Review: Baby Beatles - Caspar Babypants

Let us first stipulate that there is no need for a Beatles cover album. The most popular rock band of all time, I have no doubt full cover albums number in the thousands (let alone individual songs, which probably approach if not exceed a million in recorded form).  The originals are permanently lodged in listeners' heads, often in a way that those listeners might wonder why anybody would even try improving upon them.

So, having said that, what of Caspar Babypants' latest collection of songs, Baby Beatles?  Is this just a cop-out, the kindie equivalent of digging into the Great American Songbook as a final musical cash grab?

Let's answer that last question with a firm "no."  As he noted in a recent essay, Chris Ballew, the Caspar Babypants mastermind, owes a great deal of his musical career to the inspiration of the Beatles.   It is better, perhaps, then to view this album as an homage to the lads from Liverpool and their songs, and in that regard Baby Beatles works quite nicely.

Ballew's entire Babypants career has been dedicated to making music for the youngest listeners -- while he certainly would welcome the kindergarteners who want to dance along, he's more interested in their younger siblings.  So while he's always been interested in stripped-down arrangements, that becomes even more important in a covers album where the tricky part is retaining the song's essence while giving the artist's own spin.  That's especially tough given how familiar some of these songs are. 

For the most part, I think Ballew succeeds, usually by making the songs nimble and as light as a feather, even more so than his previously-released songs.  "Here Comes the Sun" is peppier than the original, an incredibly joyful way to kick off the album (his version of "Ob La Di Ob La Da" with Jen Wood gives me similarly happy feelings).   I love the use of faint handclaps on "Birthday."  "Blackbird" hews very closely to the original, but why wouldn't it when it's so perfect to begin with?

I'm not enthused with every reworking -- "Yellow Submarine" and "Octopus's Garden" in particular sound too thin -- but the hits here exceed the misses.  And while some of the song choices seem odd and perhaps picked because of their ostensible ties to childhood ("Mother Nature's Son," "Little Child," "Cry Baby Cry"), those choices at least prevent the album from just being a recap of the Beatles' greatest hits.

The 20-song has a runtime of about 48 minutes and is most appropriate for kids ages 1 through 4, though, c'mon, it's the Beatles.  Just about everybody will recognize at least some of these tracks. 

I don't think any Beatles cover album is essential -- just listen to the originals -- but Baby Beatles is just different enough to hold the listeners' attention far more than they would for some random (often Muzak-inspired) cover.  There is no such thing as a bad Caspar Babypants album, and while I look forward to the next album of his original music and less-well-known traditional songs, this will do quite nicely in the meantime.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Review: Turn Turn Turn - Dan Zanes & Elizabeth Mitchell with You Are My Flower

Has there ever been a more high-profile collaboration between kids musicians than that of Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell?  The giants at the start of the kids music movement -- Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Ella Jenkins, Raffi -- don't appear in person on the others' albums.  And while collaboration is now the norm in kindie, with Mitchell especially as well as Zanes appearing on other artists' records, there is essentially no precedence for Turn Turn Turn , the brand-new album from the two kindie superstars.  (Aside from a Laurie Berkner duet with Mitchell on Berkner's holiday album, there's really nothing.)  It's as if Lady Gaga and Katy Perry teamed up for a new release, or maybe it's the kids music equivalent of Watch the Throne.  (And, not only that, the duo's touring together, too.)

All of which is to say the expectations for this album were probably pretty high in a lot of quarters, including this one.  So it took me a few listens to fully appreciate Turn Turn Turn, an album essentially recorded in a long weekend.  For those of you expecting the full-band musical travelogue experience of most of Zanes' Dan Zanes & Friends albums or the lush, mellow lo-fi indie folk-rock of Mitchell's albums with husband Daniel Littleton, daughter Storey, and friends as You Are My Flower, the sound is different.  That unadorned cover album photo, which looks like it could've been taken fifty years ago, is a pretty good pictoral representation of the music within.

