Itty-Bitty Review: The Color Album - The Ditty Bops

I wouldn't expect a kids album from Los Angeles' Ditty Bops to be ordinary. The folk/cabaret/swing duo of Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald, after all, might be best known for doing a cross-country tour on bike; the one song of theirs that previously got airplay on XM Kids (now Kids Place Live) was a repurposed song about slowing down off their debut album for adults.

Their recently released The Color Album doesn't disappoint in that regard. As you might gather from the album title (and cover), it takes its inspiration from colors, with 8 songs (pink not being part of most rainbows except those colored with marker). But this isn't an educational disk in the school-learnin' sense, aside from the songs being helpfully arranged in ROY G. BIV order (plus, er, pink). The colors here are just jumping off points for considerations of lemonade (the Tin Pan Alley-esque "Lemon Tree") and the general glory of pink ("Pink City," a particularly gleeful and zippy song), which is not for girls only as the song points out. But some songs are not quite targeted at your 3-year-old. The driving acoustic tune "Orange Sun" features the lyrics "Under the orange sun / there can be love / or there can be none / We can hold our hands / or our guns." In the context of the song, it's not really inappropriate (and it's one of the best songs on the album), but it's songs like that and "Blue I'm Blue" that make this kind of a unique disk -- some songs are more for the kids, some are more for the adults, and the band just trusts that each will get something out of every song.

Obviously, given that statement, it's hard to peg an age range for the 18-minute disk, but let's go with 3 through 7. You can hear some samples here here or spin a full copy of "Lemon Tree" here. (By the way, copies in CD format come with an album cover hand-colored by the band.) The Color Album is a brief but nifty little collection of tunes for your family's 4-year-old, 34-year-old, and maybe even 74-year-old. Even if the 3 of you don't agree on what your favorite song is here, you're each bound to find one. Recommended.

[Disclosure: I was provided an (electronic) copy of the album by the band for possible review.]

Song of the Day: Wake Up - The Ditty Bops

Last night I went to an open house at the school where our daughter will be attending kindergarten in the fall. The youngster was a bundle of nerves -- so hyper that a brownie and ice cream calmed her down. I was trying to encourage her to say hello to her (prospective) teachers, to look around, but she just bounced off the walls with her friends. I can tell she's really going to enjoy kindergarten (she went nuts -- or more so -- in the music room with all the instruments out), but there is also the realization that she's reaching another milestone.

Let's start the "Song of the Day" with the "adult" song -- "Wake Up," off the Ditty Bops' eponymous debut album. The Ditty Bops write wry folk-rock songs -- think Suzanne Vega perhaps, but somehow "Wake Up" got played on XM Kids one day. Perhaps this is why:

"Don't cause a scene / Mind your manners / Speak only if spoken to / You know what you are not do / Watch and learn
What if you never were short for time / All meetings cancelled clocks stopped at nine / Without alarms the silence beams / Watch and learn"

Yeah, OK. Kinda makes me wonder about all those boundaries we're setting. Would it really be so bad if the kids ran around outside until late at night? (Please don't answer that.) The lyrics are written to get adults to look at their own lives, but it's raising questions for the parents out there, no?

For a similar perspective, but targeted much more at the parents, check out Brady Rymer's "Dilly Dally Daisy," which, in the midst of a song about a cute but perhaps frustrating-to-the-parent daughter, includes these lines:

"Oh man, I wanna let her go
And see the world her own way, ya know?
'Cause pretty soon they're gonna get her in line
They'll say, 'Stand up straight! Tuck in your shirt!
Know where you're going and get there on time!' "

Those lines will go right over the head of the 4-year-old and right to the heart of the parent.

There aren't a lot of songs about how one chooses to be a parent. Those two, one accidentally, one on purpose, are two of the few.

Listen to "Wake Up" here. Listen to a clip of "Dilly Dally Daisy" here.