When Chicago hipster Ralph Covert's family-music project Ralph's World took off (10 albums, Disney deals and a Grammy nomination), his days of recording with his fun power-pop band, The Bad Examples, seemed over.
But after years of promising the new studio album that the band's cult following craved, Covert & The Bad Examples finally deliver with the optimistically titled follow-up to 1995's Kisses: 50¢. Smash Record is stacked with the kind of irresistible tunes that made Ralph's World a sensation with the under-10 crowd. That said, this most certainly is not for Ralph's World listeners, although parents might be enthralled with such songs as "Kill Amanda" and "Your Ex-Girlfriend" ("I love sleepin' with your ex-girlfriend/ We're as happy as we could be").
Smash Record shines with smooth and timeless guitar-based pop-rockwith a reference to Milwaukee, even, in "Jayne Left Behind"made by Bad Examples past and present with a guy whose enviable knack for songwriting shows little sign of aging.
