Review: The Start of Things - Alison Faith Levy

Kids' music in the 1960s -- that is to say, kids' music before there was even a name for it -- basically took the folk music path that was one of the dominant musical strains of the era. For Pete Seeger and Ella Jenkins, there was some distinction between folk music for adults and that for kids, but it was a distinction more of presentation than of subject matter. And that folk music orientation was basically the default kids' music option through the '80s if not the '90s until the kindie wave swept through at the start of the 21st century.

Imagine, however, if other musical strains of the decade -- psychedelic pop, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production -- also found themselves working their way into kids' music with songs for the youngest listener. Were that to have been the case, Alison Faith Levy's brand-new album The Start of Things would be a stellar example of that alternate reality rather than sounding so unique in today's kindie landscape.

Levy first came to the attention of the kids' music world as a member of the Bay Area band The Sippy Cups, which started out as a kid-friendly cover band for the music of the '60s and '70s before gradually becoming a band which wrote its own psychedelic-inspired kindie pop. The band had been on hiatus for several years before Levy released her first solo album, World of Wonder, in 2012. While there were echoes of the Sippy Cups' psychedelic and Wall of Sound production on that first solo album, it's much more pronounced on The Start of Things. The opening title track features a groovy organ, horns, and the theme of how it's OK to be nervous when tackling a new project (first day of school, opening night of a play, etc.). It's my favorite track on the album, just a great pop song for kids that a lot of adults might sneak into their own playlists.

The track "Pull Your Weeds" envisions a friendship between Cinderella and Snow White and the empowering lyric (printed on the inside of the CD package, so clearly resonant with Levy) "Do your thing / Love what you do / Appreciate your beauty / Pull your weeds and / Stand your ground / And the world will come around." While "The Start of Things," Pull Your Weeds," and songs like "Rainbow Tunnel" and "Little Dreamer" sound like they could easily be part of a musical Levy is working on based on World of Wonder.

Other songs, however, are rooted more in interactivity -- the raucous "Are You Happy?" runs through a series of emotions that the kid-listeners are encouraged to mimic. The "Ballad of Boo Ghosty" is a silly little story about a ghostly friend, while "The Froggy Dance" is a nonsense poem. Given these tracks, the 32-minute album will be most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6, though some of the songs mentioned earlier in the review have a slightly older age range.

The Start of Things has a '60s-inspired sound, but it still sounds fresh. That colorful and rainbow-adorned album cover nails the vibe of Levy's bright and empowered songs. Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Big Block Singsong Volume One and Big Block Singsong Greatest Hits

After I listened to and watched Big Block Singsong’s album (Big Block Singsong Greatest Hits) and DVD (Big Block Singsong Volume One) a couple times, my first question was “Why have I not heard of these before?” I initially assumed that the fact it was a (relatively new) Disney Junior show meant that I was just out of the TV loop.

Turns out that the delightful series of 2-minute music videos date back to 2009, when Canadian illustrator Warren Brown and composer Adam Goddard (now Goddard/Brown) first unleashed Big Box Singsong, as it was then known, onto the world. (No such thing as an overnight sensation, right?) So I have nobody to blame but myself for not knowing about the videos until their move to CBC, Disney Junior, and Nick Jr. in the UK and inevitable worldwide conquest. Now there are 59 videos, 49 of which are the Season 1 pile which provide the 24 songs drawn for the album and DVD. I, for one, welcome our new big block overlords.

What’s the concept? Each video episode is about 2 minutes long and features an animated rectangular block with big eyes and mouth singing about a topic, usually themselves. “Monkey”? A gray-brown block with long arms singing about all the things he’s going to do meaning that it’s going to be a “two-banana day.” It’s almost a celebration. “Octopus”? A red-brown block with eight tiny dangling legs. The songs run the genre gamut, from folk (“Monkey”) to AutoTuned funk (“Sleep”) to Smile-era Beach Boys (“Nose”) to Queen (“Junk Food”). The lyrics have a light touch and a sense of humor, with very little didactic “do this” guidance.

