New Music: Spicy Kid

It's been a summer of plenty for our family when it comes to kids' music: Nearly all our favorite artists have put out new albums, and every one seems to maintain or surpass the respective musicians' previously high standards.

The most recent example is South Carolina's Lunch Money, who hadn't exactly been inactive since their last release a couple of years ago—they've had tracks on some kid-music compliations, and lead singer Molly Ledford has lent her warm, sounds-like-a-smile voice to a number of other bands' albums via guest-track appearances. (Clearly, Lunch Money understands the vital performer's art of leaving its audience wanting more.)

The band's fourth CD, Spicy Kid, gets its name from the gingerbread man of fairy-tale legend, whose point of view is the focus of the album's first track. As with most of these songs, though, there's more going on here than it seems: The album title (shared with that of the second track) serves as a metaphorical jumping-off point for an exploration of kids with attitude, as well.

And all the songs are like this—the album is really directed as much at parents of young children (among which number Ledford counts herself) as at the children themselves. It's definitely the first kids' CD I've heard to get into issues like the feeling of sneaking along the hallway to check on your sleeping child without waking him up ("Awake"), or that moment when you realize the "spell the word out so your kid doesn't understand what you're talking about" ploy isn't gonna work anymore ("S.P.E.L.L.").

Ledford's lyrics—and singing style—handle these subjects with just as much wonder and wryness as the best parent blogs do. And yet (unlike some of those parent bloggers, myself included) she never ends up merely doing the parental version of navel-gazing, either: She always finds a way to provide these lyrics, and the songs as a whole, with a viewpoint that appeals directly to kids as well. (After all, our children have their own perspective on sneaking along hallways at night, don't they?)

All the while, Lunch Money upholds its well-deserved rep as one of the just-plain-best-sounding kid bands around. In fact, between the band's musicianship and Ledford's easy, laid-back vocal style (which has already established her in my mind, at least, as one of the signature voices of today's kindie music), you might take this album to be a strong college-radio outing (with '90s influences like the Lemonheads, R.E.M., and even the softer side of Dinosaur Jr.) if you weren't listening to the lyrics too closely.

All of which is to say: For such an approachable, listener-friendly album, Spicy Kid is pretty darn sophisticated. And I know I always say this with these bands, but we already can't wait to hear what Lunch Money does next.

[Cover image courtesy of Lunch Money]

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New Music: Science Fair

I guess the first big wave of all-star music compilation albums for charity came in the 1980s, coming off the high-profile all-star singles of Band Aid and USA for Africa (though really George Harrison's Bangladesh concert in the mid-'70s probably inaugurated the general concept). Following the premise that whatever was big during the childhoods of those of us who are now parents will become big anew in children's entertainment, it's not shocking that we've started to see some great all-star kid-music compilations of late. The great thing these—besides the no-longer-even-remarkable fact that the genre indisputably has more than enough leading lights to fill several such CDs—is that the best ones give kids and parents a chance to sample the genre, and perhaps even find some new favorite artists.

The very best compilation I've come across is 2010's Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti, which raised $50,000 for relief after the Haitian earthquake, and now the label behind that album, Spare the Rock Records, has its second release. Science Fair was created to address the continued underrepresentation of women in science-related fields—all its net proceeds will be donated to Girls Inc.'s science-education program—and accordingly, it features songs about science written and performed by many of the kid genre's top female artists. (It's even co-produced by two of them, Elizabeth Mitchell and Lunch Money's Molly Ledford, along with Bill Childs and the ubiquitous Dean Jones.)

Many of our family's favorite artists are here with typically top-notch contributions—the aforementioned Lunch Money and Mitchell, as well as Frances England, Barbara Brousal (whose name may be unfamiliar, but whose gorgeous voice is unforgettable to any parent who wore out Dan Zanes's first several albums), and Secret Agent 23 Skidoo (here backing up MC Fireworks, aka his daughter, on the ebullient "Rocket Science"). A couple of bands known for their non-kid music make an appearance as well: '90s Brooklyn rock band Babe the Blue Ox with the dissonant, new-wave-y "Surfin' Minnesota" (which our three-year-old has dubbed his top pick on the album); and Mates of State with a fitting cover of Guided by Voices' "I Am a Scientist" (the video for which is below!).

