Desperation Records
2008
Snack Time
About This Album
The first full-length children's album by Canadian pop stalwarts Barenaked Ladies, Snacktime! reveals what is both enchanting and a little bit irritating about the often witty, sometimes silly, and usually melodically catchy pop band. Musically, all the Barenaked touchstones are here: '70s singer/songwriter, AM pop, indie rock, folk, alt-rock, and even some quirky electronic-based romps. In that sense, the album plays like most of the band's catalog, with each bandmember adding a composition to the mix. The difference here is in the lyrical content, which is obviously aimed at and inspired by kids. But rather than simply target kids of today, Barenaked Ladies have crafted a children's pop album inspired by their own '70s/'80s childhoods. Accordingly, listeners gets tracks like "The Ninjas," a popular and kitschy topic among Gen-Xers (due largely to the abundance of '80s ninja movies), turned here into a kind of fairy tale about sneaky and deadly nighttime visitors. Similarly, the loopy wordplay song "Raisins" finds vocalist Ed Robertson wondering whether "the Parthenon's in Greece/Or was it in Grease 2?" But rather than merely calling out retro-pop culture themes, songs like the giddy "Eraser" and the thoughtful "Canadian Snacktime Trilogy" bring to mind a time when kids were more likely to spend afternoons with crayons and Elmer's Glue than with computers and the Internet.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,16,17,20 and 21)

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