Well, it's not like Oct. 3rd isn't already busy enough as it is, CD-release-wise -- new stuff from Beck, the Decemberists, the Hold Steady, even the Killers (though their new album is getting absolutely miserable reviews). But, hey, even in the kids' music segment we got a new (sort of) Ralph's World. Not to mention a bunch of other stuff to look forward to.
So here we go:
Oct. 1: AudraRox - I Can Do It By Myself
Oct. 3: Ralph's World - Welcome To Ralph's World
Oct. 8: The Sippy Cups - Electric Storyland
Oct. 10: Gothic Archies (Stephin Merritt) - The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events
Oct. 16: V/A - Colours Are Brighter
Oct. 17: V/A - New Orleans Playground (Putumayo)
Oct. 24: Wee Hairy Beasties (Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan, Devil in a Woodpile) - Animal Crackers
Oct. 24: V/A - Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Vol. 1
Maybe Gavrilo Principe Has Something Against Kids' Music
They've posted Franz Ferdinand's song "Jackie Jackson" at the Colours Are Brighter Myspace page, but after constant buffering, all I get is about 30 seconds of Franz Ferdinand-y goodness about a greedy boy eating too much cake before an abrupt cutoff. Your mileage may vary, and hopefully it's better than mine.
The Belle and Sebastian-compiled benefit album is set to be released in the UK on Oct. 16th.
Review: Open Season Soundtrack - Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg's place in the rock canon is safe, thanks to the his work in the 1980s with the Minneapolis band The Replacements.If you had placed a bet back then that he'd eventually score an animated movie replete with a bunny rabbit, chances are you'd received pretty good odds.But here we are in 2006, children's music is all the rage, and Paul Westerberg has scored an animated movie replete with a bunny rabbit -- Open Season, whose Original Soundtrack is being released today.
Setting the improbability aside, is it any good?It's a hard question to answer, because you're inevitably judging the album against Westerberg's previous work, much of which was recorded long before you were even thinking about parenthood.In any case, it's a mixed bag.Westerberg, who crafted a great soundtrack cut for the movie Singles ("Dyslexic Heart"), has another great song here in "Meet Me in the Meadow," a gorgeous pop tune with a soaring string-accompanied chorus, the sense of hope very reminiscent of Replacements' themes.It's definitely one of my favorite kids' music tracks of the year.
"Love You in the Fall," the lead single, sounds most like an actual Replacements song, and is a decent song to boot."Right To Arm Bears" is a bit of silliness obviously crafted for a particular bit in the movie and shows off Westerberg's wordplay, as does "Any Better Than This" includes the amusing turn of phrase "knight in shining armchair."
Where I think the soundtrack fails, at least for kids, is the slower songs."I Belong" and "Whisper Me Luck" move too slowly to grab most kids' attention (at least without a visual accompaniment), and I'm not sure the kids are going to respond to the lyrical concerns.In the context of the movie, they may be perfect, but as a set of standalone tracks, they bring the soundtrack to a halt.
There are four tracks not performed by Westerberg.Pete Yorn covers "I Belong" and he, too, doesn't make it particularly compelling.Sacramento's Deathray (including members from Cake) cover Westerberg's "Wild As I Wanna Be" and have a fun, poppy original, "I Wanna Lose Control."And the Talking Heads, whose place in the rock canon may be even more safe than Westerberg, contribute "Wild Wild Life," a song whose existence will continue long after the apocalypse happens and cockroaches roam the earth.Needless to say, I'd've rather heard another Westerberg track than that recycled cut.
I'm gonna peg the soundtrack as most appropriate for ages 6 and up.I mean, there's nothing inappropriate about the album -- I just don't think 3-year-olds will care much.Listen to four tracks at the soundtrack's Myspace page.
