For every advance our society makes, we take a few steps backward in other areas. We don't notice it right away, but eventually the difference becomes glaringly obvious. Want an example? Compare Listen Compute Rock Home to any of the sanitized musical pap that's being fed to children these days. Hold up any primitive Dimension 5 song next to Barney and see which one looks turgid and unimaginative.

The collaborations between avant-garde composer/mad scientist Bruce Haack and incipient boho teacher Esther Nelson are unique for several reasons. Most obviously, their wonderfully idiosyncratic compositions spoke to children as people -- a dangerous and heretical notion among those who program for the under-twelve set. Their music and lyrics struck the perfect balance of kid-pleasing quirkiness and unlikely hummability, and often managed to be hysterically funny in the bargain. When I think back to grammar school, I'm pretty sure that some of the younger and more "with-it" teachers kept a few Bruce Haack and Miss Nelson albums handy -- and I definitely recall hearing a few latter-era attempts that bore the clear mark of their influence. Haack's knack with hand-built instruments creates a fascinating blind alley off the path of electronic music's evolution, and his tunes blend genres with jaw-dropping flair. How could kids -- or even adults -- not want to move to these tunes, to imagine themselves on a "Motorcycle" or become "Clocks"? You won't even mind having "Army Ants in Your Pants," unless you've got a paranoid fear of ants.

You won't hear another disc like Listen Compute Rock Home this year, or next, unless Emperor Norton reissues the whole Dimension 5 catalog -- unless, of course, this disc inspires a new generation to pick up Haack's mantle. We can only hope. Until then, this napalms everything -- even the untouchable Schoolhouse Rock -- off the map.