It would appear that child-assisted music is the next big thing coming out of Los Angeles’ indie-leaning confines, what with both Ryan Gosling’s Dead Man’s Bones project and Karen O’s first single from Dave Eggers’ film adapatation Where The Wild Things Are, which boasts, in addition to a bunch of Pitchforky boldfaced names (Bradford Cox, the other two Yeah Yeah Yeahs), backing vocals from “an untrained children’s choir.” I guess this can sort of be some sort of leading indicator as far as rock music / people who are in the demographic that’s most loud about the sort of rock music they consume Growing Up (see also: pioneering online sex mag Nerve’s parenting-centric offshoot Babble). As far as the music goes, I much prefer Gosling’s morbid kid-assisted project to O’s first Wild Things offering; the falsetto-heavy “All Is Love” sounds much more grating than it should be, like if a band was given the task of recreating an Arcade Fire song with the obstacle that they were forced to ingest helium immediately beforehand.
Also, every person I have sent this link to so far this morning has replied to me with some sort of anti-Eggers broadside, so, y’know, feel free to contribute yours, if you feel so inclined. Or, hell, a defense! We need an argument to start off the week, I think.
Where The Wild Things Are [MySpace]
Earlier: All Dead Man’s Bones coverage
More than anything I’m perversely fascinated at how much these kind of songs/cultural indicators are apparently trying to solidify a vision of childhood as gloopy bliss that their parents can participate in. Seems ickily Victorian. (FWIW when I was a kid I remember wanting to talk ‘up’ at my parents’ level rather than wanting them to talk down to me, so this is all some smothering B.S. to my eyes.)
Oh, it’s an “untrained” childrens chorus. Because the reason no one likes children choirs is that they’re too good. But as long as they’re just the producer’s privileged kids, I guess that makes it all right.
Dave who? And a live action Where The Wild Things Are? I will put money down now on this sucking very very much.
Also: kids singing generally sucks. There’s cute, and there’s good. Rarely shall they overlap. And they’re only cute if they’re your kids.
Wow, that was horrible. I thought parents made their offspring wear helmets and pads while playing these days – the children’s choir all sound like they’ve suffered some kind of debilitating head injury. (Which may be what it takes to appreciate indie rock these days.)
I think the movie looks fantastic, but this is a bad idea.
This song, along with the trailer of the movie, makes me wish our government would bring back compulsory military service.
@MayhemintheHood: This.
Shouldn’t the children choirs thing have taken off 5 years ago, when the Langley Schools Music Project cd was released? Or did these people just started making babies then for this specific purpose and had to wait until they grew up?