By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The BBC’s top kids’ show Bluey has just released a second album, following the chart topping performance of Bluey: The Album.
Released on April 21, Bluey: Dance Mode! is the follow up to an initial, award-winning music collection that has been streamed more than 200 million times. The debut album landed at number 1 on both the Australian ARIA chart and Billboard’s U.S. Kid Albums chart, respectively.
Bluey: Dance Mode! now brings together 17 brand-new recordings from all three seasons of the hit show with songs originally composed by Joff Bush.
The Australian composer is not that well known to the general public, but he is a prolific composer who has done a great deal of award-winning work for a variety of TV productions, including The Strange Chores, Ronny Chieng: International Student, The Family Law, Australian Survivor, and the Emmy award-winning Ludo Studio productions #7 Days Later and Doodles. His work has received various accolades including ‘Best Music’ (Kidscreen Awards), ‘Best Childrens Album’ (Aria Awards) and multiple APRA Screen Music Awards.
The new album already looks like a hit, as the title track is already topping the charts for children’s music. Other highlights on the album include The BeeeeeOOP Walk, Rain (Boldly in the Pretend) and Cat Squad. The collection could be streamed and downloaded worldwide as of April 21 and is also available on CD and orange vinyl.
Bluey is participating in Record Store Day 2023 with an exclusive issue of Bluey: Dance Mode! on zoetrope vinyl picture disc. The playful zoetrope effect on side A creates a clever animation that features the beloved Heeler family each individually dancing to their own groove.
Bluey has also released music videos for the songs Dance Mode, Rain (Boldy in the Pretend) and Cat Squad, which offer a behind-the-scenes look at Bluey’s music team.
Families who watch Bluey know that music is a major part of the show, and even the New York Times has said Bluey ” is about everything, especially music.”
The series is written based on stories from Joe Brumm, and the team behind the series took great care to assemble a group of top notch musicians to work with Bush on the musical numbers.
“Bluey is an incredible world created from Joe Brumm’s stories, and to help bring the musical part of that to life has always been thrilling,” Bush says. “Each one of these tunes was written and produced from the heart. The secret sauce though is really the wonderful musicians, co-writers and collaborators I got to work with.”
Bush also says writing for kids and families has been a liberating experience, and very different than composing sound tracks for TV series. “Writing for kids and families really frees you from the shackles of trying to be cool or fashionable and just make music that connects,” he explained. “That’s what I feel we are doing here.”
The BBC describes the new album as a “wonderful representation of what childhood sounds like, the first half delivering silly and ridiculous fun (Cat Squad, Chattermax, Lollipop Yum Yum Yum), and the latter offering endearing and beautiful moments (Rain (Boldy in the Pretend), The Gnome Song, Rainbow, It Was Yesterday).
The music is also widely varied, including the EDM-inspired title track Dance Mode, all the way to the whistles and banjos on the bluegrass-styled songs Grandad and Army.