Music for Kids

[lillibet]

Things (friends' comments, a video posted, a blog post) have been bringing up this subject at least weekly for the past month or more, so I thought I'd post about it and solicit others' thoughts on the subject

Comments

[ayelle]

I don't think I have an opinion worth offering on the pop music question as I haven't really thought about what I would do. (FWIW, I grew up on the Beatles and other classic rock, my mother's limited 70s and 80s pop/rock collection, my father's enormous collections of folk and classical music, a goodly bunch of musicals, and occasional bona fide children's music that my dad brought home as presents for us, which always went over like gangbusters -- stuff like "Peter Paul & Mommy" and the musical "Cats.") But I do have a few recommendations to add to your repertoire, although it's possible you know them all already. Specifically, these albums are children's music that I've heard about through children's lit connections over the years, bought for myself, and liked very much.

Natalie Merchant, Leave Your Sleep
The Nields, Rock All Day Rock All Night
Lisa Loeb & Elizabeth Mitchell, Catch the Moon

Sometimes the line between children's music and pop gets blurry -- I'm thinking of Owl City's "Fireflies," which is charming, silly electronic pop. I downloaded it from iTunes after hearing it and liking it on the radio, and only later found out it was considered children's music. There's also things like The Muppets' "The Green Album," which is as much a pop culture phenomenon as a children's album. Which doesn't make it a bad children's album; in fact I think it's a pretty good one.

I'm not listing children's albums by TMBG, Barenaked Ladies or Putamayo since they've all been mentioned above. (Although if you don't have it already, my favorite Putamayo CD is Swing Around The World. Unlike nearly every other CD that I routinely played while working in The Children's Bookshop -- I most remember all the interchangeable Raffi CDs, urgh -- I never tired of that one.)