The Open Season soundtrack is a good Paul Westerberg album, with probably more good songs than a lot of his recent work.Whether you or your kids will listen to it in the long run probably depends more, however, on whether you (or your kids) care about what Westerberg and his bandmates recorded 20 years ago.Review: Bright Spaces 2 - Various Artists (Dan Zanes)
There are two basic approaches to putting together a genre-specific compilation of music, approaches which for brevity's and wit's sake, I call Putumayo vs. Rough Guides. The former approach may not necessarily be an exhaustive look at a genre, but it sure results in a pleasant thirty-to-sixty-minute mix of music to someone unfamiliar with the genre. The latter approach is as much history lesson as mixtape and while you might not listen to it often, unless your expertise is such that you might have been asked to compile one of these yourself, you're bound to find something new and something really fabulous.
Bright Spaces 2 is Dan Zanes' Rough Guide to Family Folk Music.
Zanes compiled this 2006 collection, released last week, on behalf of the Bright Horizons Foundation. The Foundation sponsors the "Bright Spaces" program, which puts playrooms in shelters for children in crisis situations. He calls this collection a "musical scrapbook," and like many a scrapbook, it's a collection of snapshots (in this case, songs) that have significance to Zanes. His scrapbook might not be your scrapbook, but he's certainly taken a lot of pictures of family folk music.
Zanes pulls from artists young and old, famous and not. And unless your collection of family folk music is, oh, a thousand albums full, many of the tracks are likely to be new to you. Boston's Session Americana turns in a fabulously languid version of "Merzidotes," which is followed by "L'cha Dodi," a 16th century Jewish tune recorded by Craig Taubman. The Deighton Family, a real "family band" for whom Zanes has had many a good word, leads off the album with a happy "When You're Smilin'." And Zanes re-records his hit "Jump Up" with New York band Astrograss, putting a more muscular bluegrassy accompaniment to his tune -- I wouldn't buy the album just for that version, but it's good in its own right and different than the original. There are probably few tunes you already have in your collection -- Elizabeth Mitchell's version of "Little Sack of Sugar" and the Garcia/Grisman rendition of "Hopalong Peter" are the two most likely. If there's any downside to the collection is that it lacks some of the musical diversity that makes Zanes' own albums such adventures to listen to. The songs here fit more in the folk music mold, and if that's not your bag, you may be underwhelmed.
As an album of family folk music, it's really appropriate for all ages, though the tiniest ones may not be too interested. Call it ages 2 through 10. You can purchase the album at Amazon as well as on this page. You can hear the Astrograss/Dan Zanes track here.
In calling this the "Rough Guide to Family Folk Music," I've probably understated the mixtape qualities of Bright Spaces 2. There are good and excellent tracks collected here, and, if you have any affinity for Zanes' music-making, will without a doubt send you spinning off in at least one new direction you've not gone before. Recommended.Review: The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides - Various Artists
Chicago's Bloodshot Records is known for for their insurgent country, or some other name for music that sounds like country but sounds nothing like Nashville. With their 2002 compilation The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides, Bloodshot could easily have staked their claim to "insurgent kids music." (Or, even more marbly-mouthed, "y'all-kid-ternative.")
With a broad range of "adult" artists (from Alejandro Escovedo to Freakwater to Nora O'Connor and Steve Frisbie -- partner in Frisbie with Justin Roberts accomplice Liam Davis) and a collection of both kids' classics and originals, it's hard to summarize the 26-track, 63-minute album. But the one word that keeps coming back to me as I think of the CD is fun. On many kids' albums from "adult" artists, you get the feeling that the musicians are deigning to play this "kids' music," and it shows in a song that, well, isn't much fun to listen to. Not here -- the musicians are having fun playing these funds, and it shows. The Waco Brothers' spirited take on the folk classic, "The Fox," and the Asylum Street Spankers' punked-up bluegrass version of "I Am My Own Grandpa" shows no signs of "well, let's make a track for the kiddies." They're making tracks that any music fan would appreciate, kids not excluded. The Cornell Hurd Band's original "Don't Wipe Your Face On Your Shirt," is an amusing plea for respectability most parents will relate to, while Escovedo's live version of his "Sad & Dreamy (The Big 1-0)" (with the chorus of "I'm the big 1-0 / Candy just doesn't taste as sweet anymore") will ring bells with the tween set.
