It's time once again for me to list my favorite kids and family albums from the past year or so.
As I noted in last year's list, I don't put tremendous stock in individual "best of" lists, because taste is idiosyncratic. (Please note the title here is "favorite," not "best," a deliberate choice of words.) The idiosyncracies of taste are one reason why I came up with the idea for the Fids and Kamily Awards. The fact that I think Recess Monkey's Wonderstuff is one of the year's best CDs might be more easily dismissed if it weren't for the fact that a good number of 19 judges happened to agree with me.
As for my list, the top 10 below reflects my Fids and Kamily ballot. But as with last year, limiting a list of favorites to just 10 albums would leave off a number of very, very good albums. In fact, as a whole, 2007 was even stronger than 2006, making this year's decisions even more difficult. Although I lost count some time ago, I'd guess that I probably heard 250 to 300 new albums this past year -- even at 20 albums, I've left off some great music from this list.
So without further ado...
50th Grammy Award Nominations Announced
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards Nominations are out and there are actually some familiar names on the list, at least on the musical side...
Best Musical Album For Children
(For albums consisting of predominantly music or song vs. spoken word.)
Chickens - Buck Howdy With BB [Prairie Dog Entertainment]
Experience...101 - Sweet Honey In The Rock [Appleseed]
A Green And Red Christmas - The Muppets (Ted Kryczko & Ed Mitchel, producers) [Walt Disney Records]
I Wanna Play - Bill Harley [Round River Records]
My Green Kite - Peter Himmelman [Rounder]
The Velveteen Rabbit - Love Can Make You Real - Various Artists (Don Sebesky & Janina Serden, producers) [Brown Barn Records]
I haven't heard the Muppets or Velveteen Rabbit disks, so I have no idea if those are inspired or mistaken choices, but the other 4 are not surprising choices. And while those 4 are all decent (or better) I have a clear favorite -- I think it's time Mr. Himmelman picked himself up a Grammy.
As for the spoken word...
Best Spoken Word Album For Children
(For albums consisting of predominantly spoken word vs. music or song.)
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Jim Dale [Listening Library]
Making The Heart Whole Again: Stories For A Wounded World - Milbre Burch [Kind Crone Productions]
The One And Only Shrek - Meryl Streep & Stanley Tucci [Audio Renaissance]
Who's Got Game? The Ant Or The Grasshopper? The Lion Or The Mouse? Poppy Or The Snake? - Toni Morrison [Simon & Schuster Audio]
Wickety Whack - Brer Rabbit Is Back - Diane Ferlatte [Diane Ferlatte]
New Dan Zanes Music: "Colas"
Head on over to Dan Zanes' new blog, The Welcome Table, for a free download of a track recorded as part of the session for Zanes' upcoming 2008 album En Latino.
The new song, "Colas," is not a tribute to highly sugared carbonated beverages. Rather, it is (in DZ's words), "is a traditional son jarocho from Veracruz, Mexico introduced to me by the Villa-Lobos Brothers, a trio from Veracruz now living in Nueva York." The opening riff sounds a bit like "Catch That Train," but then it moves into a slightly more traditional sound. Zanes' Spanish sounds passable. The whole track is a bunch of fun.
For Those Of You Celebrating Your Winter Holiday Now...
My major winter holiday isn't for another two weeks and then some (and, yeah, I'll have some goodies in that regard), but for those of you looking for some kid-music-oriented spin on your Festival of Lights, Yosi is hosting "HanuKids" on Saturday from 7-9 Eastern on XM Radio's Radio Hanukkah. Yosi promises "true life stories, music, candle lighting, trivia, nosh and plenty of laughs." Not quite sure how the candle lighting will work on radio, but, hey, I'm not Jewish, so what do I know?. (And if you aren't an XM subscriber but want to check it out, you can get a free trial for XM's online service here.)
Something Else!
Not really. In fact, I posted something about this a month ago, but hey, now it's on YouTube with a little extra content.
They Might Be Giants are doing video podcasts -- "Podcast For Kids!" -- to plug their upcoming Here Come the 123s, and the first one, with "High Five," is up. If all it was was the video, I wouldn't have bothered, but the podcast also includes "bumpers" from the John and John sock puppets. It includes this classic line at the end of the piece -- "Come back next week for another song... about letters... or numbers... or something else... waaaaaahhh."
Trust me, coming from the mouths of sock puppets, it's pretty funny. As for the videos on the band's site promised by the album's PR materials, well, they're still not there.
What Does An Acoustic Bicycle Sound Like?
If you want to know, then check out the latest DadLabs video, an interview with the Jellydots. Listen to the band discuss such issues as who kids really learn to cuss from and (about 4 minutes or so into the piece) chief 'Dot Doug Snyder play "Bicycle" on acoustic guitar. That song still holds up even without the amplification.
