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: When I Get Little - Dog on Fleas

How to describe New York-based Dog On Fleas? Hmmmm... The band itself has used the phrase "Brigitte Bardot will serve you from John Cage's hat" to help describe the Dog on Fleas "recipe." It's a not inaccurate description of the band's attitude, but doesn't really give you any indication of what they sound like. So that's where I'll give it a shot.

On their 2006 release When I Get Little, their fourth album, Dog on Fleas play blues, country, jazz, folk, and zydeco -- among other styles -- with a loose feel reminiscent of Dan Zanes, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Woody Guthrie. The five-member band are a talented group of musicians, but the resulting sound on the album is not overproduced, giving it room to breathe and sway. They come at songs from odd angles and most of those angles work. "Come On Down" has a loping New Orleans jazz feel and sounds very much like it could have been recorded strolling down a New Orleans street. "Green Grass of Summer" is a sweet retro-sounding folk-pop tune that would've sounded great on AM radio 35 years ago. (Heck, it would sound great on AM radio today.) And "Big Black Snake" is an instant folk classic that's remiscent of Woody Guthrie songs given a Billy Bragg/Wilco "Mermaid Avenue" treatment, except instead of Bragg's raggedy voice we get the clear voice of Debbie Lan.

Thirteen of the fifteen tracks on the 42-minute album are originals (most written by member Dean Jones) and none of them are traditional kids' songs. They're definitely in the traditional of family folk, and even songs about more kid-centric topics are given a twist -- the Cajun stylings and French lyrics for a song about French toast ("Mon Pain Perdu"), for example. The low-key feeling of peace and goodwill throughout the album is helped in no small part by the lyrical components on songs such as "Peace Will Come" and the ska-inflected "What's Behind the Wall." By no means are the messages of peace hammered home, but they're definitely there.

As with the best family folk albums, the music is appropriate for all ages, but kids ages 3 through 9 will probably appreciate it the most -- they'll be the ones most willing to dance along, too. Listen to samples here.

So how would I describe Dog on Fleas and When I Get Little? How about simply as "good and fun music for listeners of any age." Fans of Dan Zanes' music should especially check out this album, but unless you require your music pitch-corrected to within an inch of its life, you'll find it a vibrant and joyous experience. Highly recommended.

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: Hot Air Balloon - Vanessa Trien

Boston-based folk-pop artist Vanessa Trien's debut kids' album, Hot Air Balloon (2006), is one of those albums for which your opinion depends upon your tolerance of earnestness in kids' music. There are plenty of adults dipping their toes into the ocean of kids' music for whom everything sounds like the old Simpsons group "Hooray For Everything" -- relentlessly peppy. And for those adults, their appreciation of this album may take awhile. Part of the reason for this is that Trien, who's also recorded for adults, has loaded the peppiest songs at the front of the CD. Sometimes the songs strike a nice balance -- the gorgeous leadoff pop ballad "Hello World," the bluegrass of "Good Morning!" And sometimes they veer over the line (or my line, at least), such as on the semi-rapped "Backward Alphabet Craze" or the cutesy reggae "Bluenanas and Bananaberries."

But all of a sudden, on track 8, "Wyona Wide," Trien strings together four songs that seem to come from an entirely different album. It's as if the first seven tracks were for the four-year-olds (and 3 of them were indeed written for a Montessori school at which Trien taught) and the last four were written for seven-year-olds. They're a little less peppy, and include the strong bluegrass tune "End of the Line" (probably my favorite cut on the album, and the least kid-centric) and the sun-dappled pop tune "Island in the Sun."

One constant, however, is the solid musicianship on the album -- it sounds fabulous. The 37-minute album is best for kids ages 3 through 8. You can listen to samples from the album here.

Those of you who have an earnestness intolerance should stay away from the CD. But if you're looking for a folkier Milkshake, or for solidly-arranged and played folk-pop kids music, Hot Air Balloon is worth a spin.

Weird Al: Patron Saint of Nerdy Kids' Music

Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Flower may have been the first (good) kids' album I ever bought, but "Weird Al" Yankovic's second full-length album, 1984's Grammy Award-winning In 3-D was the first album I ever bought, period. The album was funny. But for a nerdy kid like me, it also introduced me to a bunch of music it would have taken me years to find otherwise. (Man, I gotta go back and find a copy of that...)

More than 20 years later, Al's latest album, "Straight Outta Lynwood," his twelfth of original material, is being released next week. You can read a good interview with Al here (thanks to Stereogum for the link). I particularly liked this portion of the interview:

RS: R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” is almost a Weird Al song in itself. How did you come up with “Trapped in the Drive-Thru”?
WA: I knew I couldn’t make my R. Kelly parody any more ridiculous or convoluted than the original, but I believed that I could make it more stupid. Because that’s where I really shine...

Anyone who listens to XMKiDS will tell you that Yankovic's popularity hasn't really waned with kids -- his "The Saga Begins" (mixing the two cultural touchstones of Don McLean's "American Pie" and Star Wars Ep. 1) is still in constant rotation. In other words, just as with They Might Be Giants fans who have been following them for 20 years, Yankovic has somehow managed to stay relevant with those fans' kids, if maybe not so much with the original fans.

But go ahead -- watch the video "White and Nerdy" -- and tell me it doesn't at least make you chuckle. (And, for some of us, hit just a leeeetle too close to home.)