-
-
Ad Space
(728 x 90)
Here Come the 123s
Disney Sound/Walt Disney Records, $19.
To adults, They Might Be Giants are familiar indie veterans, long entrenched and—to those listeners with a low tolerance for cutesiness in pop—mildly annoying. But to children, the Brooklyn musicians are rising stars, familiar from 2005’s Here Come the ABCs: Original Songs About the Alphabet. Now, the quarter-century-old duo follows its adventures in letters with—what else?—numbers. Here Come the 123s features a string of snappy, mathematically inclined pop songs plus an accompanying DVD of bright animated videos. The band’s adult work can choke on its own sugar-coated cleverness; here, they turn this trait into an asset, with catchy, casually educational tales about a three-eyed triops and “The Secret Life of Six.” Turns out six knows how to stand on his head and “pretend he’s nine”—a fact heretofore ignored by even the world’s most radical mathematicians.
—Jay Ruttenberg
