This album makes for a strange cultural artifact. It’s full of contradictions: It’s kind of a Rockapella album with six of the ten tracks coming from them and Sean Altman and Carmen theme co-writer David Yazbek listed as producers. But it also features an eclectic mix of guest musicians. It’s the soundtrack to a PBS kids show but it isn’t concerned with being a geography lesson or representing the show’s musical stylings exclusively. Instead it’s songs namedrop cities around the world, or are about a specific places, or of a genre associated with a specific region of the world, or are just about traveling. Along with its many musical interludes and skits, it’s an album that fits well with the Utopian Scholastic aesthetic adorning the cover and liner notes.

This album isn’t trying to be educational, but to be an artistic work that might get its young listeners more interested in learning about other places rather than just serving as a compilation of some songs Rockapella would often sing to give the contestants clues (usually in the form of a parody song from their repertoire). For my part, I don’t think I would love this album as much as I continue to as an adult if it were the latter. How do I know that? Well…

Okay, time to come clean. For all the praise I’m going to shower on this album, I have to put a big asterisk on that due to the first track on the album. It’s called “Capital”. It’s by Rockapella and it’s little more than the boys listing off all the state capitols with couple of choruses that reflect on how great the American experiment is with its friendly debates and hard-working legislatures keeping everything running like a well-oiled machine. This is exactly the kind of schlock that could have defined this album and I’m glad it’s the exception on this otherwise solid compilation. I think I could even forgive the half-hearted attempt at being educational (the Animaniacs did similar songs and those are fine) but the vaguely “rah rah for America” bullshit is just something I can’t get down with anymore. On repeat listens, I tend to replace this track with something else or leave it off completely and this is just a better album without it. Perhaps a look at what this might have been if commerce or education had been more a driving factor than aesthetics for this album.

Track two is another Rockapella track called “Everything to Me”. Now, this is more like it. It certainly evokes that Utopian Scholastic feel by dropping the names of a whole lot of cites around the world and tying it all up as a fun pop song. There’s some real interesting production done here to make up for the lack of a vocal percussionist (something that would seize to be an issue after Thatcher joins.) I still don’t know how the hell (or who the hell) is making that strange trumpet vocalization near the end. This is a track that wouldn’t end up on any other album Rockapella ever put out. I think that’s a shame since it’s a solid song, but I get that this feels very tailor-made for this album. Oh, and there are a few fun references to Zombie Jamboree on the track which is nice. Zombie Jamboree was never going to make it onto this album for obvious reasons. Honestly, I think this one could have worked as a great opener on its own making “Capital” even less necessary.

Everything to Me concludes with an interlude featuring WiTWiCS host, Greg Lee as a subway announcer, letting everyone know which subway lines have been suspended (all of them, apparently?) It’s a funny way to lead us into the first non-Rockapella track which just happens to be about New York.

Track three is “Beautiful Place” by a group called Urban Blight. Urban Blight is a group that never really took off. As far as I’m aware, they only ever released two albums. Also, Jerry Orbach’s son is one of the band members (which explains why Jerry himself appears in UB’s video for “Just Like the Moon.” ) Urban Blight was a ska band that existed in an era before third-wave ska really took off as a popular genre the mid-90s, so maybe these folks were just a little too ahead of their time. I’ve actually gone back and listened to their album “Playgrounds and Glass” and I really like it. But this song can only be heard here as far as I’m aware, and it’s a sort of “warts and all” love letter to New York City. Now, I’ve spent very little time in NYC and I can’t tell you if native New Yorkers would find this song as fun or endearing as I do, but I think it’s pretty great. It’s got a sizable musical bridge showing off all the different instrumentation that make up the group. It was memorable enough for me to look what else Urban Blight did years later.

My Home is track four on the album. Rockapella is back and this time they’ve got The Persuasions with them. This was probably a big deal for Rockapella, as they have named the Persuasions as a huge influence on them. In fact, the Persuasions have come up as the inspiration for a lot of groups (including Boyz II Men). Having two bass singers on this track is great. One provides a more sustained bass line while the other contributes a pizzicato rhythm. Sean and Persuasion’s frontman Jerry Lawson trade verses. It’s a much more quiet and contemplative song than anything else on the album. It’s also the biggest stretch for the album’s overall theme as it’s more about longing for a place to call home than it is about any specific place. Was this added to provide something a little more low-key or just as an excuse to allow Rockapella to perform alongside their heroes? Who’s to say? Either way, it’s a welcome inclusion.

Slightly less welcome is a bagpipe interlude by Jerry O’Sullivan. I don’t hate this, but it feels a bit abrupt coming out of “My Home”.

Next up, we get to Amazing World, a Latin big-band song from the legendary Tito Puente. This is one of two songs that invoke a part of the world through its musical genre rather than the lyrics. Its lyrics are pretty simple about a Saturday morning that starts off kinda lousy but becomes better by going out and walking around. Like Beautiful Place before it, it also features a nice interlude to let the instruments run the show for a bit. Listening to it now makes me remember how wonderful Saturdays felt as a kid, free from responsibilities, getting up in time for cartoons and feeling like the world was my oyster. You can’t hear this song without being put in a better mood.

