When The World Was New

I’m usually a big fan of the kids music genre these days. Children’s music is in a crazy renaissance that provides children with an explosion of energetic music that caters to their growing minds while avoiding the old school monotony of the drab sounds of synthesizers and one, two drum beats from preprogrammed machines. Unfortunately Dean Jones’ latest release, When The World Was New, wasn’t an album that made me fall in love with its sound.

The album feels like it took notes from the sounds of yesteryear and threw together some well meaning, but often tame cutesy lyrics catering to the idea that kids don’t know any better. Sure its got some humor and tosses around some semi-interesting idea’s about humanity, as explained by an adult to a small child, but it doesn’t feel like it has a whole lot of heart.

The album does have some highlights where guests musicians step in and offer something refreshing, but the album mostly feels like it was recorded in someone’s home (and was). I can never knock a musician when they enter this field of music with good intentions, but in this day and age when this genre is on fire, anything less then stellar is simply just background noise.