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Ballads for the
Leo Lionni designed the wonderful covers for each album. Hy Ruchlis was the science advisor.
Ballads for the Age of Science has recieved many accolades and awards. Volume 19, Issue 6 of Sci Fi Magazine includes a very flattering review. But perhaps the most gratifying praise is that, decades after these recordings were out of print, fans created web sites and Facebook pages in their honor. Thank you to all the fans who remembered and persevered.
The company that created the CD sets is, deservedly, bragging about their work by sending out this press release.They Might Be Giants included covers for two of these songs in their albums. "Why Does the Sun Shine" is on Severe Tire Damage. "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and "What is a Shooting Star?" are on Here Comes Science. That album also includes a parody/update of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" called "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?." (The solar surface is mostly neutral gas, while the corona is mostly plasma - so both versions are partly right.)
Kunstler Treu wrote and recorded new music to the lyrics for "Space Songs." It is sometimes available through Amazon.
Patricia H. Reiff at Rice University included They Might be Giants covering "Why Does the Sun Shine?" in a CD she compiled called "Space Weather". That CD went to space on the 1-12 March 2002 flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.
A digital copy of the songbook for all 6 albums is available here. It is the same as the booklet in the CD set, except without the cover (including Leo Lionni's art). The booklet says you can download digital copies of the original song books; unfortunately, that statement is wrong.
These albums and their songs are available for sale as meticulous digital restorations, done by Irwin Chusid, of the original 1961 recordings in all their monophonic glory. One happy listener of these new restorations asked "How did you get such amazing quality on the iTunes songs?." The CD set is published by Harbinger Records and distributed by Naxos of America, and is available through Amazon and other retailers. The announcement for the (then) upcoming sale is here. Many libraries subscribe to the Naxos database, so patrons of those libraries can listen to the songs via the database. The albums and their songs are also available through iTunes, Amazon, and other sites for downloading digital music. Here are links to each of the albums in the set on iTunes and Amazon.
Enjoy!
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