It's difficult to assess the recording of "Radical Radio" in the theatrical terms of an Original Cast Album, because the show was too short lived, off Broadway, this season, for me to have caught it, and neither the packaging of the product (CD or cassette) nor the publicity material that came to AISLE SAY with it, give any hint of a dramatic context -- nor, for that matter, of a theatrical concept. And the album, on its own terms, is not particularly helpful in suggesting one.
In most cases, that alone would be enough to brand a theatre album as a failure, but "Radical Radio", nonetheless, seems to have an identity outside of theatrical considerations. It's a fairly benign and low-key identity, but it's something to hang onto, and that makes the ride fairly pleasant, if never extraordinary.
"Radical Radio", on record, is a collection of melodic rock tunes, not all of them soft rock, but none of them hard or metal. In fact, by today's standards, you'd call its contents "easy listening," for the most part. Very M.O.R. (industry slang for "middle of the road").
The subject matter of the songs varies, and would seem to be geared toward a younger, or at least a family, audience, with tunes such as the lively "Radically Me", which opens the album, "Dancin' Shoes", "I Like Traveling" and "Rockin' in the Nursery Rhymes" -- those and the others are about ... pretty much what their titles indicate they're about. As for what the connective tissue is, or why the range of topics is so scattered ... not a clue.
One can say that the songs are sung -- and I don't mean this as a pejorative, curiously enough -- with an attractive, elevator Muzak inoffensiveness that's fairly easy to take and evokes a few smiles. The singers are the writers: Jerry Sanders, Steve Underwood, and Karmo Sanders. Who they are and what they've done prior to this project is as much unknown as anything else.
I can't tell you that this album is a "must" unless you're a diehard completist. But in its feelgood 49 minutes and twenty seconds it does no harm. And young children will probably enjoy it a great deal.
Jameson Baker is a free-lance theatre journalist. He has written CD liner notes and articles for several magazines and newspapers, among them Vanity Fair.