THE POP UPS “RADIO JUNGLE”
It is awfully tempting to, when hearing a new album from a band you already have an affinity for, and hearing it as both fan and critic, to judge it solely or at least most prominently and immediately on a single, very rudimentary criteria: is it better than the last one?
Such a simplistic gut reaction may be perfectly suitable (if not completely unfair) for fandom but crude snapshot judgements are not very useful from a criticism standpoint, no more than say a Mommy Blogger regurgitating an album’s press release with a few “this music is SO fun!” zingers thrown in for editorial cred. And so it goes with The Pop Ups’ 2nd kindie offering “Radio Jungle”. My off-the-cuff reaction to hearing 5 songs months ago and the entire disc weeks ago was that nope, it is not as good as “Outside Voices” (the duo’s 2010 cannon shot through the hull of family music’s mothership). But “Radio Jungle” has something the first record doesn’t. It’s not confidence, per se, because “Outside Voices” was outlandish in its audacity and its scope. What it is, I think, is a sense of self. What we hear on “Radio Jungle” are two extremely talented young men settling down to do what they do best and giving that, and pretty much only that, the attention one would be inclined to give their first born. In short, focus. That newborn baby, in the case of Jason Rabinowitz and Jacob Stein, is electro-pop, and the duo shower that cutie with love and adoration on this, their superb sophomore album. The resulting “Radio Jungle”, admittedly an odd name for a child, is a tight collection of synth-y songs that doesn’t wander nearly as much as its predecessor. It’s as if The Pop Ups began their kindie recording career in the midst of their curious tween years, and return now deliver the prequel.
Even when The Pop Ups deviate from their synth script, such as on the reggae-ish “Banana” and the Latin dance instructional “The Bat”, there still exists a deep commitment to the electronic unpinning. It is undoubtedly digital glue that binds “Radio Jungle” together. “Banana”, a progressive building-block style of song, chronicles the somewhat miraculous path a single banana takes from its source “under the hot hot sun” to your local green grocer. Along the way kids hear about much of what already fills their hearts with joy, toy chest favorites: cranes, boats, trains, and eventually, mama herself (usually not found inside a toy box, but go with it will ya). “Banana” the song is a ever bit as delicious as its subject matter.
One way you can easily identify the wheat from the chaff in this burgeoning sub-genre of music is to hear the bands that take banal topics that would otherwise bore adults to tears – say counting all the way to 7, farm animals, or the basic colors found in a Crayola 8-pack – and spin them into earwormy dance songs everyone in the family wants to hear again and again. “Box of Crayons” fits that bill, oh man does it ever, and stands as a singular example of why The Pop Ups are nothing short of a revelation. This song should dominate the kiddie airwaves flowing through your minivan for the whole of the summer of 2012. [SHAMELESS PLUG: listen to “Box of Crayons”, along with 9 more terrific new kindie tracks, on the April episode of the OWTK Kid’s Music Monthly Podcast].
There have been musical storybooks before “Pop Up City” but none have ever approximated sensory explosion in such a magisterial way. By writing themselves into a fictional pop up book on CD, The Pop Ups have made a song that can be heard, yes, but also figuratively seen and held. The retro beats, Sesame Street neighborhood vibe, and lyrical turning of the pages makes “Pop Up City” a bookshelf treasure that just so happens to fit nicely in your discman (retro, get it?).
It is confounding to find myself favoring, however slightly, the genre hopping compilation style of an album over a more centered one. This is 100% ass-backwards from my usual preference, but “Radio Jungle”, even with all its crazy infectious hooks and layers of sonic goodness, doesn’t quite drop my jaw the way The Pop Ups’ debut did. This is likely a byproduct of a bar that was raised so damn high during the first go-around. That said, though this new album only scrapes its chin on the underside of said bar, “Radio Jungle” deserves a standing ovation for even getting way up there at all.
Listen to the whole of “Radio Jungle” below:
*A copy of “Radio Jungle” was provided to OWTK for review consideration. The opinions expressed above are, as always, unbiased and honest.
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