Like you would expect from an album produced by an "insurgent country" record label, many of the tracks are not sanitized. Carolyn Mark's fun retelling of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" doesn't sand off the rough edges of the story, for example, and Devil in a Woodpile's swampy cover of Mississippi John Hurd's "Funky Butt," is just what you might expect from the song title. And while most tracks stay safely on the parental side of appropriateness, Robbie Fulks' "Godfrey" (about an sickly, unemployed magician) and Freakwater's inneuendo-filled "Little Red Riding Hood" are probably way on that other side. The parents themselves will probably like those songs while thinking repeatedly, "Should I fast-forward? I should probably fast-forward. Right? Tell me I'm right."
Some of the tracks are appropriate for kids as young as three, though the album is appropriate for kids who are as old as 10 as well. You can hear samples at any major online retailer.
In the end, this is a solid album with no weak tracks. Your kids won't even know that they're being exposed to a great collection of bands and songs, they'll just love these energetic renditions. And so will you. It's probably the best compilation of adult-musicians-doing-kids-music out there; its status as a minor classic (or even a major one) is deserved. Highly recommended.Review: See You on the Moon! - Various Artists
You know what's refreshing about See You on the Moon!: Songs for Kids of All Ages, the 2006 compilation from Canada's Paper Bag Records label? It's a compilation album of kids' music from adult rock artists that isn't for charity. Bless 'em -- every other compilation of this type seems to be a fundraiser for one worthy group or another, but this one? Pure commerce!
Why should you care? Well, for one thing, rather than wondering whether or not the cause behind an album is worth your $15, you can just wonder whether or not the music itself is worth your $15. In this case, it's a mixed bag. The best track by far is Great Lake Swimmers' title track, a winning mid-tempo indie-rocker all about different careers kids can aspire to -- carpenter or singer, for example. It combines a fabulous hook with clear, direct lyrics and occasional fun stuff for the kids to latch on to (the tap-tap-tap of a hammer during the sung phrase "tap-tap-tap"). It's sunny, but not overwhelming, a song for kids of all ages (truth in advertising in this regard, anyway).
Unfortunately no other song hits the heights of the title track, though there are a few worth listening to -- I particularly liked the Apostle of Hustle featuring The Husky's' "24 Robbers," which marries kids' playground chanting to drum and sound loops (think a kids' track from Beck). And Detective Kalita's "Baby Brother," is, unlike most of the tracks, very clear vocally and sweet (almost too much so). Sufjan Stevens' Christmas carol "The Friendly Beasts," off one of his homemade Christmas EPs (which'll be released in late 2006), has a pleasant basement recording studio feel, but sounds somewhat out of place amidst the other tracks.
The tracks that don't work are the ones that don't provide things kids can latch onto -- clear lyrics, accessible subject matter, or catchy melodies. Alan Sparhawk's "Be Nice to People with Lice" comes off more mean than a plea for tolerance, while Hot Chip's "I Can't Wake Up" will put most listeners to sleep. And the other big artist, Broken Social Scene, turns in a very hazy and very dull "Puff the Magic Dragon." Whether or not the artists thought about how to communicate their songs to a younger audience than they normally play for, the results don't always reflect it.
For the most part, this is an album that kids ages 4 to 7 might enjoy. You can hear samples wherever the album's sold online OR you can go to Paper Bag's newly redesigned website and stream every one of their albums (I don't like to deep-link too much, so just go here and pick out this album. Or another one. Magneta Lane, maybe. Be adventurous.)
See You on the Moon! is an uneven album, filled with some great tracks and some considerably less-than-great. While you may enjoy the diversity of indie-rock tracks and bands on the disk, your kids are likely to pick out just a few tracks and ask you to skip the rest.
