Hip Music for Kids (Age 2-4)?

My daughter (3) likes The Undertones.

Our young fella, Orlando ( 5 months) loves the Today is the Day ep by Yo La Tengo. Playing it's often the only way we can get him to stop crying or go to sleep. He did come to see YLT in London a few months before he was born which might be a factor. He also reacts well to Stereolab - stops crying, gets sleepy and so on. My wife has played him Belle and Sebastian, but he wasn't too impressed.Yo La Tengo, Stereolab: in my view he's a pretty hip kid! I love beign a proud father. If you want to see some pictures.....Could we set up a sistem pics with offspring sub-thread?

Kevin

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Originally posted by seagull:
My daughter (3) likes The Undertones.

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Your daugter has taste, as does Rasher's - 3 years old and into Metallica? Wish my folks had good taste in music when I was little - pre blind school At least I remember Teenage Kicks and Hammer Horror being in the charts on radio 1

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Kevin - In the current climate, posting photos of kids is a definite no-no. Bloody shame and all that, but that is the sorry state that we have found ourselves in.
Lovely idea though.

My daughter has lots of favorite songs that I compiled onto a CD for car journeys etc. It was so good that I made a cover for it and made copies for her to give out at Chistmas (2002). She was just coming up to her 5th birthday. I have been meaning to make a Vol 2, as she wants so many new tracks on the next one, including Zep's Dancing Days.
The track listing of Vol 1 was:

Pure Shores - All Saints
Whooping the Blues - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
One - U2
Hey Hey We're the Monkees - The Monkees
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Moody Blue - Elvis Presley
All My Life - Foo Fighters
By The Way - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Like A Prayer - Madonna
In The Ghetto - Elvis Presley
Black Coffee - All Saints
It's a Beautiful Day - U2
Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
Drops of Jupiter - Train
Farewell & Goodnight - Smashing Pumpkins

Personally I can't bear Madonna or U2, and The Monkees are the nearest to "Wheels on the Bus" that we have ever come.
Now...my little boy (19 months) is a REAL metalhead. You should see him go...man.
I love being a Dad! I love it, I love it, I love it.

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Originally posted by Rasher:
BTW. Trout Fishing in America is a book by Richard Braughtigan - what's this album then?

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Trout Fishing In America is also a band that plays children's music.

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Originally posted by Rasher:
and The Monkees are the nearest to "Wheels on the Bus" that we have ever come.

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Yeah, right, you could try 'Wheels on the Bus', Icecream Man and 'I'm a little Dinosaur' by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Kids might even like 'Egyptian Reggae'. These songs are all on ' Rock and Roll with the Modern Lovers' and they are just lovely.

Must admit that having no kids myself has moved me away from what they like these days. Sad really, growing old...

willem

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In the current climate, posting photos of kids is a definite no-no. Bloody shame and all that, but that is the sorry state that we have found ourselves in.

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I guess you're right: I've had my kids over a 20 yr period and can't believe how the atmosphere has changed. These days I find myself worrying abou things that didn't exist when I started out.

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Wish my folks had good taste in music when I was little - pre blind school

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You're right here: when I was a kid the coolest thing I heard was The Carpenters. Leaves the young people with a dilemma though: how do you find music your folks don't like? That's always seemed like part of a teenage identity. My eldest keeps nicking all my cds - all the Marc Ribot records are in his college room!

Kevin

At that age my son really liked

ELO Out of the Blue
Henry Mancini Theme from The Pink Panther

Now at 5 he quite likes The Stone Roses and The Charlatans (but mainly because I do)

regards

Richard S

At the age of four my daughter repeatedly asked for Eels - Souljacker. Two years on she still loves "Friendly Ghost".

On a not so positive note she also likes Billy Joel

Mike

They Might Be Giants' "No!" shall be the one. How can you resist lyrics like "Robot parade, robot parade, robots obey what the children say" and "We strum rubber guitars, our friends live on mars, and we sew buttons on our cars"?

It should drive my sister absolutely insane. Perfect.

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Originally posted by kj burrell:
Leaves the young people with a dilemma though: how do you find music your folks don't like? That's always seemed like part of a teenage identity.

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Never heard of Westlife, Robbie Williams, Blue, Atomic Kitten? It's exactly what you are talking about - it's just not what you were expecting!

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when I was a kid the coolest thing I heard was The Carpenters.

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You are lucky. Until I was about 12, we had no music at all in our house. It just wasn't part of my mothers life. I heard records at friends houses and bought Revolver when I was about 10, but then had to try to get a record player to play it.
Probably explains why I am so obsessive about music now, and why I am so active in giving music to my kids from the off.

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Never heard of Westlife, Robbie Williams, Blue, Atomic Kitten? It's exactly what you are talking about - it's just not what you were expecting!

