Giant 123s Arrive

The kids album of the year is already here and it was not conceived by those fabulously flamboyant Wiggles, lost-indigo-girl Laurie Berkner or that sickenly-cute-little-red menace, Elmo. Ironically, the same band that once wrote such lyrics as “someday mother will die and I’ll get the money” and “minimum wage (yaaaah!)” has put together (yet another) incredibly listenable collection of songs about numbers that kids and parents can enjoy together. And the kicker is that it’s actually educational.

One great thing about 123s is that is a full media experience. The 1 CD 1 DVD set has 27 songs and 24 videos. The puppets of John and John are also pure genius and hearken “back” to when they collaborated with the homestarrunner.com gang.

The music is fun. In typical TMBG fashion, it’s not possible to classify the album as anything but an eclectic mix of genres. The sort of thing that would kill just about any other band is gold for them. The song Zeroes has my three year old singing about millions and millionths. High Five is our family favorite, particularly because my daughter thinks “down-low-too-slow” is the greatest since the finger in warm water to pee the bed trick. I could go one and explain how Seven is mixed by the Dust Brothers or that there are some weird Disney tracks at the end due to a much deserved Disney sponsorship, but you get the picture. Now go forth and buy it, put it in your car CD player and enjoy the fact that you’re listening to TMBG with your kids and not Raffi. Just be careful because you might find yourself singing “On Mondays, I never go to work…”