Animal Crackers
A kids' album by insurgent country's leading Marxist, disco country's leading diva, the sexiest member of the Mekons, and Chicago's most-juiced jug band? An improbable scenario, to be sure, save that John Langford, Kelly Hogan, Sally Timms, and Devil in a Woodpile are all close pals and frequent co-conspirators; you can imagine them tossing beers back at the Hide-Out and laughing hysterically as they devised their alter-egos: Cyril the Karaoke Squirrel, Marjorie the Singing Bee, and Monkey Double Dippey (as identities go, Devil in a Woodpile was already quirky enough). It's a fun, folksy, bluesy romp that never talks down to kids and never traffics in sentimentality. They turn the melody of "St. James Infirmary" into a buzzing, old-time ode to swimming the backstroke in a bowl of corn puffs and transform Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" into "I'm an A.N.T." (with a shout-out to Johnny the Cockaroacharoo). They cuddle with cuttlefish, root turtles across the dance-contest finish line, and sing helium-voiced love songs to glowworms. With imaginations as perverse, wacky, and voracious as the average six-year-old's, the Beasties simply have a blast.--Roy Kasten