Club Chipmunk: The Dance Mixes Doesn't Make Me Wanna Shout

I’ve been acquainting myself with some of the theme albums produced by the novelty group Alvin and the Chipmunks, created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., and carried on by his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. What I’m finding is that the more specialized an album is, the more generic it tends to be. The songs are thematically linked, but the only thing Chipmunky about them is those high-pitched voices and maybe an off-hand reference or two to Alvin or one of the other Chipmunks or Chipettes.

Club Chipmunk: The Dance Mixes is probably the most uninteresting Chipmunks album I’ve ever listened to. The songs are peppy, and the technical quality is excellent, but there’s no banter, and Dave Seville is entirely missing from the album. It doesn’t help that dance music isn’t exactly high on my list of preferred genres.

Macarena - This song reached its height of popularity when I was in high school, though it’s still turned up at pretty much every wedding reception I’ve been to since then. It’s catchy, and because the moves are so simple, even a klutz like me can get out on the dance floor and not look like a total dunce. But it’s that interactive element that makes it so fun. The song itself isn’t much to listen to, and the Chipmunks add nothing new to the equation.

Vogue - GLEE recently covered this song, with Sue Sylvester putting her distinctive stamp on it in an amusing music video. Perhaps this track would be more interesting with a similar visual element, but just listening to the Chipettes, it’s another pretty much straightforward cover of a song I already find rather annoying.

Stayin’ Alive - I kinda dig the BeeGees, and this is a fun song to boogie too. It’s also rather suited to the Chipmunks, since there are already high voices at play. On the other hand, it’s harder to understand those long strings of words when they’re coming out of Chipmunk mouths, and again, there’s nothing very unique about the Chipmunks cover.

Play That Funky Music - At least this one has been personalized a tiny bit, with the word “chipmunk” replacing “white boy” after the title phrase. Otherwise, it’s another proficient but unoriginal cover, though I must admit this one had me dancin’ in my seat a bit.

I’m Too Sexy - Unsurprisingly, egotistical Alvin takes the lead on this preening song, adopting an odd accent as he does so. On the one hand, this song has more originality to it than most, with Alvin changing a word here and there - “car” to “bike,” for instance. But even though the song is little more than a list of things he’s “too sexy for,” it still feels a bit inappropriate, considering that the point of this album seems to be to have kid-friendly versions of popular dance songs. Then again, I distinctly remember my fourth grade classmate doing an upper-body strip tease to this in the middle of guidance class...

Witch Doctor - The Chipmunks add a techno beat to this song and make it funkier. Oddly, they change their own song up more than anybody else’s, when I liked their original version better than any other song on this album. This rendition is definitely skippable, and it really makes me miss lovably cranky Dave, who seems to be getting extremely short shrift on recent Chipmunks albums.

Shout - The Chipettes chime in on this song, which is more melodic than most of the tracks on the album. It’s kinda fun to listen to Alvin draw out those long notes, and the gals nail the extra high notes. It’s catchy, but again, not very original.

Love Shack - This is another song that seems a bit inappropriate to me. Yes, they played it at every skating party I went to in elementary school, but it doesn’t seem like a song meant to be sung by characters who are supposed to be just kids themselves. It’s also one of those songs that never seems to end, and I think Chipmunks songs tend to work best when they’re more on the short side. At more than five minutes in length, this is the longest song on the album by a considerable margin.

Macarena - The album ends as it began, only this time the maddeningly infectious ditty is sung entirely in Spanish instead of only partly. I guess it provides a nice bookend, but it seems a little excessive.

I doubt that Bagdasarian feels this was a wasted album; it made it into the Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Kid Audio, and I imagine the album still is making its way into kids’ parties, especially with the resurgence in the Chipmunks’ popularity following the two movies. I can also see how it might be fun to play a Chipmunks version of one of these dance staples at a wedding reception or other occasion where there’s lots of dancing. You can dance along to these versions just as easily, and it might be good for a laugh. But for such an upbeat album, Club Chipmunk is just a little too bland for my tastes.