If you spend a lot of time listening to and reviewing music as I do, parts of your living space can quickly get overrun with disks. Now, I've long believed that kids music will be one of the last holdouts against the unstoppable tide of digital music transmission, if only because giving your 3-year-old or the parents-to-be an access code or iTunes gift certificate for a great new CD just seems, well,
weird.
But I also understand that as a generation of folks who've always bypassed the physical medium of music consumption enter parenthood, I'm gonna become the exception, not the rule. Of course, getting people to pay for that music is the tough part. There are lots of places where you can download music legally, but I've recently started exploring one site that's got a decent selection of kids music that -- for the moment, anyway -- you can get for free or nearly free.
Amie Street combines the catchphrases "social networking" and "digital music" into a store where members determine the price of music (from primarily independent artists). Most albums and tracks are introduced to the store at a $0 price. As more members buy the digital albums, the price rises to a maximum of 98 cents per track (or roughly $10 for an album). Members who buy albums get the opportunity to recommend tracks off those albums (see, for example,
mine), and as the price of those tracks increase, members get additional credit to the their account. (And
Amazon is an investor, so clearly somebody thinks it might just succeed.)
So, anyway, I probably lost you at "free or nearly free," so after the jump I'll mention the artists currently available on the site, plus an easy way to pick up a little credit to get you started. Trust me, if you're a longtime reader, you'll find a lot of familiar names on the list...
I've been a fan of the Cybils Awards ever since they were first announced. They do for children's books what the Fids and Kamily Awards do for kids music -- use the talents of a bunch of people who spend a lot of time thinking and writing about that particular art form to come up with a consensus list of the best of the year.
Well, now I'm very much a part of it on the books side, too.
That's right, I'm one of the judges for the 2008 Cybils. Specifically, I'm a Round II judge in the Fiction Picture Book category. What that means is that once the Round I Panelists narrow the nominations down to 5 or so of the best fiction picture books of they, I'll be one of the judges picking the eventual winner.
Why me? Well, I gotta tell you, our family's got 4 library cards and we're not afraid to use 'em. Mo Willems, P.D. Eastman, Ezra Jack Keats -- we read 'em all. Little Boy Blue is in prime picture book age (he's currently got a slightly weird attraction to Jez Allborough's Cuddly Duddley), and Miss Mary Mack has no problem downshifting and going back to some picture book favorites. So if there was any category made for me, this is it.
Anyway, nominations open October 1 -- anyone can nominate a book -- and I'll be sure to remind you...
