Soundtrack: "Muppets: The Green Album"

It isn’t easy being green.
But it just became a lot cooler.

Growing up, The Muppets were considered a staple in my house (at least to me and my brothers). I’ve followed these guys from the nursery…

 

…to the stage,

From the wonderful…

…to the not so wonderful.

I could go on for hours about how much I love all of the wonderfully unique characters that have emerged from The Muppets, but that is not the topic of this post so I will refrain from doing so. But you can imagine that when I heard that Disney was coming out with a new Muppets’ film for the first time in over a decade, I was happier than a frog in a swamp.

Then, when I learned that as part of the promotion for the film, an album would be released featuring popular Muppet songs covered by some of my favorite artists, well, I could hardly contain my excitement.

“Muppets: The Green Album” ranges from heartfelt and sentimental, to fun and unique. My favorite on the sentimental side of things, is “The Rainbow Connection”, a tremendous song in the first place, is featured as a duet with Weezer and Hayley Williams. Listening to this song made me feel like a kid again, that I still have all the time in the world to grow up. My favorite of the more upbeat songs is The Fray’s version of “Mahna Mahna”. I never thought I would get to say “The Fray’s version of “Mahna Mahna” in a sentence so that in itself is awesome. This unexpected little number will have you smiling and tapping your toes while reminiscing about The Snowths. Other highlights for me include My Morning Jacket’s cover of “Our World”, Alkaline Trio’s “Movin’ Right Along”, and Rachael Yamagata’s “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday”.

The thing that I love the most about this album is that it brings The Muppets, something so beloved from my childhood (and to this day), into the “adult world” in such a perfectly balanced way. There seems to be a recent trend of introducing characters from my generation’s childhood to kids today (Example: Smurfs). I think this is wonderful, but what I love about the idea of the new Muppets movie and this album is that it is introducing these beloved characters to new generations while simultaneously targeting the generations that knew them the best and loved them the most. To me, “The Green Album” is another way that I can incorporate my childhood into my adult life. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

So, whether you are a new or old friend of The Muppets, I recommend picking up a copy of “Muppets: The Green Album” on August 23. Or, if you are like me, and you really can not wait, head over here to stream the entire album for free.