More Crazy Hits

by Heather Phares"He's lean, he's mean, and he's green!" says the intro track to Crazy Frog's second album, More Crazy Hits, overlooking that his odd powder-blue shade is part of the Frog's craziness. It's a bad sign that the people who put this album together couldn't even get Crazy Frog's color right, and it's even worse that his signature high-pitched babble is barely on More Crazy Hits. Crazy Hits featured about an equal amount of Crazy Frog's vocal stylings and session vocalists, but this time around, the Frog is almost completely relegated to the sidelines. Much like the Kidz Bop Kids, who merely sing backup on their namesake collections of pop covers, Crazy Frog only contributes the odd "ding a dang dong" here and there on More Crazy Hits' 11 songs. Amazingly, Crazy Frog didn't exhaust the supply of novelty dance hits on his first album; the versions of "Cotton Eyed Joe," "Ice Ice Baby," and "Blue" -- a song that was almost all babble to begin with -- that appear here are just as silly (but not as much fun) as the songs on Crazy Hits. There are a few bright moments: the World Cup-friendly version of "We Are the Champions" and "Rock Steady" keep it simple and stupid, while the sheer weirdness of hearing the early-'60s pop classic "Hey Baby" reworked as novelty Euro-dance makes it another highlight. It's not until the album's last track, "Copa Banana," that Crazy Frog finally gets to really unleash a stream of his trademark gibberish, but at that point, it's too little, too late. Lots of living, breathing artists have problems coming up with a good second album, so it's not especially surprising that a CGI ringtone mascot couldn't either. Still, in too many ways, More Crazy Hits just isn't Crazy enough.