The majority of the tracks are renditions of traditional songs, some of which will sound familiar to fans of both artists' previous work.  For example, "So Glad I'm Here," which Mitchell memorably recorded on You Are My Sunshine, here gets a funky banjo treatment.  I prefer the first treatment, easily one of my top five favorite Mitchell tracks, but I appreciate the attempt to mix it up.  Other songs will sound familiar just because they move in the same circles the artists have traveled in before -- the sea song "Sail Away Ladies" would've fit on Zanes' criminally unknown Sea Music, while "Raccoon and Possum" could have been recorded (differently, in all likelihood) by Zanes and Mitchell on many of their previous albums.  Mitchell fans may miss, however, the more modern not-obvious-until-recorded cover choices (Velvet Underground, Allman Brothers) on her previous albums.

There are six original tracks as well.  With "Honeybee," Mitchell's lone original, a gentle song with nifty wordplay that could easily be a lost Woody Guthrie track, she reminds the listener that for all her gifts as a song-interpreter, she has songwriting gifts, too.  (Don't hide them under bushel basket, Elizabeth!)  Zanes contributes five new songs.  I particularly like "Coney Island Avenue," a strutting, hand-clapping stroll through a local neighborhood -- a prototypical Zanes song.  "Now Let's Dance" is his best (and successful) attempt at a sing-along folk-dance tune, while "In the Sun" is a dreamy, mid-afternoon nap of a song that's probably the best actual duet here, a nice blend of their voices.  (Though "Shine," the closest thing to a modern pop song on the album -- though it's not very close at all -- is a close second.)

Suggesting an age range for Dan Zanes albums (and, to a lesser extent, Elizabeth Mitchell albums) is a fool's errand, so while it's not an album focused on toddlers and infants, kids of all ages should enjoy it.  As noted above, the instrumentation mostly eschews the fuller-band sound of DZ&F albums and fuzzy lo-fi rock of YAMF albums for a more restrained folk sound; look at that album cover again -- mandolin, guitar, tambourine, and ukulele.

Once you get past your preconceived notions of what this album should sound like (including this review), I think you'll find that Turn Turn Turn offers up many enjoyable moments.  There are a handful of dance songs for fans of Zanes' dance parties and some songs that showcase Mitchell's warm yet crystalline voice.  But the album's biggest strength is that this album of two of kindie's biggest stars features those musicians getting together to play songs humbly and joyfully.  Highly recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review. 

Itty-Bitty Review: ¡Fantastico! - Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

Although they’ve released just three albums for kids and families, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band have almost enough bright, acoustic rock songs for kids and families to release a “greatest hits” album.  Diaz’ latest album Fantastico! takes a look back at some of his best songs, but with a twist.

Take “Gato Astronauta,” about a space-traveling cat.  In its original incarnation, the song had just two Spanish words -- the title.  With the help of Tejano music producers Noe Benitez and Christina Martinez-Benitez, Diaz reworked “Gato” and some of his other English-language hits into Spanish.  On the only entirely new track on the album, Diaz takes the traditional Latin American children’s singing game “La Vibora de la mar” and turns it into a shimmery pop song.  By marrying his bubbly pop songs to a new language, he's given the songs new life and suggested an alternative route to non-English music for kids.

The 22-minute album is appropriate for kids ages 3 through 8.  It'll obviously appeal to those looking for Spanish-language music, but it holds up even if you're just a fan of good kids' music.  A first-generation Mexican-American, Diaz grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and he says his mom is most pleased that he’s finally recorded an album in Spanish.  His new album neatly honors his family’s past and his own musical past while pointing the way to a new, very danceable future.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review. 

Itty-Bitty Review: Champions of the Universe - Ratboy Jr.

Trying to describe the music of New York's Ratboy Jr. is an exercise in merging two disparate references.  Funk made by your favorite dog?  Music for the easily distracted kid in all of us?  A blender with really good taste in guitar-drum duos?

Whatever.  It's weird, and so long as your family is down with the first 8 1/2 minutes of the album -- a loping song about a sentient rock ("Bill"), a pure pop hit about high fiving one's shadow ("High 5 Your Shadow," natch, along with a digression into the difference between a solar and lunar eclipse), and a gentle, dreamy song about eating clouds ("How To Eat a Cloud"), then y'all will make it through the rest of the album with a silly grin on your face.  For every crunchy Americana and Velvet Underground-inspired tune from guitarist/kazooist Timmy Sutton and drummer/glockenspielest Matty Senzatimore, there's a song like "Pretend Your Hand's a Puppet," which includes an air-drum solo and more "la la la's" than ANY song in recent memory and which should wipe away any churlishness the listener has stored up from the past week.

