Whose Noggin Is That?

We recently received a copy of Brady Rymer's latest CD, Every Day Is A Birthday, and the first thing my wife said when she saw the CD was,

"Wow. Do we have any other kids' CDs with the artist's actual picture on the cover?"

This amused me, because it was the exact same thought I had the first time I saw a picture of the cover.

And, really, if you think about it, most children's music artists do not have a particularly large presence on their album covers. Ralph's World? Even on his latest CD Green Gorilla, Monster & Me -- Ralph is a tiny, animated man. Dan Zanes? Slightly less tiny, slightly less animated. Laurie Berkner? A little less tiny than Dan, a little less animated. And that's pretty much where the progression ends. (I guess Laurie's DVD has her featured a little more prominently.)

Progress in the children's music world is typically on the level of Justin Roberts' Meltdown! CD, in which the animated child on his fifth kids album now looks much more Justin-like.

Frankly, this probably doesn't matter much. This industry is probably significantly different than "adult" CDs, in which mass marketed CDs almost always come with the artist's picture prominently displayed (think of rap or country CDs, or U2 or the Rolling Stones). And even though the faces aren't there, there's often a graphical consistency to the cover art.

But with the increasing folding in of "serious" children's music artists such as Berkner, Zanes, and Covert into major record distribution, it wouldn't be surprising to see more faces and fewer cartoons on CD covers.