The videos are inherently humorous (it’s a square monkey, after all), but the lyrics sometimes offer opportunities for visual jokes. You don’t need the visuals to enjoy the music, but there are definitely some videos (“Sleep,” for one) that add an extra layer of enjoyment. While there's a unified animation style, of course, the different video and song concepts mean that if your kid is bored with one song, hang on, there'll be an entirely different one on shortly.

The music and videos are most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 6, but both music and videos (especially the videos) will probably tickle the funnybone of kids (and adults) considerably older than that. The album and DVD are each roughly 45 minutes in length (with the DVD available with a French-language option of course). You can get a complete list of places to watch the videos here, which includes the kid-friendly Disney Junior page.

The most difficult question may be, “if I get only one, which do I get?” Sixteen of the songs including “Nose,” Sleep” and “Mad” are on both the album and DVD. The advantage of the DVD is that you get the visuals in a format that doesn’t require an internet connection. The advantage of the album is that you get the incredibly-awesome “Princess,” a track which doesn’t appear on the DVD, and, potentially, portability via CD or mp3 player. If you don’t need multiple languages on the video, the cheapest and perhaps the easiest combination might be to get the standard-definition version of the 24 videos on the DVD via iTunes for just $6.99 and download “Princess” as an individual mp3 track.

So, yeah, I’m late to the party, but better late than never. Big Block Singsong is ten tons of fun. After listening and watching, your kids’ll probably have a two-banana day, too. Both the album and the DVD are highly recommended.

Note: I received an electronic copy of the album and physical copy of the DVD for possible review.

Itty-Bitty Review: Hello My Baby - Vered

A good part of Vered's second album, Hello My Baby (subtitled Songs to Bond You and Your Baby) doesn't sound much different from its predecessor, her debut album Good Morning My Love. The folk-pop songs are very tightly arranged, with Vered's lyrics often requiring her to sing, or almost rap, them quickly (see, for example, "Gotta Go"). And like its predecessor, the subjects and lyrics for most of the songs are designed to, well, bond parent and baby, so the song helps explain the child's perspective to the parent, and/or gently remind the parent the consequences of actions like being on the phone too much ("Phone").

If there's a big change from the first album, it's in the songs that speak much more directly to the parents. "More of a Baby" is a duet with the Okee Dokee Brothers' Justin Lansing that recognizes the value of a baby's attitude toward the world. "Something Other Than a Mom" reflects the voice of a mother trying to take back some of that personal identity she had before becoming a mom. With a cello helping to underscore the frustration and sadness that can be mixed into life as a parent, it's rawness one doesn't hear often in kids music; rawness about parenting just isn't heard much in music, period. And if that track is wistful, the album closer "All I Want" features the year's most memorable kindie chorus, with a handful of kindie musicians (album producer Dean Jones, Joanie Leeds, Rachel Loshak, Jon Samson, and more) singing "All I Want / is to sleep / seven hours straight / all I want / is to sleep." Compared to most of the other tracks, this song is loose, letting all the emotion flow and spill out.

The album is most appropriate, as you might expect, for kids ages 1 through 5 and their new parents, natch. (You can listen to samples of the 43-minute album -- soon -- here.) To the extent that Vered sought to create an emotional dialogue between parents and their infants and toddlers, Hello My Baby succeeds. For those parents, it's definitely recommended.

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

Itty-Bitty Review: Calling All the Kids to the Yard - Cat Doorman

A little more than a couple years ago, Portland, Oregon artist and musician Julianna Bright gave the world her Cat Doorman alter ego and a fantabulous debut album.

Now she's back with Calling All the Kids to the Yard, the first of 4 digital-only EPs Bright plans on releasing in 2015. And based on the 12-plus minutes on these first 4 tracks, we're in for a treat.

All the hallmarks of that debut -- the tumbledown organic folk-rock sound, the fully-felt emotions, Bright's enthusiastic vocals -- reappear here. If the first album's theme was of individual expression, the songs here focus more on the world outside. "Loving Cup" starts out with a slow acapella chorus, then moves into a rocking meditation ("I'm ready as I've never been / To slow my breath and to take in / All the world's wonders, all its kin / I start to see you."). "Wake Up" features funky organ, crunchy guitar, hand claps, and an encouragement for the listener to "reach out" and pay attention to the world. After the title track, the album closes with the least-lullaby-ish verson of "All the Pretty Horses" I've ever heard.

