The first time Yo Gabba Gabba’s album finds its way through your speakers, you are more creeped out than if you had encountered a grinning clown in a dark alley. It doesn’t seem right to listen to it without a tot in tow. Never having seen the Nick, Jr. show, the music on the album is fun and catchy enough, but the lyrics are a true test in how quickly the adult mind registers suggestiveness.

From zero to sixty in… yeah.

Take the “Go Crazy Remix.” To a child, this song is very confusing. One line tells them to stand still, while the very next lyric instructs them to go crazy! And yet somehow, having a generation of attention deficit kids is still baffling? Filter this very same song through adult ears and becomes the number one requested remix at Cabana Club. “Nice and easy, nice and slow / It’s nice to be quiet, and listen, you know… but sometimes I have to move around, and be loud, loud, loud! / I’ll have to go crazy, and be loud, loud, loud!” Give a listen to the vocal inflections and the beat and try not to go there. Try it.

Half of the album is stacked with current indie favorites (The Shins, Of Montreal, Weird Science) grooving about the importance brushing your teeth, not always getting what you want, and telling you how it’s in your best interest to wash your hands. These are life lessons that many adults should really revisit. Disgusting humans, buy this album!

It’s not just the indie band interpretations on YGG tunes that create sexual undertones –the songs attributed directly to the cast are just as unsettling. Lyrics like “Just because it’s different, doesn’t mean its scary… here’s a new fruit, come on let’s taste it (let’s taste it, baby!)” It’s also hard to decode the messages that YGG sends to its audience. Getting the “sillies” out may not be the message you want to send to kids – just take one look at the furrowed brow on any given Corporate American. Also, the whole “Try It, You’ll Like It” advice never works on kids, and, quite honestly, is counterproductive to McGruff’s war on drugs. No. Not in a box, not with a fox.

Music Is Awesome has an ever-so-slight School House Rock vibe, but it’s unlikely that it will be accepted into the pantheon of lesson-teaching tunes (only time will truly tell). But for now, the songs that should make your favorite kid’s mixtape are Mark Kozelek’s “Bedtime Lullaby” and The Little Ones’ “Hey, Won’t Somebody Come and Play.” Very cute.

One more thing: “Party in my Tummy” just may give you nightmares. You’ve been warned.

Last 5 posts by Holly L. Perry

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