings.
So the collection from New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled Lullabies: A Songbook Companion came as a welcome relief from the other poor lullaby CDs I avidly bought before our first child's arrival. The album is a family affair -- parents Richard Kapp (piano) and Madeline Kapp (vocals) and daughters Julianne Baird (vocals) and Mela Tenenbaum (violin and viola). So you have classically-trained musicians playing real instruments and knowing when that over-emoting goes so far. (It's on here, but it's kept mostly in check.)
And when you have 35 tracks on the CD, clearly there will be a few tracks that will be new to you. The selection reaches across the globe ("Fais Dodo," "Suo Gan") and includes some classical instrumental tracks (such as Schumann's "Traumerei") that may very well be the most relaxing and sleep-inducing on the album.
The CD is available either on its own or accompanying a book with assorted child-related art from the Museum's collection and the sheet music. The book also gives the briefest of backgrounds on each song; such descriptions are omitted from the CD's liner notes. Both are available through the Museum itself or online retailers. If you're looking for a lullaby-related gift for parents-to-be, you need look no further than this CD. They may even be listening to it themselves long after their little one is sleeping through the night.
Review: Philadelphia Chickens - Sandra Boynton
It's funny what people remember from their youth. Meals at their grandparents, trips to Disneyland, their first kiss. One of my memories is of a white coffee mug with a cow with a befuddled expression standing on his (or her -- my memory isn't that good, nor was the drawing that detailed) hind legs on a patch of grass somewhere. On the other side, the text -- "For someone outstanding in their field"
Still gets me everytime.
The creator of that silly mug was illustrator and author Sandra Boynton, who besides countless children's books now has three albums of kid-friendly music to her credit.
Her second album, Philadelphia Chickens, was created with her musical collaborator Michael Ford in 2002. Unsurprisingly, given Boynton's talent for anthropomorphizing animals, many of the songs revolve around animals. Some of the songs do so very clearly, such as "Please, Can I Keep It?," an amusing story-song about a ravenous stray pet. Others focus more on their owners, such as the slightly funky "Fifteen Animals." And some have nothing to do with animals at all-- "BusyBusyBusy."
In the liner notes to the CD, Boynton mentions that the music came about as a result of her desire to make something a "little more nuanced" than the recordings of perky children's music her children were once given. She wanted to "create an album that would somewhat parallel the soundtrack that ran beneath [her] own childhood," including "Broadway show tunes." Some of the best songs on the album would be perfect in a Broadway review -- "Faraway Cookies" is a note-perfect song about longing. Longing about cookies, yes, but the emotion is surprisingly universal.
Another sign that Boynton was really trying to create a Broadway review is the list of performers -- they're much more familiar to fans of the stage and screen than to readers of Billboard. Meryl Streep, Laura Linney, Kevin Kline, even Scott Bakula -- they were recruited to sell the songs. Their voices are pretty good, but the songs are better than you would expect.
There's a wide variety of musical styles on the album, but you do have to have a tolerance for show tunes and moderate tempos. Kids aged 4 to 8 would probably appreciate this CD the most. You can either buy the CD separately or with an accompanying book with goofy Boynton drawings and sheet music that is just a bit too advanced for my rudimentary piano skills. The album is recommended, especially if you're looking for a change from your children's-oriented folk or rock music.
Oh, and if you want to know the source of this blog's name, check out "Nobody Understands Me." It's not just the mug that stuck with me.
