Songs For Dustmites : Steve Burns : Review : Rolling Stone

Your kids know Steve Burns as the original host of the wildly popular Nickelodeon kid's show Blue's Clues. They won't, however, likely recognize him as the science-obsessed singer-songwriter behind Songs for Dustmites, his moody, spacey debut solo album. The former TV sleuth enlisted Flaming Lips Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins, as well as frequent Lips/Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann to help craft a breezy concept album about science and love that sounds like a Lips B side collection with an extra dose of earnestness. Songs such as the ecstatic album opener "Mighty Little Man" and "Maintain" rely on the same swelling alien symphony sounds, booming drums and floating in space vocals as the Lips' two recent albums. Burns' science-fair songs ("Troposphere," "Super Strings") may be childlike, but they're not childish.

GIL KAUFMAN
(August 11, 2003)