Various Artists - Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks (1996)

A tribute album based on the Emmy Award-winning animated TV series, Schoolhouse Rock!. A fundraiser for the Children's Defense Fund, this CD was released by Atlantic/Hollywood Records in 1996 and contains 15 tracks, the original Schoolhouse Rocky theme and covers of 14 songs from the series performed by then-popular music acts. Of the 14 artists, I have heard of 7 outside this release. If I didn't know the songs already, this would just be a below-average mid-90's alt rock/lo-fi album. A fun trip down memory lane, but I'd rather hear and see the originals.

1. Schoolhouse Rocky - Bob Dorough and Friends
2. I'm Just A Bill - Deluxx Folk Implosion
3. Three Is a Magic Number - Blind Melon
4. Conjunction Junction - Better Than Ezra
5. Electricity, Electricity - Goodness
6. No More Kings - Pavement
7. The Shot Heard 'Round the World - Ween
8. My Hero, Zero - The Lemonheads
9. The Energy Blues - Biz Markie
10. Little Twelvetoes - Chavez
11. Verb: That's What's Happening - Moby
12. Interplanet Janet - Man or Astro-man?
13. Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here - Buffalo Tom
14. Unpack Your Adjectives - Daniel Johnston
15. The Tale of Mr. Morton - Skee-Lo

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #70

Tracks: The best covers are Three Is A Magic Number by Blind Melon, The Shot Heard 'Round the World by Ween, and (even though I don't remember the original) The Tale of Mr. Morton by Skee-Lo. Worst are Electricity Electricity by Goodness, No More Kings by Pavement, and The Energy Blues by Biz Markie.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Saturday mornings in the '70s, cold sugary cereal, flannel pajamas, 3 TV channels, singing the songs in my head during classes to help me out: it's not covered on this album, but the Preamble song helped me immensely with a memorization assignment in 8th grade history class.