Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania’s Stacy Gabel is impossible to pigeonhole.
She’s more than just a recording artist and decorated singer/songwriter.
She’s an alum of New York City’s American Musical and Dramatic Academy
with a Television Production degree, a member of SAG/AFTRA, and a former
TV promo producer/writer for Nickelodeon/MTV Networks. She has a short
but impressive list of acting credits on mainstream productions such as
General Hospital and Charmed, among others.
It's music, however, that has the tightest grip on her imagination and
heart. Her new single “At the Zoo-oo-oo” beams with good natured
creativity. It’s intended for kids, without question, but Gabel’s skills
are such that listening to the track isn’t an arduous endurance test for
an adult’s patience. It’s built around light percussion, Gabel’s
acoustic guitar, and vocals. One may quibble a little with its
four-minute running time, some members of her target audience may not
want to stay with the song that long, but there’s no questioning the
overall quality of the song and her performance.
She takes a cataloging approach to the lyrics. Gabel reels through an
assortment of animals that a child can expect to meet at the typical zoo
and you can’t deny its playful educational value. She has an obvious
gift for making the learning experience enjoyable for children without
ever talking over their heads and writes about the aforementioned
animals in an engaging fashion. Crouching the lyrics around a sprightly
melody further enhances her delivery.
The song’s shuffle-like rhythm connects physically. Despite the running
time mentioned earlier in the review, Gabel’s song never feels like it’s
four minutes long. Listeners breeze through her litany of animals and
the song’s recurring refrain helps carry us over seamlessly into the
next verse. There isn’t a lot of musical variation here, there doesn’t
need to be, and the song is a solid listening experience from its
opening through the end. Her vocals are youthful, smiling, and beckons
children and parents alike to sing along.
Her animated video for the track is a model of the form. The friendly
colors and inviting representations of the animals makes what is
certainly an alien experience for children, viewing such animals for the
first time, a comfortable and enriching event. The animation is
exceptional. The human elements of the video are presented in a fun,
slightly exaggerated fashion virtually any child is already familiar
with.
ONLINE:
It's an innocuous and light-hearted song for adults. It will harken more
than a few listeners/viewers back to their own childhood and the
nostalgia is welcome. Stacy Gabel’s “At the Zoo-oo-oo” doesn’t pretend
to be anything it isn’t, yet it’s deceptively ambitious. She aims to
encompass a pivotal point in a child’s life, their first fledgling face
to face with the natural world, and her songwriting and performing gifts
make it a lively and enjoyable romp. It’s a performance well worth your
time and it’s hard to imagine any young child who wouldn’t enjoy this
song.