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The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.
The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.

ParentsOctober 5, 2016

Wake Up, Wiggles: The world’s biggest kids’ band phones it in, again

The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.
The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.

Dance Dance is the second Wiggles album of 2016 and one of their laziest ever, says self-declared Wiggles-head Chris Ingham.

Chris is hilarious. I hand-picked him to be our resident pop-culture-pain expert, because there’s no way in hell I want to watch the latest Peppa Pig DVD. Here Chris gives his verdict on the much-(not)-anticipated new Wiggles album. He’ll be at The Spinoff Parents quite a bit so please make him feel welcome! – Emily Writes, Spinoff Parents editor.

In early July, The Wiggles released The Carnival of the Animals, an album with the ridiculously ambitious concept of relying on other musicians to make music, whilst the skivied foursome carried the credit. In fact, so effortless was the recording, Lachy once again managed to do it in his sleep.

Barely two months later, another album has been released for parents to be nagged into spending their hard earned cash upon. This time, however, it actually featuring the voices of all four Wiggles. Remarkable. Especially when one remembers they spent most of July and August touring. We’re being led to believe that 19 (nineteen!!) songs have been laid down in that time.

The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.
The Wiggles. Left to right: Simon, Emma, Anthony and Lachlan.

But then you look closer, and a lot of the song titles start to look horribly familiar to the seasoned Wiggles parent. “The Shimmie Shake”, “Do the Propeller”, “Wiggly Party”, “Captain Feathersword, He Loves to Dance”… What kind of sleep deprived, long-pocketed idiots do the Wiggles take us for? Some of these songs were only released a few years ago. Heck, “Simon Says” had an eponymous DVD release in January this year!

Never mind. Maybe some of the original tracks make up for it? Sadly, the rigors of rock and roll life on the road has not left much time for quality song writing. Take, for example, the lyrics to the title track, “Dance Dance”:

Dance dance
Do do do do do do do do do do
Doobie do wah
Dance dance
Da da da da da da da da da
Do do do do do do do do do
W I G G L E Town
Dance dance
Come on down to Wiggle Town
Come on down to Wiggle Town
Do do do do do do
W I G G L E Town
Do do do, do do do, do do do, do do do
Come on down to Wiggle Town
Let’s go down to Wiggle Town
Come on down to Wiggle Town
A great place to be

That. Is. Literally. It.

The schtick is the same as well. Barely 10 short tracks in, Lachy has fallen asleep again, apparently under the pretence that he is so tired from doing the hula hula. I don’t know though, it could be it’s the boredom of singing the same songs over and over again. Maybe he’s sick. Let’s not forget that Lachy’s predecessor, Jeff, had similar narcoleptic tendencies, to the point he had a song and one of Australia’s greatest ever guitar solos written with the sole purpose of waking him up. Maybe the Wiggles management need to take a serious look at the purple dye they’re using to colour that skivy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfFWkoP4bv0

In “Rubber Boots”, the often toe-shod Anthony is once again going on about his preference to run about in bare feet. And of course, in “Wiggletto”, a song presumably written specifically to showcase Simon’s impressive baritone, Anthony is found eating fruit salad. He’s gonna bloody turn into fruit salad one of these days if what my mother told me is true. Simon is still playing Simon Says, not just in the song of that title, but in multiple others as well. And he keeps ‘forgetting’ to say “Simon Says”, showing glee as he kicks a stream of no doubt crying toddlers out of the game, after they follow the instructions of a man they really thought they could trust.

And Emma, well, she dances on, satisfied in the knowledge that she is the Beyoncé to the Wiggles’ Destiny Child. If this all goes pear shaped, Emma will be OK. She’s got the cult following at the group’s concerts. She’s got a reputation as a style icon, her trademark yellow bow flying off the shelves of online merchandise stores. She’s already got her own successful spinoff solo career.

So there you have it. Half the songs are old. The other half are insultingly simplistic. And the same old jokes are being played out again. The Wiggles are banking on their fan base growing up fast enough that they can repeat their old tricks just far enough apart that they’ll be able to get away with it, and that parents will learn to tolerate it.

And you know what, they’re right. Because you will buy this album, just so you can drive from home to coffee group in relative quiet.

Rating: 3 hot potatoes out of 5.

Living in the urban paradise of Palmerston North, Chris is a father of two and a husband of one. He has a more in depth knowledge of the Wiggles than he’d care to admit, and can recite Planes: Fire and Rescue from memory, yet somehow has only seen Frozen once. The vet regularly scolds him for allowing his kids to feed their dinner to the dog. He’ll be reviewing regularly at The Spinoff Parents in between reviews you can find him on his blog Netflix and Children and on Twitter.


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