New Year's Resolutions: 2007

I've only occasionally made New Year's resolutions, since there's little about going from December 31 to January 1 that compels me to do resolutions.

But, hey, as a tired trope for unsolicited advice, it works great!

So here are a few New Year's resolutions for every one else in the kids music world except me. (OK, me, too.)

1. The resurgence of kids music is no longer news. When a trend is so prevalent it gets its own acronym (YAKMA - Yet Another Kids Music Article), it's jumped the shark. So I'd like members of the press to stop writing articles along the lines of, "Have you heard? There are a bunch of new kids musicians. [Insert quotation from Dan Zanes.]" You have until February 2007, the one-year anniversary of the Laurie Berkner DVD release. After that, please come up with a new angle.

2. Stop the madness: Enough with the dissing. Artists: Please, please, please stop defining yourselves by who you're not. OK, you're not Barney, the Wiggles, or Raffi. That tells me nothing except you're not purple, dinosaurs, color-coded, or the man who single-handedly created the kids music section in your local record/bookstore. At the very least, tell me who else you sound like -- Fountains of Wayne? Stevie Wonder? Sabbath?

3. "Have you heard? There's kids music entire families can enjoy!" Yes. Yes we have. And while you're at it, dear, beloved kids musicians and members of the observing press, the idea that "music that the whole family can enjoy" is somehow rare has been pretty much obliterated (if indeed it ever was true). I know that it's marketing hoo-hah, but at this point, I'm close to believing that the presence of that phrase (particularly on press releases) is an indicator that it's not one of those many albums that will be of much interest to parent or child or both.

4. Album art still matters. I've harped on this before, but I'm still amazed at how many kids music albums are completely done a disservice by their covers, bad enough to make me put them at the bottom of my to-listen pile. Perhaps ten years from now, when the college students of the Napster era become parents themselves, will kids music join a lot of other music in being a downloaded medium. But until then, most parents and kids will enjoy their music through a physical medium and nothing says "I'm not giving that as a gift" like something that looks like, well, what I could put together. Please take a little time and find someone to put a little thought into the album packaging. See Lunch Money or Frances England for examples of how to do it.

5. Spend less time listening to recorded music and more time listening to live music. No matter where you live, whether you can hear kids musicians every weekend or once a year, go out and hear music with your family. Doesn't have to be kids' music -- classical, folk, whatever. If it involves dancing on the part of the participants so much the better.

6. Spend less time listening to recorded music and more time playing music. I enjoy discovering all these artists and revisiting old favorites with my family. But I rarely derive more pleasure from those than I do plunking out a tune on the piano, or violin, or ukelele while my family warbles along and shakes whatever rhythmic item they have handy. I doubt my kids will remember of these great albums. I hope they remember singing "Pay Me My Money Down" in the living room.

Happy 2007, folks, I hope it's great.

Holy Toledo! (Parent)

The Lovely Mrs. Davis is the subject of a nice profile in this month's Toledo Parent, which is pretty impressive considering she doesn't even live in Toledo. Oh, and thanks for the talking up of Fids and Kamily, too.

The Top 50 Kids Songs of All Time: Songs 41-45

If you're new here, you can see songs 46 through 50 here.

And there's still time to enter the contest.

On to songs 41 through 45...

45. "Fee Fi Fo Fum" - Ralph's World: There are many great Ralph's World songs, but this I think this song is likely to stick around, combining simple lyrics ("It doesn’t matter what you look like if you got some Fee Fi Fo Fum / It doesn’t matter what you look like and let me tell you everybody got some") with an infectious melodic line. It will make for great covers many years from now. (Listen to the whole song at Ralph's music page.)

44. "Conjunction Junction" - Bob Dorough: The whole Schoolhouse Rock! series was a flash of inspiration, trying to use the medium of advertising to hook kids on learning. This song, like so many others in the series, took complex subjects and rendered them instantly easy to grasp. The cartoon visuals are fabulous, of course, but even divested of those visuals, tracks like this one are still models of songwriting thirty years after they were first written. (Listen to samples from the orignal show here.)

43. "Muffin Man" - traditional: Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? On Drury Lane? The basis for a joke in the Shrek movies. Unsurprisingly, the song comes from England. In researching this entry, I learned that Frank Zappa sang a version of the song. The Ralph's World version I suspect is more conventional, but it's got a fun energy nonetheless. (Listen to a sample of Ralph's version at Ralph's music page.)

42. "Frog Went Courting" - traditional: In his liner notes to his We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions disk, Bruce Springsteen says this song can be tracked back to (at least) a Scottish tune from 1549. It seems to me that any song that gets recorded 450 years after originally written deserves some sort of spot on this list. (Besides Bruce, Bob Dylan, Elizabeth Mitchell, Dan Zanes, and scores of others have recorded the song. Here's a Pete Seeger version.)

41. "Rubber Duckie" - OK, my all-time Sesame Street performance is R.E.M. singing "Furry Happy Monsters," but I'm pretty sure that this song here will be sung many years from now. It has a timeless ragtime feel. If only I could find a rubber duckie that squeaked like Ernie's. (I'm not gonna post a listen link, because the one I'm enjoying now is squeaking past copyright law. You're smart. Google it.)

Review in Brief: Music For Tots - Little Miss Ann

With experience singing in Old Town School of Folk Music Wiggleworms classes, Chicago-based Ann Torralba would seem a logical choice for recording a CD targeted at the preschool set. And sure enough her debut kids' CD as "Little Miss Ann," Music For Tots, is geared for exactly those kids. A folk-poppy blend of traditional kids' songs, covers, and originals, the 22-minute disk is notable for its arrangements, which take out-of-the-ordinary approaches to familiar songs. Sometimes these arrangements sound great, such as on "You Are My Sunshine," which is given a different melody and jazzy percussion background, or "Pirate Ship," which employs a tin whistle to fun effect. Other tracks' arrangements aren't as endearing (the rhythm on the Pete Seeger-inspired "Edamame" was just, well, too angular, for example), but Torralba gets points for at least trying something different. (And I particularly enjoyed the Torralba originals.)

The disk is appropriate for kids ages 1 through 5. You can hear samples of all the tracks (and purchase the CD) here. With its reinterpretations of traditional songs, this disk would work really well in preschool programs. And while I don't think the CD will become the favorite of many families, Little Miss Ann's musical and lyrical re-interpretations on Music For Tots are good for the occasional sing-along for young families.

How Can We Lose A Record Label? We Never Had One!

Aw, c'mon, let's actually make it into 2007 before we start seeing examples of why the bloom is off the kids' music rose...

This note on the Terrible Twos' website:

The record will be available in stores nation wide in March. It was supposed to come out in January on Kid Rhino but they folded. So, now it's coming out on Paquito Records in March.

Well, gosh, and Kid Rhino was just supposed to be ramping up their efforts.

Worst. Ramp. Up. Ever.

I'm trying to get some confirmation of this, but even if it has everything to do with WEA and nothing to do with kids' music, it's still sorta sad -- I was looking forward to seeing what a label with Warner's resources could do with the album.

Still, for all you people looking for Terrible Twos' lyrics (seeing as I steadfastly refuse to break copyright law by posting 'em), coloring pages with lyrics for "Caroline," "We Can All Get Along With Dinosaurs," "If You Ever See An Owl," and "Oneplusoneistwo" are now available at the band's Myspace page. No chords, but this way you can sing along.