Doing some reorganizing and decluttering and I found an entire crate FULL of kids’ music! That’s right! This is a square milk crate and it truly is ONLY filled, right to the top, with kids’ CDs!
Yes, I did have a bit of a kids’ music habit once upon a time…having been a preschool teacher whose specialty was music and movement circles (ask me about my afternoon dance times, back in the day! I ROCKED OUT to these tunes with the kiddos!!) Those experiences I then took with me years later to a mommy and me science class I created and ran at a local science center for awhile with fun circle times, which led to me opening my in-home mommy & me biz I ran for around 3 years…so fun!!
But in my defense, not all of these CDs were collected by me. I did start reviewing kids music on my local website around that time as well…and asked children’s performers to send me their music for review. And send me they did! So a whole lot of this are review copies…(and a lot are, sadly, not very good…but I’ve not yet had the heart to get rid of them.)
Well now I’m in the process of decluttering…and I’ll be going through this whole crate, slowly but surely… and I would like to bring to all of y’all (that still have littles), some new reviews and recommendations for some of MY favorite kids’ music that is out there!
Because I know some AMAZING STUFF!! And if you think kids’ music is boring, you are SO WRONG! I actually enjoyed some of this stuff so much that I found myself even listening when my kids were not in the car! And to THIS DAY these tunes put a smile on my face and make me sing and dance like a crazy person! I just need a couple preschoolers to join me because my 11 and 16yr old s are just not havin it, lol! Maybe I can borrow my next door neighbor’s preschoolers for a dance party from time to time, lol!
But I’m telling you!! Kids musicians are some seriously talented musicians and are worth looking into…Because while I totally get that people want to expose their little ones to good quality, “real” music…and I totally AGREE with that…they SHOULD still grow up with adult music as well…I do still feel like children are missing out if they don’t ALSO get to have music of their own. Music that was written by people who GET THEM. Who get how important it is to be silly…who write songs on topics that littles can relate to (vs adult topics that kids don’t even understand), that write lyrics that are so quickly and easily memorized and belted out at the top of their lungs and felt down to their toes because they are songs with a child’s heart, that kids KNOW. Because they talk about things that kids can relate to, that kids can understand, and that kids can totally get behind. And they are catchy!
Because true children’s performers are children at heart and they GET children. They love what they do, they love their audience, and it shows in their music and the children can feel it in their songs.
And did you know some popular regular performers offer kids CDs in addition to their regular music? (Kenny Loggins and They Might Be Giants immediately spring to mind)…and there are some performers that you know in other areas that might surprise you as amazing kids’ performers (my favorite is John Lithgow!!) and some famous kids’ musicians started out as regular musicians for just adults…like the most famous of all kids’ performers, Raffi! Amazing performer with an amazing story! I HIGHLY recommend his autobiography!! LOVE THAT GUY!!
And some of my favorite kids’ performers you probably haven’t even heard of yet…but you will!
Anyway, I digress…I’ll share some of these CDs in future blog posts..but if you’re eager to take a peek at some of what I’ve got in this crate, head over to the music review section of this blog…I already reviewed quite a few of them. It’s just not been updated in a very long time.
More to come! Stay tuned. I think I’m going to reach behind me and pull out one of these cds from that crate now to set the mood for what I’m working on next…