I don't talk a lot about music that isn't specifically kids' music, but that guideline's never stopped me before from veering into stuff for the adults.
And so when I saw the video below for Tally Hall's "Good Day," I thought, hey, that's worth posting. For one thing, it's a really cool song. For another thing, it's a really cool video. The punchline to the video will probably go over your kids' heads, but the video and the song is pretty kid-friendly. Especially if you and your kid are able to process rapidly-changing cuts and about 8 different tempo changes.
"Good Day" is from Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, which is being re-released by Atlantic Records on April 1. (You can hear "Good Day" and more at their Myspace page.)
Now, I'm hardly the first person to the Tally-Hall-for-the-kids party (Clea mentioned this very song more than 18 months ago), but there really is a kids' music connection here...
Well, That Made My Evening
It's been years since I've run an Oscars pool -- that happened about the time that the number of movies I saw in a theatre dropped to a dozen or so (but, hey, I love you, kids!) -- though I did catch part of last night's ceremony, including the announcement of Best Original Song, which went to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for their lovely and aching "Falling Slowly" from the movie Once.
It was a little surprising, the win. Alan Menken, whose brilliance as a movie-musical composer cannot be denied (think all the classic Disney animated movies from nearly 20 years ago) had the misfortune of being nominated three times with Stephen Schwartz for Enchanted in the category, which meant that voters too blinkered to recognize the best song of the three (note: "Happy Working Song," duh) split his vote.
Not that I'm complaining. It's a stunning song from a great little movie. The soundtrack is nice, but I've found that it never quite moved me the way the movie did. The soundtrack version of the Oscar-winner adds a string section which, while sweet, takes away from the central core of the movie, the way these two artists create a singular musical voice. Much better is the movie's version. Less than 20 minutes into the movie, you hear this duet, and it floors you. The clip below is from the movie.
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - "Falling Slowly"
And in case you feel like you need a kid-friendly version (or at least one the kids might be a little more interested in -- initially), you can click here. I wouldn't recommend it, though -- it's absolutely awful. Update: And Bill notes that MST3K alum Mike Nelson feels similarly.
Once is out on DVD now, and if you haven't seen it, you should.
Sara Hickman: Sings "Iolana," Drinks Beer (Not Simultaneously)
One of the best parts of Sara Hickman's performance at the Austin Kiddie Limits Festival last September was her performance of "Iolana," from her album Big Kid (that's the song I made my Bob Dylan reference for). Well, the fine folks at DadLabs got Sara to visit them in their studio and give them another performance.
(Warning: I think I've skipped past some of the saltier language in the first half of the video -- yes, a post with kids' songs that has salty language, great -- but in case I'm still low-tech here, the song starts about 4:30 into the video.)
Between this and part 1 of the interview, Hickman sounds like she'd be a heckuva fun person to have a beer with. (Note: the song in this first part is hysterical, but definitely not for the kiddos.)
Teenage Pregnancy and Kids Music
I have not spoken enough (OK, at all) of Barry Louis Polisar, who's been writing and performing songs for kids (and, really, just for kids) for 30 years now. Despite the occasional foray into songs about commercial zoning (republished here from a Washington Post article last year), his songs have been pinpointed at the interests of youth (typical title -- Polisar's classic "Underwear").
So now, as if the boundaries of kids' music haven't expanded enough comes news that the opening credits from the new movie Juno, about a teenager who becomes pregnant, will be run under a song from Polisar's 30-year-old album My Brother Thinks He's a Banana. That's right, "All I Want Is You" is Polisar's own work. (If you want to hear a sample, go here and listen to the sample from track #10 on Old Dogs, New Tricks at the top.)
A sweet song, really, unlike most of Polisar's work. (Which isn't to say the rest of his work is bad. But "sweet" is not an adjective often applied there...)
More Joy
In case you haven't checked out Offsprung's forums, cheekily called The Playground, it might be worth a little time. For example, this thread (noted by loyal reader Katy) unearthed a video on YouTube for "My Children, Be Joyful," by the Canadian band Rock Plaza Central. (Well, if "unearthed" is the verb for a video featured on YouTube's front page and with nearly 300,000 views.)
The video takes entirely unrelated footage from the Canadian television show Nanalan, which, I gotta say, looks suspiciously like a little show called Jack's Big Music Show. Or vice versa. Anyway, the song builds up to a frenzy (la la la's, violins, and, like, a dozen horns) and the frenetic puppets somehow fit perfectly. And, yeah, it's joyful.
Not bad for a song from an album (Are We Not Horses, released in the States this year) that is "all about robotic horses. Robotic horses who think they are real horses. For real. Caught in a battle between good and evil. Between angels and humans. And after eradicating the world of the angels, wondering if they fought for the right side." Yeah, that might not be so much for the kids. Or maybe. I don't know. I kinda want to find out, though.
By the way, if you want to get the track for free, head on over to the band's Myspace page to download it and three others.
What songs are bringing you and your family more joy?
How Do We Make Money? Volume.
There was an old Saturday Night Live fake ad about some bank whose sole function was to make change. The spoof had the mixture of trustworthiness and responsiveness that is the hallmark of most ads for financial institutions, right down to the founder who, when asked how he could make money solely making change, responded in an eager tone, "Volume."
The ad came to mind as I pondered Radiohead's decision to release its new album, In Rainbows, as a digital (DRM-free) download on Tuesday, October 10th, just 10 days after announcing it. (There's a deluxe boxset to be released in December, with a physical version of the regular CD scheduled for sometime in 2008.)
There are probably countless bands who are giving away music for free, but none with 1% of the popularity of Radiohead. If you go to the site and ask to buy the download, you can indeed enter "0" as your desired price of the digital download of the album. But Radiohead is probably banking on the goodwill of its fans and the interest of other music fans to generate a fair amount of change.
Other music fans like me. I'm not alone in saying OK Computer is one of the best albums of the past 10 years, but most of the rest of Radiohead's post-OK work has left me cold. So it's safe to say that if In Rainbows was appearing at my local record store in a physical format next week, I would not be picking it up. Nor would I be scouring a bunch of torrent sites looking to download it for free -- it's just not what I do.
But this morning I went to the site and put down 2 British pounds (about $4 US) plus about a $1 service charge to download it next week. Why? Well, in part it's the musical equivalent of playing the Powerball lottery -- I always viewed $1 I paid when the pot got large and the office collected as entertainment, not as investment. This is much the same, no? It's also part of the giddy glee in helping to make major label executives nervous about whether they can continue business as usual.
So here are my questions to you:
1) Was I too cheap? A kids' musician e-mailed me last night saying he'd put down $10 -- a dollar a song. But I think he's a bigger fan than I am. It might be cheap, but $4 is $4 more than Radiohead would have received from me in the absence of this experiment. But if Spoon did something similar with their next album, I guarantee I'd've put down $10. Maybe more.
2) Is this a model that can at all work in the kids' genre? I've always pooh-poohed the idea of digital downloads because I think kids like the physicality of things, and mp3s don't have a lot of physicality, know what I mean? But if somebody like, say, Dan Zanes did something similar, I think he'd probably make a fair amount of change. (Though I'd certainly miss the album packaging, which has always been top-notch with his work.) Of course, he's already reaping all the profit from his CDs, something that Radiohead, while they were on a label, did not, so perhaps his incentives to do so is less...
Readers, musicians, thoughts?
