Putumayo blog
Putumayo World Music launched their blog with an interesting collection of interviews about the "universal appeal of kids music." They spoke with DJ Spooky, Lila Downs, and Herbie Treehead. From the Putumayo blog:
Why do you think children’s music has such a universal appeal?Official Blog Launch & Kickoff Post: DJ Spooky, Lila Downs and Herbie Treehead Discuss Kids Music!
Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky: “Something about children’s music plays on the innocence and openness that children have. You can’t listen to kids music without a sense of wonder at the simplicity. I think children’s music is catchy precisely because it is about memory - we always strip memory down to its most essential components. That’s why people like “riffs” - it’s a way of simplifying and connecting fragments, just like sampling.”
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Thanks for the link! Putamayo is the one label I will buy new music from without having even heard it before, and I'm rarely disappointed.
The "universal appeal of kids music"? Is this some sort of a joke? Most "kids music" is annoying and trite.
For the benefit of their 2-year-old my brother and his wife started only listening to music for children whenever they're in the car. I can't stand riding with them any more.
Come on now, Keith, tell me you didn't laugh to tears the first time you saw the Muppet Babies sing "Ma Ma, Da Da, poop poop Chihuahua!"
Anyone who thinks children are open and innocent has not had a job teaching them.
@#2
KEITHIRWIN
The "universal appeal of kids music"? Is this some sort of a joke? Most "kids music" is annoying and trite.
For the benefit of their 2-year-old my brother and his wife started only listening to music for children whenever they're in the car. I can't stand riding with them any more.
Maybe you shouldn't discount an entire audience/genre of music because your brother's made poor choices. We have gigs and gigs of kids music in our home and in our cars and its great stuff and not a single Wiggles track to be found.
There's so much good kids music our right now - I'd say more high quality stuff than ever - that I feel very fortunate to be a parent in 2009. To quote the Sweet Juniper blog, "There's a decent enough selection of kids music out there that if you want you can still be a snob about Jack Johnson and They Might Be Giants." Music is an obsession for me, but I doubt I ever would have found Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Little Bird if I wasn't in the market for kid friendly tunes. Which would have been too bad for me because it's a beautiful album whether you're playing it for ankle-biters or not.
"And did you know desires a terrible thing, but I rely on mine..."
The first song that our first son ever sang?
"Fish heads, fish heads, roley-poley fish heads!"
@5
Sheesh. I said "most" and I stand by that. I also did not say "My knowledge of children's music comes from my brother and his wife". I made my statements about kids music first and then described a situation which makes it apparent how little I like most music which is marketed to kids. I'm not the one jumping to conclusions here.
I have Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. They're terrific. Heck, I even have the Dino 5 album, which is good rap aimed at kids. The fact that there is non-sucky kids music doesn't mean that most music marketed to kids isn't terrible. Also, "kids music" is not a genre. It's a marketing category. You take a pop song, have it sung by children, and voila, it's "kids music".
The fact that I believe that music marketed to children is crap is not "discounting a whole audience". Just because I believe that people feed crappy music to children doesn't mean that I believe that we need to feed crappy music to children. Really, I question the whole necessity of kids music. The blog post you linked to recommends selecting songs by normal artists rather than buying "kids music" per se. Children may not listen to classical or avant garde music, but otherwise they're pretty amenable to the same music adults like.
Anyway, I think we can all agree that it is possible to find music made for children which does not suck. I'll even believe that you have several gigabytes of such music given that that's it's only like 10-15 albums per gigabyte at normal compression rates. However, the fact still remains, most music aimed at kids is terrible.
And really what this whole discussion, my post, yours, and the blog you linked to, supports is my main point which is that there is no such thing as "universal appeal of kids music" because even you acknowledge that you dislike some kids music.
I disagree that there is universal appeal. Yes, simple melodies stick in one's brain but that's more of a byproduct of wiring than "wonder" or even enjoyment of simplicity. However, that said I have enjoyed some "kids" music and silly songs, because they make me laugh.
...As long as it's not sung by actual children. I love classically trained children's choirs (Libera, for example) but kids all singing the same melody with no styling or harmony drives me up a wall.
Song is very close to our core, and may have given birth to language. How do kids learn the alphabet? They sing it, because like many birds, we're a noisy breed, and the geometry of our mouths and tongues allow us to imitate a lot of sounds.
A series of sounds strung into a rhythm is something our brain remembers easily. E-I-E-I-O.
Namaste...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLTaEpKAGTc
I love Putumayo's music. I know that I can buy one of their CDs and thoroughly enjoy it, without downloading a torrent first to sample.
Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth.
xoxo
thee makeout party
Oh lord, I thought that said "Putamayor" and for a moment there I thought that conservative attacks where getting way out of hand.
You need to find someone who can appeal to both adults and children. . . . songs with substance.
Google Randy Rossilli, Jr. he has some really cool tracks, with some great messages. We downloaded his CD from iTunes, I can't get some of the tunes out of my head.
Also, a pretty good choice is Tom Chapin.