And yet, the tour de force of the album, by vote of all four members of our family, is the somewhat lesser known—at least on the East Coast!—Lori Henriques's lyrically adept "Heisenberg's Aha!," in which she somehow manages to explain the uncertainty principle in the style of Kurt Weill. (And it's catchy—our seven-year-old pressed "repeat" several times after the first play!)

It all adds up to another top compilation from Spare the Rock that makes contributing to a good cause a doubly pleasurable experience.



[Cover image courtesy of Spare the Rock Records]

New Music: Make Believers

Spring brings many wonderful things each year, but I only recently realized that one of them is "new albums from all my family's favorite kids' musicians." Lo and behold, what do we have here but Make Believers, a brand-new release from another top-of-the-personal-charts artist, the man who made hip-hop safe for kids' music and vice versa, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo?

First off, to anyone who isn't already familiar with 23 Skidoo, and is therefore sensibly skeptical that hip-hop for kids can be any good: This guy is the real deal, an Asheville, North Carolina–based hip-hop veteran who's spent the last five years or so bringing serious old-school beats and rhymes—think the late 1980s—to a pint-size audience. (As is so often the case, having a kid of his own—who's a featured rapper on every one of his albums, by the way—seems to have had something to do with that.) Yes, the subject matter is a little different than that of your average Public Enemy or KRS-One track, but the music and the flow will definitely set parental heads bouncing properly while they bring our kids to their feet.

23 Skidoo is letting his music for kids grow with his family, logically enough, and so Make Believers is aimed at a slightly older audience than his previous albums were: preteens, rather than the youngest elementary school kids and preschoolers. Accordingly, there's a shift in the sound—while the album as a whole remains family-friendly, a couple of tracks, like the hard-edged "Brainstorm" and the dance-friendly "Gotta Be You," (check out the video, below!) push the envelope of kids' music in satisfying ways, as 23 Skidoo has always done. There's a similar shift in the words, with an eye to the issues preteens face in school and life in general.

Then of course, there are the guest artists. For 23 Skidoo, who seems to be uncommonly plugged into the entire eastern seaboard's worth of musicians, that includes both another of our family's favorite kids' artists (Molly Ledford of Lunch Money, who's guested with so many of our favorite artists already that we're half expecting her to turn up on the next Radiohead album) and some remarkable talent we weren't previously aware of (singer Kellin Watson, indie-folk cellist Ben Sollee).

It's yet another story in the brick house of great music 23 Skidoo has been building over the years. And while I can't quite imagine what he's going to do when he gets to his teen album—doesn't it stop being kids' music at that point, and isn't there quite a bit of music-industry hip-hop marketed to that age group already?—I must also remember that there was a time I couldn't imagine good hip-hop for kids to begin with. And that this is the guy who changed all that. In fact, if there's one thing I've learned covering this beat, it's this: Never underestimate Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.

[Images courtesy of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo]

Fids & Kamily Music Awards

I'm a little late to the party, but in case anyone missed it, I wanted to point out the winners of the 2011 Fids & Kamily Music Awards, which were announced back on November 19th. Many of my own favorite albums of the past year made the list. (I'm flattered to be among the voters, so that's not entirely a coincidence—though it's nice to see I'm not alone in my appreciation of Recess Monkey, Frances England, Lunch Money, and the rest!)

Anyway, if you're looking for some good kids' music for year's end—whether you're after the latest from a big name like Dan Zanes or a gem from an artist you didn't know before—this list is an excellent place to start.

New(ish) Music: Original Friend

Back when I included Lunch Money's latest album in my best-of-2010 list, I promised to give it a writeup of its own—only fair, since all the other albums included got one. And I always keep my promises...eventually.

Luckily for me, it’s easy to write about Original Friend several months after I first heard it—because it's became such a favorite of our two boys that it's joined the select few albums that rarely, if ever, leave the CD changer. (It's joined the likes of Recess Monkey, They Might Be Giants, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, and Frances England—the latter two of whom do guest spots Original Friend, actually. It’s CD-changer synergy!)

The word I'd use to describe Lunch Money's songs is infectious—they have a pleasantly jangly sound that will be comfortably familiar to parents in their 30s and 40s, who will inevitably find themselves toe-tapping a lot as the album plays. Songwriter and lead singer Molly Ledford has a knack for not only remembering but crystallizing moments of childhood. And she's always matter-of-factly good-humored without getting anywhere near that cloying tone most parents can't abide; her vocal style has a warmth, as well as pacing, that always put me in mind of the Pretenders. (Yes, I find Chrissie Hynde’s singing warm. Is that weird?)

