RSS
Home
Music review: Sweets 'n' Treats
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
When the morning commute to daycare is 20 minutes through I-4 morning traffic, it may as well be an eternity when the little dictator in the back seat is demanding to hear music you don’t like. And, though we live near the “Happiest Place on Earth”, there are some songs that become so grating over time, even Mary Poppins would eventually scream, “Enough!”
I received an advance copy of Tracey Singer’s Sweets ‘n’ Treats a few weeks ago and eagerly popped it into the CD player in my car for my daily commute to work. Like most new music, I wanted to listen to it without my son in the car. After all, it’s much easier to listen to music when you aren’t battered with a barrage of requests for “It’s a Small World” or “Blitzkrieg Bop”.
Tracey Singer is a stay-at-home dad to four kids in San Diego, all under the age of nine. He’s no stranger to the music business, though. He was the lead singer of The Jaffe Band, a rock band with jazz influences, and created and starred in The Tracey Singer Show, a one-man comedy and musical show. Sweets ‘n’ Treats is his debut children’s CD.
The best thing about Sweets ‘n’ Treats is the variety of musical styles present on the CD. “Camping Trip” has a big Broadway musical feel and “Foxy Joe” reflects Singer’s jazz background, while “Swimming” and “Where Did Summer Go?” are reminiscent of the Beach Boys and the Turtles, respectively. While I loved hearing different styles on one CD, there was no real flow between one track and the next. This may have been intentional, but it made it difficult to fully appreciate the body of work as a whole.
There were some gems on the CD, but there were some earworm songs, too, that were very hard to shake. The title track, “Sweets ‘n’ Treats”, has a chorus that will haunt you for hours after a single listen, but the lyrics (“We just wanna eat sweets and treats/No broccoli, cauliflower, carrots or beets/We just wanna eat sweets and treats all day”) were somewhat grating – and I kept waiting for a “punch line” that wasn’t there. The other earworm song was “Nana Nana Boo Boo”, a song about a little girl who laughs at the misfortune of others but never seems to learn her lesson. (The moral of that story: “Mean people stink.”) It was very difficult not to skip past these songs.
I had some favorites, though, that are worth a download onto your MP3 player. I really liked the fun feel of “Swimming”, and “A Toddler’s Lullaby (Sweetest Dreams)” was a very sweet ballad. My favorite track on the CD was “Best Friend for Life”, a touching song about the bonds between brothers and sisters.
Sweets ‘n’ Treats is now available online at CDBaby, Amazon.com, and iTunes. I suggest listening to samples of each track and picking your favorites to download. I think kids – and parents – will enjoy a lot of the music on this CD.
.
Related Article: Music review: You Can't Rock Sittin' Down
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
.jpg)
