Review: "It's Your Birthday!"

Just when you thought takeover conspiracies were over for awhile, we get a Club Penguin song sung by a Teen Beach Movie actor.  But is a Club Penguin single without the Penguin Band or Cadence at the helm worth listening to?

Source: Monchocho

It's Your Birthday! is performed by Jordan Fisher, whose character invaded Club Penguin in August.  His voice sounds nice so I don't really mind that a Club Penguin character isn't singing it.  Sure, it would be nice, but, I'm not complaining.

This song offers exactly what you'd expect from a Club Penguin lyric single.  It offers simple, repetitive lyrics.  Now, this is alright I suppose, but in this song in particular, there are some pros and cons involved.

On the up and up, there no strange lines in song that just seem....out of place.  Remember, "...things are getting jiggy...there's a party in my iggy?"  Yep, well, there's none of that foolishness anymore.

However, the other songs were descriptive in the few lines they gave us.  They described the atmosphere.  They tried to tell a small story.  This song doesn't do either of those things.  It basically just says, "do whatever you want on your birthday."  There really isn't a lot there.

Source: YouTube

There's also something about the song that rubbed me a little wrong: it doesn't have a single thing to do with Club Penguin.  No mentions of Club Penguin things.  No character from Club Penguin singing.  No reason this is not on Disney's main site just as a regular song.

One other thing that doesn't play into this song's favor is that it's a time-sensitive song.  Now, this is something that two other Club Penguin songs have to deal with - Ghosts Just Wanna Dance and Cool in the Cold.  You wouldn't listen to Ghosts with quite so much enthusiasm if it weren't around Halloween time.  The same goes for Cool, unless it's around Christmas time.  And, now, Birthday has to deal with that fate.  You wouldn't enjoy the song so much unless (literally) it's your birthday or the birthday of someone else close to you is coming up.

The music video for this song is pretty good.  You can tell the Team put a lot of time into it.  The Club Penguin throwbacks and details in the video are nicely done.  The lyric format is cool (not just in the cold).  I also really like the interactive side where penguins had the chance to get in the video.  Club Penguin should do that more often.

However, I really would like Club Penguin to go back to animated videos.  Now, I realize that this would be impossible for this video since Jordan is not a Club Penguin character (unless they created a new one for him or used his Teen Beach Movie persona), but the other post-The Party Starts Now CD song, Party in My Iggy, didn't use animation as well.  Now, I like both of these videos a lot and I realize animation takes a long time to create, but with Club Penguin Animated Shorts apparently halted for the moment (the last one premiered in August 2012), music videos were one of the only ways to see Club Penguin animations.  I want both the shorts and animated music videos back.

Source: Official Club Penguin

This song is available for free download.  Now, I think that's great, but, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  Club Penguin songs seemed to sell pretty well on iTunes - I recall The Party Starts Now getting quite high in the charts.  And, if they're just giving away the songs for free, there's (almost) no reason to release the songs on a CD.  So, if they aren't making money from it like they could, why is the Team still creating songs?

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want them to stop making songs or put a price tag on them if it's not necessary.  However, it is a bit strange that's some cost money while others don't, despite the fact each group has very similar content when compared to the other.

One thing that does bother me about the download for free files is that after awhile, the file becomes hard to find.  The link for the Party in My Iggy download disappeared from Club Penguin's homepage after a mere week in the spotlight.  I believe this song will suffer the same fate, given that it also has an "expiration date" on it - once the Anniversary Party is over, the song will no longer be relevant and will be removed.  Club Penguin should start a new page on the Community Fun Stuff part of the site to house these links.

In closing, I don't want to give anyone the impression that I hate this song.  The beat is great.  However, there are just some things that make me a little annoyed with it.  It's in the middle as far as favorite Club Penguin songs go.  I only hope it finds a home on a new CD sometime in the future.  And maybe a Community Fun Stuff page as well.

Source: K Pop Starz (Fun Fact: He's at the premiere of the Disney movie The Lone Ranger)

As Billybob would say, Waddle On!
- Chillin43