When The Kid was little she listened to my music often (pretty much anything but rap), but had her own library of Barney, Raffi, and Disney CD’s. She loved “Voodoo” by Godsmack and was very into Marilyn Manson by the time she was 7.
Now that she’s 14 she still loves Marilyn Manson, is very much into alt/emo/punk and rap… but also prefers listening to the Disney channel when we’re in the car.
It bothers her that my grand-neice, at all of age ‘justturned4’, knows “Soulja Boy” word for word (and most of the dance too) - she thinks it’s inappropriate. For grandneices birthday last week The Kid requested we buy her a Disney CD - tamed down versions of popular songs.
I am not a parent, but I was a small child once. Anther vote for “some of each”.
In nursery school they’d play music during nap time; it was a mixture of kid stuff like the Carrot Seed song or Eensie Beentsie Spider plus classical music like Tchaikovsky and Vaughn-Williams plus pop music like Elvis or Perry Como.
By regular, I meant music that isn’t specifically aimed at kids (so not Barney, Kidz Bop or The Elephant Show songs -are they still around?-). Songs that are meant to appeal to people of all ages would fall under “regular music.”
I’m not talking about the people who weren’t listening to music before the kids were born (although your point about baby Einstein is interesting).
Thanks for the replies.
ZipperJJ, that is a good point about portability, and the range of current radio station choices.
The little one loves her Wiggles, of which at least I can stand enough to listen to them. However she does also like some ‘adult’ stuff. She really likes the Kaiser Chief’s ‘Ruby’ and asks for it all the time. She also likes Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. She doesn’t usually sing along, nor does she like us to sing. She will sometimes sing the songs she knows when there is no music on.
My 15-month-old granddaughter loves the soundtrack to The Sound of Music, and will listen to it time and again. However, the title song literally makes her cry. You’ll see her lower lip quiver, then her eyes well with tears, then real crying. We have absolutely no idea why.
Something else to consider is that there’s a somewhat recent trend towards “family” music, that is intended to be appreciated primarily by children but with more of a family “listen together” approach. I really like these types of albums over the “normal” kids crap like the Wiggles, because they’re not overly sanitized (one Dan Zanes album features a drinking song, sung by a child, for example) and they don’t completely alienate parents.
Examples of these are No! by They Might Be Giants (one of our favorites), also Here Come the ABC’s, and anything by Dan Zanes and Father Goose. The CD for Boynton’s Cow Planet is also pretty good, although more of a novelty/humor CD.
Actually I didn’t think “Wiggles” was that bad for adults - and my kids have had a couple of “kids band” albums that were really listenable. But yep, my kids both started listening to They Might Be Giants very young - and they have a lot of “crossover” stuff. There seems to be a “rocker has children and releases kid’s album” trend which is sort of appealing for parents who really don’t want to listen to Cookie Monster sing “C is for Cookie” or bad albums of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “Polly Put the Kettle On.”
The radio is a danger point to parents who are concerned about lyrics and “inappropriate” content. There are a few albums I’ve put in around the kids and yanked out just as quickly when I realize that I really don’t need my kids listening too closely to Jill Souble’s lyrics because I don’t want to answer the questions at this moment.
The Princess has been listening to “regular” music from the womb - her dad used to put Jimi Hendrix and System of a Down CDs on a portable CD player and carefully position the headphones on my belly, as other parents would do with Mozart. When she was 3 months old, her favorite song was “Something So Right” by Paul Simon; we played it when she was colicky and fussing, and it calmed her down for a while. Her dad would also sit with her and listen to Frank Zappa, so that by age 3, she could sing along to “It Can’t Happen Here” and “The Muffin Man” (Zappa’s collaboration with Captain Beefheart, not the traditional kid’s song). Of course, she and the Diva also listened to Radio Disney while playing, and I bought her the TMBG album No! and the **Here Come the ABCs **DVD. She still listens to all kinds of music, but I try to be careful with her listening choices. A few months ago she was obsessed with Nickelback’s “Rock Star,” and I had to explain the lyrics to her, except I didn’t explain the Mile High Club and the Playboy mansion. :o There was also the brief fondness for the Soulja Boy dance, and the day she danced to “Lean Like a Cholo” for the amusement and edification of her aunts. We don’t own a single “Kidz Bop” album, though she’s begged for them, because I think the Kidz Bop versions of most pop songs suck. However, it would be interesting to hear a Kidz Bop version of Soulja Boy. (d&r)
We always had “grown-up” music in my house (my parents were partial to Leonard Cohen, Stan Rogers, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon, among others); I also went to more operas than is usual for an eight-year-old and developed a major case of Phantom of the Opera obsession when I was in grade six.
I didn’t start choosing my own music until I got into They Might Be Giants in grade 10, though, and my brother is the rock person in the family (Pink Floyd, Beatles, etc.)
Music with a beat, gets my 15 month old niece tapping her feet and hands to the music. She does the kid dancing with the beat where the head, arms and body move to the music when standing. No kids music gets played.
My girls are five and seven, and don’t listen to much kids’ music anymore… sometimes They Might Be Giants, or Captain Bogg & Salty. My five-year-old used to listen to White Zombie’s first album as she went to sleep. “America” by Bree Sharp is still a favorite:
Pay no more
Attention to the things that you stand for
Sit back, relax, enjoy the war
From your living room
The Kiddo first displayed musical leanings at about age 6, when he expressed a liking for Led Zeppelin. He’s now branched out into Black Sabbath and Metallica, and seems to have a fondness for Twisted Sister as well. He’s 9 now.
He also enjoys listening to classic jazz (Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, etc.), and NPR on the radio.
My oldest son (oldest child = rock’n’roll baby) loved Iggy Pop’s Brick By Brick. He memorized the lyrics and used to sing along with it, or sing songs off of it when he was doing something else. If you’ve never heard a two-year-old building with blocks singing “Brick by brick… Brick by brick by brick by brick…” well, it’s something to see. Also the occasional “Rock’N’Roll… uh! UH!” was fun. If kids hear that music, that’s what they’ll like.
Mine are 6, 3, and 1, and huge fans of Laurie Berkner, who does some catchy, non-annoying stuff, and Dan Zanes (who I only recently learned used to be in the Del Fuegos). That music doesn’t bother me, although it runs through my head a million times a day.
My oldest loves Bob Marley and George Michael, for some reason. My middle one loves Nine Inch Nails and Metallica. My baby seems to have a thing for hip-hop, which startles me. And all of them like The Beatles, especially the earlier stuff.
I have always wondered if the things that we usually aim at children–simple, happy melodies, smiley faces and lots of primary colors are really what they like, or just what we as adults expect them to. However the little ones feel about it reminds me what William Saroyan once said–“that which no child can express and no adult can remember to tell.”
My little girl likes anything upbeat. Last Friday we were dancing to Abba.
But a couple weeks ago I taught her all the words to “I’ve been working on the railroad”, simply because we were going through book in her room, and one of them was a songbook.
I always listened to regular music. Not long ago, I was carrying vocals for a game of Rock Band on a friend’s X360, and he was apparently startled to realize that I actually knew the words to “Fortunate Son”. I had to explain that, thanks to Dad, I’ve been listening to CCR since before I had proper ears. I developed a taste for Madonna and Billy Joel pretty early, too.
We did have some kid albums in the house when I was little – picture disc soundtracks to Disney’s Peter Pan and The Jungle Book come to mind, and another Disney record called “Goin’ Quackers” – but to be perfectly honest, my mother wanted to play those more than we kids ever did.
I developed a taste for Madonna and Billy Joel pretty early, too.