If you have children you probably have a cd or dvd (or a collection of them) by a band that start with W and wear skivvies. That’s ok. I’m not anti-Ws (if you say the name my nephew will want you to put the dvd on now). Not anti, just not really pro either. I can deal with small doses of the tv show or the cds. I can’t deal with the trademark on everything that moves phenomena. I just don’t want the Wiggles tent in my loungeroom (my mother has one in her loungeroom, and the kids love it, but I assume they would love a tent sans-Ws too).
The Wiggles Only music diet of some kids has me a little concerned, as concerned as I’d be if they were only ever offered potato for dinner. Potato is good, but on it’s own it’s not a great diet. So, in the interests of diversifying the musical diet I’m going for the opposite of ‘eat local’ and I’m saying ‘download global’ (legally, and paying actual musicians for their work, obviously, very important to obey the Tram Rule*).
So far my List of Kid-friendly Music that Doesn’t Make My Toes Curl and I wouldn’t mind if my kid received it for Christmas is:
The Mudcakes (Melbourne-based, formerly Nashville-based, members are in grown up bands too)
Woody Guthrie’s kid’s albums, including 20 Grow Big Songs
Jason Ringenberg’s Farmer Jason albums, he’s also a grown up muso with a (separate) kid-friendly persona.
Dan Zanes has lots of albums, you can even do what I did last Christmas and order a box set, divide it up and give one album to each neice or nephew. My kid currently has one album, he may be downloading some more.
Do you have any suggestions?
It doesn’t have to be labelled ‘kid music’ (or family music, or kindie rock) but it does have to avoid Adult Themes as they say in the television classifying world. I’d like him to hear stuff he understands and enjoys as well as all the long car trips where we make him listen to Paul Kelly and Mick Thomas and Gillian Welch. There really was a car trip where we could have sworn he groaned at Paul Kelly and it felt like we had a teenager. Only twelve years early. There are lots of performers I think should release a kid’s album, like Rebecca Barnard, but I fear blog-nagging wont be enough.
Maybe if everyone blog-nags? While we’re at it, Rod Quantock for Playschool!
* Always pay to acquire music from any muso you could potentially see on a tram. This suggests it’s morally ok to burn a free copy of someone’s music if they are gettin’ around in limos on a regular basis, obviously that’s not legally true and I take no responsibility for you getting into trouble with the record companies.
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July 1, 2008 at 11:05 am
Sarah
Love your post … for we are in the midst of Wiggle fever in our house. My little one is nearly 3 now and I’m certain that before he could walk and talk we swore ‘No Wiggles’ (having seen how obsessed my nephew is with them). But guess what? They have infiltrated my stereo, my kitchen (Wiggles plates) and even my bathroom cabinet (Wiggles suncreen). Sigh!
July 1, 2008 at 11:33 am
innercitygarden
Fortunately we haven’t been given any Wiggles anything yet. I’m sure that will change. He was given a dancing, battery operated Banana in Pajamas, which made my cry for the ABC’s integrity. I gave it to the op shop and I didn’t feel even a little bit bad about it.
July 1, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Cristy
Playschool CDs are always pretty good. Jack Johnson also has a kid-friendly album that I quite like (and so does Lily)…
Lily also loves Bob Marley. I am not sure how I feel about this.
July 1, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Iona
Is the Jack Johnson one the Curious George soundtrack? Not bad. My neice has it.
Very into blog nagging to get Rod Quantock into Playschool. If nothing else it would stop my Bloke from twitching every time he sees promos for City Homocide featuring former Playschool hosts (ie. noni hazlehurst).
I wished for Bob Marley. When our lad was 3 he wanted Frank Zappa.
July 1, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Stomper Girl
There’s the Justine Clark from Playschool kids cd, the clips they’ve shown on telly always get my kids grooving. Also, what about burning your own kiddy cd with some classics like Yellow Submarine, Day-O, Puff the Magic Dragon, Wimoweh. There’s some Disney songs that are fun, like the Mary Poppins or the Jungle Book stuff. Apparently there are also some cds – American- featuring adult artists doing kid stuff and I believe includng They Might Be Giants, who are pretty kid-friendly anyway…(I’ll stop now, it’s just that I’m always thinking of kids songs for teaching kiddy tap.
July 1, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Ariane
My kids love Missy Higgins – struggles a bit on the adult themes, but I tend to think that they are expressed in such a way that they probably won’t get them until they are old enough to.
My favourite such memory is, having listened to Welcome to My Nightmare since its release when I was 3, finally working out what Cold Ethel was about at around 10 years old.
“She’s cool,
in bed,
She oughtta be
‘Cos Ethel’s dead”
Apparently it took me 7 years to notice those lines.
I’m also a big fan of the Muppets. C is for cookie… OK, I’ll be singing that all day now.
July 1, 2008 at 3:39 pm
innercitygarden
We do watch Muppets clips on youtube, you just have to be careful that you’re not getting adult mashups.
I worked in a place that always had the radio on when Missy Higgins was at the height of popularity, so I’ve well and truly heard enough of it.
Iona I’d forgotten about Frank Zappa. I do remember him liking Green Day when he was very small. My cousin liked Bruce Sprinsteen in the Born in the USA period, he used to demand Boooce most days. My brother used to put on Simon and Garfunkle records, and American Pie, amazing how you can learn all the words without understanding anything. We also listened to a lot of the Seekers.
Kiddy tap sounds like exactly the right sort of stuff Stomper, keep listing!
July 1, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Cristy
My favourite song used to be “Touch-A touch-a touch-a touch me” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was quite little. I thought that they were having a mud fight…
I was also exposed to a fair bit of Simon & Garfunkle, Beatles, Police and Supertramp. I remember explain the meaning of the song “Roxanne” to my mother when I was about 9.
July 1, 2008 at 9:13 pm
innercitygarden
The lad quite likes the opera videos my Mum inherited from her Dad. She puts them on for him. He stares when they sing, and wanders off to play when they stop singing.
The Bloke and I have started making a list of songs that are either easily misunderstood by kids or could be very easily changed for a kid version. We’re gonna start with Baby it’s Cold Outside.
July 3, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Francis Xavier Holden
Years ago at the beginning of school holidays I used to put together a two hour radio show with songs suitable for taping (it was that long ago) and playing on long trips that both kids and adults could enjoy and sing along in the car. I keep meaning to copy the tapes digitally and put them on a CD or MP3s.
Contained stuff like: Even Trolls Like Rock n Roll – TJW, Party In The Woods Tonight – Jonathan Richman, and of course Road Runner by JR too , Dead Skunk etc…