The album is best for kids ages 4 through 8 (as well as your inner 7-year-old).  Producer and multi-instrumentalist Dean Jones helps sand down some of the band's rough edges, while creating some new nooks and crannies for the band to explore, but in the end the album rests upon Ratboy Jr.'s unironic enthusiasm, heart, and willingness to wear its rubber chicken on its sleeve.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review. 

Itty-Bitty Review: Bandwagon - Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights

The New York-based musician Joanie Leeds has spent the past few years gradually developing her career as a kindie musician.  She's picked up a band (the Nightlights), a fanbase outside New York, and on her latest album, Bandwagon , she takes some big strides toward finding her own voice in the kindieverse.

Those strides begin with Leeds' voice in particular.  Perhaps it has sounded this good on previous albums and I just was too dim to hear it, but on this album, you can hear just how versatile that voice is, on crunchy garage rock ("Are We There Yet?") or a slow bluesy number ("Use Your Words"), among other tracks.  Whether it's Leeds writing songs that use her voice to more varied effect or producer Dean Jones giving her voice the spotlight or some combination of the two, it pays off nicely.

I hear two Joanies on the album -- one is the Leeds willing to be goofy and write songs laser-targeted at the six-year-old in your life ("Back to School," "Helmet," "UFO"), the Joanie that's always been present on her records.  The other is the singer who writes very child-friendly pop songs (the gorgeous and winsome "Falling," "Little Cloud," and the rousing folk-pop of the title track featuring Rachel Loshak and the Okee Dokee Brothers' Justin Lansing).  This other singer also gets Jonatha Brooke to duet on "Family Tree."  While Leeds has never been solely goofy, this other songwriting approach gets more airtime than before, and I think it's a good thing.

The 41-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 8.  You can listen to album clips here.   Bandwagon is my favorite Joanie Leeds album yet, and I get the feeling that the best is yet to come.  Recommended.

[Note: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.] 

Review: Deep Sea Diver - Recess Monkey

Another summer, another Recess Monkey album.   No kindie band challenges the kids music reviewer as much as the Seattle trio: their amazing productivity (at least one album a year for the past eight years, plus a second one to be released later this year) and consistently high quality makes it difficult for humble reviewers like this one here to figure out how to say what is essentially the same thing ("this is really good -- you should get it") in new ways.  (No, I will not be writing this review in limerick form.)

All the qualities that have endeared Recess Monkey to thousands of families nationally from their Pacific Northwest perch are in ample display on their brand new album Deep Sea Diver . Humor (the wry look at those scavenging birds in the mellow Beatles-esque "Seagull" or the punny title of "Choral Reef"), kid-focused topics (disco-dancing with "Walkie Talkies" and complaining about being short in "Shrimp"), and, yes, hooks galore.

I mean, what did you expect on an album themed around the ocean and water -- of course  there would be hooks.  The catchiest tracks are front-loaded -- "Tambourine Submarine" is a pure pop hit, and the samba-tinged "The Deep End" will have you singing along with the chorus or dancing (if not both).  But there are some gems buried on side 2, as it were -- "Seagull" is a tiny gem of a portrait and the back-and-forth sonic touches on "Making Waves" neatly echo the song's subject.

Musically, Drew Holloway and Jack Forman sound as good as ever, with new drummer Korum Bischoff essentially introduced to the band's audience in track #2 "Fish Sticks" by showing off his ample chops.  Friends such as Johnny Bregar and Dean Jones pitch in, and after listening to the strings on "Stranded," somewhere Burt Bacharach is thinking maybe he should do a kids' album.

As with most RM albums, this one's pitched at kids ages 4 through 8.  You can listen to the whole 41-minute album here.

So here am I at the end of my review and I still don't know if these words are adequate to convey how great this band is.  I'll just leave you then with Deep Sea Diver  is really good - you should get it.  Highly recommended.