More Zanes Holiday Music

I realized recently that a traditional magazine-style "gift guide" for this blog would be kind of redundant—it would end up being largely a repetition of most of the new products I've written about this year, and anyone can get that already by simply clicking on "new books," etc., among the tags on the right sidebar.

However, I am working on a series of best-of-2010 posts, which will include both stuff I've covered here and things I either missed the first time around or just couldn't find space for. Those should begin later this week, I hope, assuming I vanquish my own remaining Christmas shopping as planned.

In the meantime, Dan Zanes has conveniently enough posted a couple more holiday songs on his website, first a simple acoustic performance of "Silent Night" (posted up top, for you traditionalists) and then a repost of his four-year-old holiday recording for Heifer International, "Holiday Time in Brooklyn" (below, for my Kings County readership). Check 'em out!

New Music: (Free!) Dan Zanes Hanukkah Song

I suspect that the Venn diagram of my readership and Dan Zanes's devoted audience has quite a bit of overlap, but for those outside the Zanes circle: The award-winning kids'-music giant has released a nifty recording of the Hanukkah song "Ner Li" for free download on his website. And I even managed to get the news up here before the holiday ended—still a few more days! Check it out.

[Photo: Gala Narezo]

New Music: The New Explorers Club (Plus, Free Music!)

As I struggle to keep up with all the good kids' music that's come out this fall, I have two reasons to go with Maine's own Flannery Brothers next. The first is that their latest album, The New Explorers Club, which was released in October, is irresistible to kids, upbeat and offbeat in all the best ways. (My personal favorite track: "Pirate or Parrot," which helpfully educates listeners about ways to tell the difference between the two; I can't restrain a smile every time I hear it.)

The other is that the Flannery Brothers are also giving away for free a second album on their website: Dance Songs for Silly Kids, a remix of their 2009 release Love Songs for Silly Things. So parents who aren't yet familiar with the brothers' work can go to the site and get a full CD's worth of tracks to test-drive before purchasing The New Explorer's Club. (I think most will.)

[Cover image courtesy of the Flannery Brothers; photograph by Anthony Arnista]