On this, their third album, the band has expanded beyond its guitar-bass-drums core with some nifty string and horn arrangements on slower tracks like “Getaway Car” and the R.E.M.-ish ballad “Follow Me Home.” But it’s their trademark upbeat indie-pop songs—the title track and especially the grin-inducing “I Want to Push Buttons”—that form the backbone of the album. The guest artists slide in nicely, too, with England, a similar songwriter and vocalist, fitting in seamlessly on "You and Me and a Bottle of Bubbles," and 23 Skidoo typically sharp with his rhymes in the clever "Come Over to My Dollhouse."

It all adds up to one of the best albums I've heard not just in the past year, but in my five years of covering kids' music. So really, it’s about time it got its own post!

[Cover image courtesy of Lunch Money]

2010 Wrap: Music

As I've mentioned before, I don't feel confident that I'm seeing absolutely everything out there in kids' music, books, etc., these days, not like I did (or thought I did, anyway) when I was covering this beat for a national magazine. So a traditional "top 10" list for the year in each category seems presumptuous—I'm sure there's a ton of great stuff that came out in 2010 that I missed entirely.

So instead, I'm just going to humbly put forward a few posts of the best kids' entertainment I've seen this year. Most of it will be items I've covered previously in this blog, but a few will be stragglers I never got around to, or am still hoping to get to, if they came out recently.

I'll start with music, the easiest category for me to tackle because I've sort of done it already, as a voter in the annual Fids & Kamily Awards. I won't just reproduce my ballot here, though—the cutoff dates for that voting ended at October 2010 releases, and my best-of-what-I've-heard includes some stuff that came out after that date.

So here, in no particular order, are the kids' music CDs our family discovered this year that never seem to go out of rotation.

Underground Playground, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo. I've raved about Skidoo on multiple occasions already in this space, but I'm still blown away that anyone could manage to make hip-hop for children, well, listenable at all. And Skidoo's sophomore output (as his debut was) is far more than that; with his old-school beats and smart, sharp rhymes, he puts a smile on your face and a bounce in your kid's steps. And the other way around, too.


Mind of My Own, Frances England. She's the other artist I couldn't stop talking about this year, and her third album lived up to her first two. You know how, with a really good album by an artist you like, you gravitate toward certain songs on the first several listens, but then toward different ones after a few more, obsessing over each group in turn until nearly every track has been your "favorite"? This is that kind of album, for kids and parents alike.


The Final Funktier, Recess Monkey. This is undeniably a goofy CD, and in kids' music a little of that goes a long way, especially for parents. The difference with the prolific Recess Monkey that these guys are really good, as both songwriters and musicians. Their songs could hardly be catchier, and when you find yourself humming them to yourself at the office, you're not horrified like you are when the tune is "Elmo's World" or the map song from Dora. You just laugh at yourself for a moment—and then keep on humming.


Sunny Day, Elizabeth Mitchell. The most soothing voice in kids' music today is, not surprisingly, responsible for the standout "cool-down" album of the year. What is surprising—though really, given her previous track record, it shouldn't be—is her ability to preserve that warm, calm vibe through songs well beyond the comfort zone of the folk-acoustic genre. This CD can be the answer to a parent's craziest morning.


Original Friend, Lunch Money. I'm still planning a full writeup of this South Carolina trio's excellent third album, but suffice it to say for now that it hasn't emerged from the CD changer since we acquired it. With a sound that would fit right in on any indie or college radio station, and smart, smooth, irresistibly likeable vocals by guitarist Molly Ledford, Lunch Money is another of those special bands producing songs kids love that parents can often forget is kids' music.


Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti,various artists. This CD to benefit victims of the Haitian earthquake contains tracks by every single one of the artists I've just mentioned, as well as much of the rest of the genre's top talent, from Pete Seeger to Jonathan Coulton to They Might Be Giants to Gustafer Yellowgold to Dan Zanes...the list really does go on and on. Far and away the best kids' music compilation I've ever encountered, it's the perfect way to find out which of today's kids' musicians might be your children's (and your) favorites, and of course it serves a most worthy cause.

[Images, from top: courtesy of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo; courtesy of Frances England; Kevin Fry/courtesy of Recess Monkey; courtesy of Elizabeth Mitchell; Brandon Reese/courtesy of Lunch Moneycourtesy of Spare the Rock Records]