AudiOddities

Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Metrics are Coming!!!



I ran across this while hitting the thrift stores for 78s and other stuff, and thought "Wow, what a great LP for the AudiOddities blog!" I usually keep my eyes out for things that are.... different... and this one certainly qualifies! Recorded and released in 1977 by Janeen Brady, these songs are meant for "children of all ages" to help instill the metric system of measurement into the old, stodgy, fuddy-duddy American citizenry. Well, almost 30 years later, I'll leave it up to you as to the level of success of Ms. Brady and friends.

The LP was released on Brite Records, a label out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and doesn't have a catalogue number on the label! Also, performance credits are limited to a group of names in the "Thanks to:" section inside the jacket: Rebecca Terry, Marvin Payne, and Brian Fetzer get the vocal credits, and "Special Thanks" go out to Quintessence, David Lambourne, Janet Todd, Ed Pratt, and Dennis Nichols. I assume these are the other performers. Arrangements are by Rob Simpson (who also gets Direcor credit), Clive Romney, Dennis Crockett, and Phil Davis.

Here are the cuts, in track order:

The Metric System
March of the Centimeters
Give Me A Liter
Kelly Kilogram
Divide A Meter By Ten
Millimeter Boogie
Decimeter And A Dime
Inches And Feet
Peter, Peter
A Liter Is...

Hope you enjoy these as you drink your 355 ml can of your favorite beverage!

posted by The Impaler at 10:54 AM

6 Comments:

  • And yet... our metric system is so much more logical and easy to use... I'm glad I found a conversion tool on the Web to help me translate feet, inches and miles into decent meters, centimeters and kilometers !

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:07 PM  

  • Hi Brad,

    Odd stuff indeed!
    learn while you listen: allways a good concept.

    Very enjoyable!

    Kenny

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:49 AM  

  • this reminds me of a track by the (far more modern, but) fabulous Atom and His Package, "Lord It's Hard To Be Happy When You're Not Using the Metric System"

    ahem, and i quote:

    we want metrics, we want it now,
    we know we can win.
    I weigh 170 pounds, that's 90 kilograms,
    see, metrics can even make you thin!"

    By Blogger Matt, at 6:38 AM  

  • bless your little heart. i had this tape when i was a kid and i have been LOOKING. you win many many cookies. so many cookies.. i can not count them all on my hands.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:19 PM  

  • I've been trying to find this album! The links to the audio files don't work--is there any way you can fix?

    Thanks!
    braninp@suu.edu

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:47 PM  

  • Just to point it out? As a kid from the 80's who's mom loved this record (for whatever reason....) it actually served me well when I got to University. I never had a problem remembering the order of the millimeter to kilometer, never had issue with remembering how much a kilogram weighs for pounds so that conversion came easy (and had an easy way to estimate that too...), and could irritate people with the liter song. :D All around it served me very well. I'm sure it helped on my SATs too come to think about it. Those songs I learned when I was 8-10 about metrics stuck far better than all the later science classes. They are weird songs though. Wish I could find the mp3s again. Your links don't work. :P

    By Blogger Nate and Emily, at 12:49 AM  

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