You can stream (and download) the album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 9, here. Fans of the debut album will definitely find more music here to their family's liking, but this should appeal to a broad range of Zooglobble readers and kindie fans. If possible, I like this even more than the debut. Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Watching the Nighttime Come - Suz Slezak

Lullaby albums can be a nice way for an artist who typically records music for adults to slide into the kids music world -- maybe record a few public-domain lullabies and/or some love songs appropriate for tender ears, and with relatively little change, presto, you have a lullaby album! The potential downside is that you get a bunch of songs recorded too loudly and with little of the magic that makes parents repeatedly put good lullaby albums back into the CD player night after night.

Suz Slezak certainly could have gone that route. Along with her husband David Wax, she's part of the folk-roots rock band David Wax Museum, but Slezak chose to record and release Watching the Nighttime Come, her first kids' music album, a lullaby album, under her own name. She could have easily gone the route I outlined above, but instead this new album is remarkable for how much Slezak the vocalist fades into the background and lets Slezak the musician step forward. I tend to think of the start of the album as being the aural equivalent of the album cover -- playful as day's last light fades and, well, waiting for nighttime. Slezak's songs "Where Did You Come From" and "You Got Love" are dreamy tracks, but ones on which her vocals take something approximating center stage.

As daylight fades, however, the overall feel of the music, rather than anything vocally-based, becomes most important. The heart of the album -- "Jessie's Waltz," "Tallis Canon," and "Caballito Blanco" -- are, respectively, an instrumental, a 6-minute version of a 450-year-old hymn, and a Spanish-language lullaby. Those are not the artistic choices of someone who just wants to create a lullaby album with a snap of her fingers -- those are the choices of an artist who's deliberately creating a hushed mood. That mood on the album eventually breaks somewhat, as all nighttimes break. Here it's with a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye."

The album is going to be most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 5, but like most good lullaby albums, it's far more all-ages than a lot of kids music. You can stream the 31-minute album here.

This is a somewhat idiosyncratic lullaby album, and if you're looking for renditions of the same set of lullabies you might typically hear on collections of sleepy songs, you should probably move on. But I think this is exactly the kind of idiosyncratic that regular readers of the site will dig a lot, and even if you think you want yet another version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on CD, I'm pretty sure that Watching the Nighttime Come will fit in nicely amidst your family's CD collection. Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Night Night! - Caspar Babypants

The family music of Chris Ballew -- recorded as Caspar Babypants -- has been so consistently good over his past eight Caspar albums. (I don't think I've ever been as pleased with the result of any prediction of mine as the one from six years ago that suggested Ballew "might make a whole bunch of great CDs for the family.")

So when I got an advance review copy of Night Night!, his ninth album, out today, my question wasn't whether it'd be any good -- the quality goes without saying -- but whether he could translate his tightly-contstructed hook-filled melodies into lullaby form.

Because, as you might gather from the title, this is supposed to be a cool-down album.

I hope Ballew doesn't take this the wrong way, but his album is forgettable in all the right ways. What I mean by that is the music, while catchy, isn't necessarily one bouncy hook-filled song after another. Rather, it features a more consistent -- and obviously far mellower -- tone. The opening track "Just For You," is a lovely song featuring words of unconditional love (one of the backbone topics of lullabies), as is "Sad Baby," but for the most part the strength of the album is that the songs almost imperceptibly slide from slightly bouncy with lyrics from the wandering brain of a child who's just turned out the light all the way to album closer "Made of Light," whose minimal lyrics and ambient sounds would fit right in amidst the contemplative "space music" of Hearts of Space. (It's a cousin to the ambient music Ballew has started posting.) So while there are fewer "classic" individual CB tracks, perhaps, as an album with a specific purpose in mind, it's kind of brilliant.

The 50-minute album is targeted at kids ages 0 through 5 or 6, though many of the tracks would probably fit on a relaxation album for a broader, older age range. Night Night! is a stellar lullaby album with a set of soothing sounds for whenever a break is necessary. Highly recommended.

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