Artist: Ms. Rachel
Album: I’m So Happy
Release: September 25, 2026; Songs For Littles LLC
I am exactly the type of person that Ms. Rachel would appeal to. I have a love for music and a whole mess of kids. The thing is, I am a prolific media hoarder. So, I have children’s music from years ago. Mostly of Barney and Sesame Street. I never felt the need to invest in anything new. So I remained unaware of the Ms. Rachel phenomenon until 2024 when people started to complain about her. Children’s edutainer pissing off bigots by saying objectively correct things in this day and age hardly registers on the old radar anymore. Unfortunately, I didn’t look into her. Then, a year or so later, the bigots got in an uproar again. This time it was because she was speaking out on behalf on the children in Palestine. Now, that is my kind of person. I also happened to have a little one about the right age for Ms Rachel. Perfect timing if you asked me. We checked her out. I liked her. My little took a little while to warm up to her.
Flash forward to this year Ms. Rachel announced she was releasing an album and I knew I had to cover it. The plan was to declare her an honorary DIY artist because of her activism and use that to justify covering the album in my DIY blog. It’s my blog after all, so I get to make the rules. However, after digging deep into the Ms. Rachel lore, I learned that she and her crew are in fact, some of the most hardcore DIY people currently in the game. Her rise to fame is predicated almost solely on seeing a gap in children’s educational content, and stepping up to fill that gap. Probably the most DIY thing a person can do is seeing a need in your community and then rounding up a crew to meet that need. Ten out of Ten DIY origin story. No notes.
This is supposed to be an album review so we will move on to that. First “I’m So Happy” is an album consisting of songs from Ms. Rachel’s video content, but kicked up to eleven. In fact my nearly three year old was a little upset when I put on the album for the first time and it wasn’t the Ms. Rachel show. He was so distraught that we weren’t watching Ms. Rachel, he cried. It was cute in a sad misunderstanding kind of way. He eventually accepted that this was just the music.
My starting critique is with “Icky Sticky Bubble Gum”. It seems this song gets a bad rap amongst the adult Ms. Rachel fans. I’ve seen more than a few jokes where this song is the butt of the joke. I am here to come to this song’s defense. I think that what most of the people that write off this song don’t understand is that it’s meant to teach kids the names of various body parts. If you compare “Icky Sticky Bubble Gum” to other classic songs that set up to accomplish this task what you will find is that it is refreshing. The music is catchy. The lyrics and gimmick (sticking your hands to various things while you sing) is engaging and fun for kids. I honestly would rather listen to this song for the thousandth time than listen to some similar songs like “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” or “The Hokey-Pokey”. It’s a great song and I stand by it.
My personal favorite song on the entire album is “Caterpillar”. Mr. Aron, Ms. Rachel’s husband sings this song and he packs an incredible amount of emotion into this song. Especially for a song that on the surface is about the life cycle of a caterpillar. To be perfectly honest, the emotional depth provided by the vocals and music make it impossible to not interpret the song on a deeper level. To me, the caterpillar is a metaphor for a child, and the song is about watching that child grow up and become an adult. At first you want to protect them and let them know that things are going to turn out ok when they are sad or scared. Eventually, they change seemingly overnight into a beautiful fully grown adult. Then, that is when you realize you have to let them go off and be their own person. As a guy who has little kids and adult children, this song means a lot to me. Also, as a side note, every time my nearly three year old listens to this song he scoffs and exclaims that caterpillars can’t fly and each time I explain to him that caterpillars can’t fly but they turn into butterflies who can. It’s the cutest thing ever. Eventually, he’ll get it but until then I get to have that lovely interaction.
The rest of the album is full of classic children’s song offerings like “Wheels on the Bus” and “Old MacDonald” as well as Ms. Rachel originals like the title track “I’m So Happy” and the absolute banger “Phonics” song. A song I appreciate since I feel like I never really learned how to read and instead just memorized a lot of words.
I truly enjoy this album. Frankly, I didn’t even have any qualms over the course of reviewing it about listening to it in the car alone. The music compositions are all high quality. They clearly didn’t skimp on this aspect just because it is a children’s album. That demonstrates a lot of respect in my eyes. I feel sometimes creatives think they can phone it in because kids don’t know any better, but Ms. Rachel and her crew aren’t like that. They care a lot and it shows through this album, their video content and their activism. Ms. Rachel wants the world to be a better place for everyone, and she isn’t afraid to roll her sleeves up, slide on her pink headband and do it herself. The world needs more Ms. Rachels.