A Review of THE KLEIN FOUR's CD

As a collector of Novelty songs and a math-person I was morally obligated to purchase Musical Fruitcake by The Klein Four, a band consisting of math grad students singing songs about math. They sing a cappella (without instruments). While you are not morally obligated to purchase their CD,you can. Or find out more about them (or go here for samples).

SO, how is their CD? I give each song a rating between 1 and 10, 10 being Excellent and 1 being unlistenable.

1. Power of One: A love song that uses Math. Rather pleasant and clever. But the math is fairly easy. lyrics Rating: 8.
2. Finite Simple Group of Order two: Their signature song, and their best known since its on You-Tube. Another love song that uses math, but much more sophisticated math. Better sung on the CD than on the video. lyrics Rating: 9
3. Three Body Problem: Sung by a guy about losing his girl to another guy. Lots of Physics-Math involved. Touching. lyrics Rating: 7
4. Just the four of us: Seems to be autobiographical and partially a Rap Satire. More fun for them than for me. lyrics Rating: 5
5. Lemma: Lyrics are not online. Thats just as well. It sounds like its a song about liking a lemma- not funny enough for satire, not serious enough for--- how could a math song ever be serious? Rating: 4
6. Calculating: The best song ever written about algebraic topology. lyrics Rating: 6
7. XX Potential: Lyrics not online. About Women doing math (XX vs XY). Nice rythmes but not much math in the song. Rating: 6
8. Confuse Me: About how confusing math can be. Mentions some math- mostly group theory. (A commenter corrected me on this- there is no group theory in this song. I was... confused.) lyrics Rating: 7
9. Universal: Yet another love song that uses Math. The math used is intermediary between Power of One and Finite Simple Group. Tune is not catchy. Lyrics are as tedious as Category Theory. Lyrics not on line. Rating: 4
10. Contradiction: Seems to be a guy singing about having lost his girlfriend. But its hard to tell- which is a problem. Also, no math except `contradiction'. Lyrics not on line. Rating: 4
11. Mathematics Paradise: To the tune of Gangster Paradise by Coolio. Weird Al had the song Amish Paradise to that tune, and for a brief time Coolio was mad at him for that (they seem to have made up). I doubt Coolio has heard this album, but you never know. Anyway, this is the BEST song on the CD. Clever words, sung well (at least well enough). About the pain of being a 5th year grad student in math. Hopes, dreams, despair- its all there! lyrics Rating: 10
12. Stefanie (The Ballad of Galois): Historically inaccurate, but kind of fun. Has a Country-Western Twang to it. Rating: 8
13. Musical Fruitcake (Pass it Around) Mostly random words, but kind of interesting. Rating: 6
14. Abandon Soap Mostly random words, but not so interesting. Title is like `abandons hope' Very short. Rating: 5

So, what is the final evaluation? I rate CD's by how many songs I really like. I like six of them which is very good. Based just on their Video I had written they shouldn't quit their day jobs- thought since they are grad students in math they probably don't have day jobs.. My current opinion is higher. Still, the math novelty song business is brutal- I wish them luck.

The number of times I've bought a CD because the artists had one really good song, and then found out that the one good song was there only good song is at least VDW(4,2). (Yes Arrogant Worms, singers of the brilliant CARROT JUICE IS MURDER but nothing else even half as good- I'm talking to YOU!).

As for other Math-novelty song- I'll have a post on that once I get a complete list of all that I know on this topic. Could take a while.