Various artists

There's a fine line between preciously twee and just plain dorky, and Kindercore Records from Athens, Georgia, has spent considerable resources blurring this distinction. The label's protagonists scoured their fair hamlet for nonthreatening indie-pop in April 1996, resulting in the following epiphany: "There are a lot of good bands in this town. Let's make a tape." Thus began the appropriately titled imprint (Cuddlecore also would have worked) and a steady output of chirpy, melodic, musical candy-floss rigged with an Ebola-like catchiness. In fact, most of the 40 songs on We Thank You (the label's 50th release) are impossible to purge from the ol' brainpan, even after just one listen.

The first disc comprises the newest parade of Kindercore's kiddy-pop crop, led off by "The Oasis," an unreleased Apples in Stereo tune. Over a spare acoustic guitar, the seminal orchestrated garage band offers a contingency plan for a stagnant music scene that may well serve as Kindercore's motto: "Brother, open up your eyes and look around/For a brand-new sound/The oasis is bland/Brother, start another band." The rest is great fun: Je Suis France adds a Weezer geek rock­redux tune on "Coming Out Party," and Of Montreal's "An Ill-Treated Hiccup's View of the World" stoops to Sesame Street­level silliness. Other highlights include the sunny breathlessness of Birdie's "Let Her Go," the faux Inspiral Carpet-ry of Sleeping Flies' "Feel Like Movin' On," and the impossibly cute and bubblicious Dressy Bessy with "Instead."

Disc two contains early Kindercore classics, culled primarily from out-of-print forty-fives, like Kincaid's lovely "Hill Street Blues" and the stately Victorianism of the Catskills' "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." Overall, the strongest songs belong to Kindercore stalwarts Masters of the Hemisphere (whose name sounds like a WWF offshoot and whose music sounds horn-rimmed and pocket protector­ish), with lush, green, romantic mini epics "Anything" and "On the Streets the Key."

Altogether disposable, unfortunately, is the third disc of remixed material, beginning with a chunky-style dissection of the Olivia Tremor Control's "Hide Away" and descending downhill from there. With all the chopped-up edits and other nonsense, nearly every track seems subjected to an ornery laptop during a brownout. A more viable plan would have been to limit We Thank You to a double set or just to pile on more sparkly pop nuggets. Kindercore's back catalog certainly contains enough goodies -- Dressy Bessy's "If You Should Try and Kiss Her" and Master of the Hemisphere's "Meteor" are but two that come to mind -- to pack this cereal box full of prizes.