Please Release Me: June 2006 Edition

The list of June 2006 children's music-related releases is pretty slim, at least compared to May 2006. So now that all the kids (except those in those newfangled "year-round" schools) are on summer vacation, the labels are, too? Ah, well...

June 6 - Cars Soundtrack -- Hey, it's got Sheryl Crow, James Taylor, and Randy Newman. That's enough to at least be worth further investigation. (To listen to 1-minute samples of each song, go here and click on "Music" up on the right-hand side.)
June 20 - Eric Herman - Snow Day. Releasing an album titled "Snow Day" on essentially the first day of summer is just cruel to those of us living in Phoenix. Setting that aside, you can listen to random tracks off all of Herman's CDs here.
July 5 - Rebecca Frezza - Tall and Small. Yeah, it's a July release, not June. Sue me, it was a short list.

Lots of stuff coming up this summer and into the fall.

News: Other Releases, Releases-To-Be

I hear you saying, "You and your "news." You're all Justin Roberts Meltdown this, and Laurie Berkner Starbucks that! How 'bout mixing it up for a change?"

And you're right, I have neglected other artist news recently. My bad. So here you go, three (mostly) fresh tidbits of info for ya...

1. Brady Rymer's 4th album has been out for a month now. Every Day Is A Birthday was released on February 10, 2006 and in addition to the regular songs, the album also includes what is intriguingly referred to as a "collection of brain-teasing, creative musical activities at the end of the album." Sounds like it'd be not-so-hot shuffled on an iPod, but kinda cool with the kids. (Also, Rymer's website is really cool.)

2. Eric Herman is preparing his 3rd album Snow Day for a late spring/early summer 2006 release. Go to the link above for info on pre-orders. His site also has some computer games, which I hear are all the rage these days.

3. Finally, Monty Harper also has an album coming out this summer -- Paws, Claws, Scales & Tales will have songs revolving "around the themes of pets and reading." Though lyrics are available, I think I'd rather be surprised to see how many songs deal with reading pets.

So there you go.

Review: The Kid in the Mirror - Eric Herman and the Invisible Band

Unlike pop music, children's music is most definitely not a singles-driven genre. So while the advent of iTunes has been a blessing for those of us who might otherwise buy an entire Chumbawumba album just to get a copy of "Tubthumping," children's music CDs are much more even.

So it's hard to discuss Eric Herman's first album for kids, The Kid in the Mirror, without spending most of the review talking about the single best song on the album, which outshadows the rest of the CD. "The Elephant Song" is a simple song, singing about many different animals in a way which amuses adults and is likely to generate squeals of laughter from kids singing along. I'm trying not to say much about the song because I don't want to ruin the surprise of the song's central conceit, but it's one of the few non-traditional kids songs I've heard that I've wanted to sing with children without the CD around.

The rest of the CD has some high points. Herman (along with his occasional co-lyricist Kenn Nesbitt) has a slightly skewed sense of humor that sometimes helps leaven the morals in his songs (for example, the detached-sounding "wow... cool" on "The World's Fastest Bicycle"). Sometimes the humor isn't there, and for my tastes, it doesn't do much for me, but your tastes my vary. Musically the album is mostly uptempo, with just the concluding song a sweet ballad. And although you wouldn't think an "Invisible Band" could generate a musically diverse and full sound, the album proves me wrong.

I think the album is best for kids age 5 to 8, although "The Elephant Song" is appropriate for kids as young as 3 or even 2... but there I go again, talking about that song. You can get the CD through Herman's website as well as CD Baby. Recommended, if only for, well, you know...

Review: Monkey Business - Eric Herman and the Invisible Band

As a parent of a pre-schooler, I've heard lots of CDs with pretty simple lyrics. "Row, row, row your boat" may be a model of Zen equanimity to some with a Matrix-like philosophical underpinning, but, really, it's about rowing your boat downstream. Over and over and over again.

This is not to say that simple lyrics are bad. Just that they've been the norm thus far in my infant/toddler/preschooler parental music experience.

So it takes some adjustment on my part to listen to music obviously geared toward older kids. Lyrically, the new CD from Eric Herman and the Invisible Band, Monkey Business, has some moments of inspired weirdness, which I mean as high praise. For example, the song "The Monkeys" tells the familiar story (to thirty-somethings and forty-somethings, perhaps) of four monkeys named "Mick and Dave and Mike and Pete" who sang in a band, and were accused of not even playing their instruments. The song concludes with lyrics such as "I'm in love... I'm a banana eater" and "Take the last vine to Clarkville." Another song, "Don't Bother Any Butterflies," works in a nice Beatles reference in an appropriate place. So lyrically the album works in enough sly references and humor to amuse both the children and the adults.

I think this CD works best (for adults at least) when Herman is telling a simple story or just singing -- "In the Box," the uptempo song that starts the CD is a fun song about cleaning up. The two slow songs at CD's end -- "The Hero of Your Dreams" and "Rest Easy Now" -- are sweet, slower songs appropriate for CD's end. Less successful for me were storytelling songs in which Herman assumes the voice of pirates or a robot. I can see six- and seven-year-olds really enjoying those songs, especially in concert or on a video, but I think their parents (or, at least, this one) won't enjoy them nearly as much on this CD.

Kids age 5 through 8 would probably enjoy this CD the most. You can buy the CD through online stores such as Amazon or CDBaby, or through Herman's website.