Can children’s music appeal to adults?
There are soundtracks, lullabies, nursery rhymes, and educational songs, but another trend in children’s music is to assert that it will be palatable to the whole family. And if you’re getting tired of the Elmo’s World theme song, you may want to give these a listen.
Grown up bands play for kids:
Part of this trend comes from adult bands (mostly from the 90s) trying their hand at family friendly music in response to having their own kids. These are some highlights:
They Might Be Giants write songs for Mickey’s Clubhouse and Handy Manny. They also have own albums which are catchy and silly. Their latest, Here Comes Science make concepts like photosynthesis fun and easy to remember.
Ziggy Marley has written music for Dora the Explorer and Arthur. Family Time is filled with collaborations with everyone from Jack Johnson to Laurie Berkner.
Barenaked Ladies: Their kids’ album Snacktime! includes high energy songs great for jumping around.
Verve Pipe' Family Album (remember the song “the Freshmen”?) is a kids album with a mellow pop rock sound.
Grown up songs for kids:
There are a few series of popular music whose lyrics may raise uncomfortable questions from small children. So they’ve been turned into instrumental lullabies.
There are two main series:
Rockabye Baby: there are a lot of these titles, but all of the songs have been transcribed to
xylophone, which gets tiresome quickly.
Baby goes: These also use xylophone, but incorporate other instruments as well and tend to be more upbeat. Also the songs are much more recognizable than the Rockabye
Baby albums.
Dreamin' with Def Leppard uses guitar and just tones it down to a more
soothing level. I hope this studio records others with different bands.
My Current faves for all ages:
The Final Funktier by Recess Monkey: fun and very danceable; some tracks sound a bit like Blink 182
You are my Little Bird by Elizabeth Mitchell: sweet folk sound
Electric Storyland by the Sippy Cups: fun rock sound
If you have a favorite kids’ CD, I would love to hear about it!
Grown up bands play for kids:
Part of this trend comes from adult bands (mostly from the 90s) trying their hand at family friendly music in response to having their own kids. These are some highlights:
They Might Be Giants write songs for Mickey’s Clubhouse and Handy Manny. They also have own albums which are catchy and silly. Their latest, Here Comes Science make concepts like photosynthesis fun and easy to remember.
Ziggy Marley has written music for Dora the Explorer and Arthur. Family Time is filled with collaborations with everyone from Jack Johnson to Laurie Berkner.
Barenaked Ladies: Their kids’ album Snacktime! includes high energy songs great for jumping around.
Verve Pipe' Family Album (remember the song “the Freshmen”?) is a kids album with a mellow pop rock sound.
Grown up songs for kids:
There are a few series of popular music whose lyrics may raise uncomfortable questions from small children. So they’ve been turned into instrumental lullabies.
There are two main series:
Rockabye Baby: there are a lot of these titles, but all of the songs have been transcribed to
xylophone, which gets tiresome quickly.
Baby goes: These also use xylophone, but incorporate other instruments as well and tend to be more upbeat. Also the songs are much more recognizable than the Rockabye
Baby albums.
Dreamin' with Def Leppard uses guitar and just tones it down to a more
soothing level. I hope this studio records others with different bands.
My Current faves for all ages:
The Final Funktier by Recess Monkey: fun and very danceable; some tracks sound a bit like Blink 182
You are my Little Bird by Elizabeth Mitchell: sweet folk sound
Electric Storyland by the Sippy Cups: fun rock sound
If you have a favorite kids’ CD, I would love to hear about it!
- Miss Emily
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