Next up is “Feeling Fine” by the 3 Brave Woodsman. This is a music project that (as far as I’m aware) only came together for this track by three folks involved in the project (and the sequel Carmen album which… Eh… I’ll mention briefly later). This is nice folk rock song about traveling and making anyplace you end up your home. Not much else I can say about it. Its lyrics and instrumentation feel a bit on the simple side and it’s probably the song that most sounds like it belongs on a kid’s album (other than Capital). I still find it to be an enjoyable tune.

Then we get to a Rockapella standard with their version of “Let’s Get Away From it All.” Rockapella’s baritone, Elliot Kerman, gets to take the lead for this one. During Elliot’s tenure in the group, it was common for there to be a jazz track somewhere on many of their albums written or arranged just for Elliot to show off. “Let’s Get Away” would end up on some other Japanese and American albums in the future. However, this is a unique version of the song that features a slight key change for the final chorus that doesn’t occur in any other recording of the song I’ve heard. That alone makes this my preferred version of the song. It’s the only cover song on the album but it fits right in to the overall theme making it a perfect inclusion.

Then we get to “The Violin”. Like “Amazing World” this is a song meant to evoke place through its genre. This song has a Celtic folk feel to it, complete with its somewhat dour subject matter. It’s a song about the life of a boy whose parents expect him to learn the violin for some reason, despite the boy’s protests. In the end, his decision to not learn the violin specifically costs him his love, his home, and his life. It’s strange and maybe a little funny in a morbid kind of way. It’s hard not to feel bad for “boy Jim’s” misfortune stemming from his refusal to learn this one instrument especially as the chorus always ends with the muted wailing of “Leave me aloooooone”, obviously meant to be Jim himself. It’s my least-favorite song on the album that I don’t skip. It’s not without merit. It’s just… odd.

Now we’re in the final stretch with two Rockapella tracks to round out the album. The first is this bluegrass number about Scott’s home state of Indiana. I loved this track as a kid and I still love it now. Scott belts out the high notes as the lead singer on the track. I’m particularly fond of Barry’s plucked bass vocalization. The bridge meant to evoke the Indie 500 is a nice touch. It’s a great way to lead into the finale. The song is written with such love, I assumed Scott wrote it himself, but it appears this was actually written by Sean. Like “Everything to Me” this never appears on any other Rockapella albums and that is a damned shame.

And we cap off the album with the Carmen theme which features an extra bridge and verse that they likely didn’t have time to include at the end of the TV show. It’s the tune that most of us would have bought the album for and I still love the song as much as I ever have. David Yazbek performs some vocal percussion for the song. The album ends with Rockapella singing their vocal logo (which would typically open their Japanese albums.)

And that’s it. It’s a very fun album for a kid’s show that (with the exception of Capitol) doesn’t sound strictly like a kid’s album. Maybe it’s nostalgia talking, but I don’t think an adult would be embarrassed listening to it. It evokes a theme without feeling like it’s trying to be overtly educational or that it’s talking down to its young audience.

It might seem strange to kick off a Rockapella retrospective with a compilation album that doesn’t feature Rockapella exclusively, but I think there are many reasons for including this one. It comes from the property that most folks on this side of the world would have known the band from. Two of the original tracks are real bangers and another two tracks have some unique qualities that make this essential listening for any hard-core Rockapella fan (there are dozens of us. Dozens!) The whole album comes together well and I think it’s still very enjoyable as long as you skip that first track.

The PBS version of Carmen would actually get a second soundtrack a few years later called Out of this World. I’ll discuss it here briefly because it’s not worth a dedicated entry in a Rockapella discography blog since Rockapella has little to do with it. It mostly features the host, Greg Lee, singing some songs and, while he’s no slouch, he’s just not a strong enough vocalist to carry an album. Lynn Thigpinn sings about Chicago and it’s fine. They Might Be Giants contribute “The Sun” which is a song that had already been featured on one of their own albums by that point which is a strange choice. Rockapella’s lone contribution is called “Big Wet Rag” and seems to be about dating someone who kinda sucks (huh!?) It’s a mess. There’s already a review of this album in the wild that does a better job of breaking it down than I could. You can read it here.

But, I’ll throw Greg a bone. His song “Half a World Away" (with The Three Brave Woodsmen singing backup) would have made for a better opener to the good Carmen album than “Capitol”. And maybe Lynn Thiggpen’s “Back to Chicago” could have served as a needed buffer between “My Home” and the bagpipes? This is actually how I arrange the tracks now when I listen today while leaving out “Capitol” and its associated interlude altogether. (No, I will not be offering similar “fixes” to albums going forward.)

Next time, we’ll discuss Rockapella’s first album all to themselves that only released in Japan.