Ear Snacks from Andrew & Polly is more than its title

The official title of Andrew & Polly’s latest release is Ear Snacks, Songs From The Podcast. Our family saw Andrew & Polly in concert this past year and absolutely fell in love with them. Helpful hint: take the kids to a kindie concert, they will love it and the parents will have much more fun then they think they will. So when I saw the title for their latest, I was kind of bummed because Songs From The Podcast sounds like a compilation of ‘B’ material. In the world of animation it would call it a clip show. It’s a Frankenstein release that’s not loved, but put out there to oblige a required amount of new music or footage.

Songs From The Podcast is not the audio equivalent to the island of lost toys. In actuality it has some of the best songs that Andrew & Polly have recorded. This is textbook kindie. It’s music that has pop sensibilities, a variety of pacing, rhythms, instruments and tone that make it cool for kids and fun for adults to listen to.

A great example of this is the first track Dancing Pants. The lyrics are about a song that keeps going on and on, plus some dancing pants and moving around. The song itself is a giddy pop gem with shades of 60’s pop, rap and just a hint of a classic James Bond soundtrack. It’s a happy ditty that is also an evil earworm that quickly makes its new home your ear canal.

Andrew & Polly’s fabulous song Grapes is also here. Thank You For The Box is a fun song about Hanukah and robots that demonstrates the verbal swordplay that the two singers and lyricists have with each other. Another impressive thing about the group is their ability to go from zany to genuine pop with ease.

Mail is just that. It’s a mid tempo song that would sound at home in a television episode, AAA radio or as a kindie song. Their silliest song is Hey Hat, but it’s also their best song on the release. It tells the story of a roof (a house hat) and the hats that everything or everyone has at one point. The song has rich, layered harmonies that seem out of place in such a silly song.  Should I be laughing at the hat puns or enjoying the music? By the time the song’s over you don’t care and simply want to listen to it again.

Ear Snacks collects the singles that Andrew & Polly have released, as well as, some of the new songs that they’ve done on their podcast. This is not the island of lost songs. It’s a fun, joyful bit of kindie pop that jumps genres as easily as that guy that jumped Snake Canyon in his rocket.