Hopefully this isn't news three years from now, but for the moment, every recognition of kindie music by the public at large (or in this case the market at large) is still news. So, yeah, it's a big deal that Amazon picked "Slim Gets In 'Em" from the latest Gustafer Yellowgold album Gustafer Yellowgold's Infinity Sock as a free download. Given how rarely family music makes it onto Amazon's list of free mp3s, I think it's a Good Thing. Anyway, no need to feel down about it, grab the free song here.
And, hey, why not watch the video, too?
Gustafer Yellowgold - "Slim Gets in 'Em" [YouTube]
I coulda sworn that I'd written something about "Antidisestablishmentarianism," one of the standout tracks on the Okee Dokee Brothers' fine Take It Outside album, being a perfect candidate for a Readeez video. So maybe I just trained my finely-honed telepathic skills on Joe, Justin, and Michael. But, really, why wouldn't you make a Readeez for a song celebrating the longest word in the English language?
The Okee Dokee Brothers - "Antidisestablishmentarianism" [YouTube]
The Twin Cities' kid-jangle-popsters The Bazillions aren't resting on their 2010 video laurels. Their first video of 2011 is for "Career Day," featuring a neat mix of live-action faces and animation that's reminiscent of the video for They Might Be Giants' "I Am a Paleontologist". Ironically, "paleontologist" is just about the only career the Bazillions don't sing about in the video.
The Bazillions - "Career Day" [YouTube]
Brady Rymer's forthcoming April 12th album Love Me For Who I Am comes with a trainload of back story.
Rymer's new video for the title track just comes with a trainload of kids. It's lots of fun, and enjoyable regardless of whether you know the back story (which you can read about just by going to Rymer's site). The video is below; after the jump, you can stream the entire album.
Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could - "Love Me For Who I Am" [YouTube]
OK, it's not quite the brilliance that was "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down," but this is kinda funny. While that video was an official video for the band, this video for "Dance Yrself Clean" from the soon-to-be-defunct LCD Soundsystem is unofficial, featuring the Muppets (and Cookie Monster) playing a Beatles-like gig above a Brighton storefront. I'd quibble with some of the instrumentation (really, why not have the sole female muppet taking the Nancy Whang keyboardist role), but the slow burn of the track lets the muppets do various things.
Note: It doesn't reach Avenue Q levels of puppet inappropriateness, but they do go clubbing, Animal and Cookie Monster clearly have had too much to drink, and Kermit the Frog behaves rudely to Miss Piggy at the very end. So what I'm saying is: Watch it yourself before watching it with the kids.
[One other note: I'm heading out to LA for the EMP Pop Conference to give my presentation, "Pay Me My Money Down: Dan Zanes, They Might Be Giants, and the (Un)Surprising Resurgence of Family Music" on Sunday at 4:15. LA folks are welcome to stop by (if there's room).]
LCD Soundsystem (with Muppets) - "Dance Yrself Clean" []
I realize that picking my favorite kids music videos gets harder every year. But I do it for you, loyal readers. My list of videos I seriously considered was at least 40 (the number of videos I saw or even featured on this site was even larger). I knew that narrowing it down to 20, the size of last year's list, would omit some really good videos. So I bumped that total up to 25.
There are many things that go into selecting the videos -- how much I like the song, if the song was actually released this year, if the video was actually released this year, personal whimsy -- but I think the list as a whole stands up as fairly representative of the year's best.
Here, then, are my 25 favorite kids music videos from 2010 (2010 defined roughly as March 1, 2010 - February 28, 2011 -- I'm just assuming nothing else super cool gets released in the next 4 days). I'll start off with the #1 video of the year, rank the next 9, and another unranked 15.
If you'd like, you can also watch the YouTube playlist...
.... or you can watch the whole list at my YouTube playlist of these 25 kids music videos (excluding the Keller Williams video, not available on YouTube).
1. John Upchurch & Mark Greenberg - "A Counting Error" [YouTube]
My appreciation for this video (and song) may border on irrational, but I think it's perfect in its own skewed way. This so completely needs to be on Sesame Street.
Hopefully this isn't news three years from now, but for the moment, every recognition of kindie music by the public at large (or in this case the market at large) is still news. So, yeah, it's a big deal that Amazon picked "Slim Gets In 'Em" from the latest Gustafer Yellowgold album Gustafer Yellowgold's Infinity Sock as a free download. Given how rarely family music makes it onto Amazon's list of free mp3s, I think it's a Good Thing. Anyway, no need to feel down about it, grab the free song here.
And, hey, why not watch the video, too?
Gustafer Yellowgold - "Slim Gets in 'Em" [YouTube]