Rasher,

I think that's pre-teens and sad mums! Much like the pop idol audience. My 15 yr old daugher and her mates wouldn't give the time of day to them. Oddly, the music the kids at the school I work at like does upset me, but that's because I didn't like it first time round - Led Zep t shirts, Deep Purple riffs from the music room, you're only a good guitarist if you can play "Sweet Child of Mine"? Sometimes I wonder whether our society has passed over the evolutionary crest and is in freefall. I keep asking them why they don't play around with decks or samples and interesting noises and they look at me with distain.

Kevin

I was brought up on a musical diet of Bing Crosby, The Shadows and mainstream classical. I think the grooviest music I was exposed to was Hank Williams. It doesn't seem to affected my taste now. Perhaps all of our kids will rebel against our eclectic musical tastes and end up listening to Boy Bands.

[QUOTE] [/I was brought up on a musical diet of Bing Crosby, The Shadows and mainstream classicalQUOTE]

Fair point. Apart from The Carpenters it was mainly Sinatra in my house. The big influence was my mates' older brothers. I remember sitting in their rooms, aged 10, listening to the first Santana album, Its A Beautiful Day, Fairport, King Crimson, Blodwyn Pig and all the other great early Island stuff,and for me it took off from there. And my parents hated it which was wonderful.

Maybe we should only play dull stuff when our kids are around rather than looking for hip tunes. That way they may rebel and listen to better stuff when they're older. If I could stand it I'd only play Norah Jones and Coldplay from hereon in! No more John Zorn.

Kevin

Ludwig,
No! is the way to go. My 3 year old is currently putting that at the top of his playlist. If you ever get some of those songs figured out let me know.....
"1/2 of george washington's head, 3/4 of george washington's head,........"
It should be perfect for your sister.

I always found my small niblings particulary enjoyed the Saints and the Ramones.

One way to pass long car journeys with them was to sing along ..

"Beat on the Brat,
Beat on the Brat
Beat on the Brat with a baseball bat
Oh Yeah, Yeah-eh"



DS OTD - Decomposed Subsomnic - Live in Barcelona

MY FIVE YEAR OLD IS INTO madness's greatest hits
baggy trousers
my house
i like driving in my car
one step beyond
Also dare i say it Early Learning do S Club 7 covers....sorry

Anselm

all art is contemporary; it is the way we look at it that changes...

In 1990/91 I wrote some music for computer games. I was at the bottom of my learning curve and had far from ideal equipment, so my results were rather patchy, but I was thrilled to find that small children tend to dance to one of my later pieces: look for "Goal" here, towards the bottom of the page. This is my old website. If the link doesn't work then try finding it here. (At the time of posting, both links point to the same site, so don't bother trying both today).

[This message was edited by JeremyD on Tue 23 March 2004 at 13:32.]

Shouldn't be funny, but my brother has a compilation tape in the car with Cigarettes and Alcohol on it by Oasis. Its the one song his two girls (Age 3 and 5) really sat up and took notice of. They now love it, know all the words and sing along as they drive round the countryside. Altogether now!!!!!


Is it my imagination
Or have I finally found something worth living for?
I was looking for some action
But all I found was cigarettes and alcohol

You could wait for a lifetime
To spend your days in the sunshine
You might as well do the white line
Cos when it comes on top...

You gotta make it happen!

Is it worth the aggravation
To find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?
It's a crazy situation
But all I need are cigarettes and alcohol!

You could wait for a lifetime
To spend your days in the sunshine
You might as well do the white line
Cos when it comes on top...

You gotta make it happen!

When my son was 4 he really loved the Jailbreak album by Thin Lizzy.Especially the title track
Now at 9 he plays 'Air Guitar' to Led Zeppelin
"That's my boy"

Music is Analogue

Don't overlook soundtracks of movies your nephew likes. I'm not a soundtrack guy myself, but my 2-year old granddaughter loves the "Wizard of Oz" CD and she's just getting started on "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." And yet, when she's in my wife's car, she always asks for "Naima" as performed by David Murray. I think it's interesting that she likes the sound of the saxophone but is too young to have a "that's not how a sax is supposed to sound" reaction to Murray.

Bottom line is that I would recommend you get your nephew something you want him to hear. He'll be exposed to enough of that hokey guitar/banjo stuff elsewhere. (Although, if that's the route you want to go, I'd suggest early Peter, Paul and Mary.)

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Shouldn't be funny, but my brother has a compilation tape in the car with Cigarettes and Alcohol on it by Oasis. Its the one song his two girls (Age 3 and 5) really sat up and took notice of.

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Well, it is by far the best track on the album - they obviously have taste!

Andy.

my three year old is currently into nirvana "nevermind" because he thinks the baby on the cover with the dollar is funny cool. He also like running around in circles in the living room to the fast songs (which is better than my dancing). I convinced him "bleach" was ok too, since it was the same band as the baby cover. Beats the crap out of listening to the wiggles.

They Might Be Giants

I bought "No!" for my nephew and sent it to him for his birthday (the big 2 today!). Called my sister and he loves it- "I Am a Grocery Bag" is his early fav.