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

TheColorAlbum.jpgI 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.]