Your Baby's Favorite Bands (for the mothers and fathersin the house)

Other things he's loved:

animal collective (no surprise)
mantronix - bassline 12"
the pigpen side of live/dead

hates: free jazz or anything too dissonant

She freaked me out the other day in the car by identifying The Fall. I wasn't sure how I felt about her until then, I have decided she can stay.

I'm going to go tell her she's not indie enough and lock her in her room with LCD Soundsystem. (The rarer stuff.)

WAIT...she also ADORES "Frontier Psychiatrist" by the Avalanches.

Roughly 1.5-year-old son tends to like anything with handclaps. He'll clap, shake his head up and down, and occasionally stomp around. Minnie Riperton's Lovin' You is a magic spell whenever he's fussy in the car.

We saw a live bluegrass band at a farmer's market this summer and he was mesmerized. I want to take him to see more live music.

Hm, you weren't kidding.

What she really likes is the itunes Visualizer, put on *anything*, turn on the visualizer, and she'll sit entranced for a good ten or twenty minutes. (For a toddler, that's light years.)

his favorite song, tho, judging from his pavlovian reaction, is the theme to "jack's big music show" (which i'm a pretty big fan of myself).

hahaha. those Mutants also had a song called "Piece O'Shit" that could've been a handy toilet-training anthem.

But one thing that she loved, which I recommend really highly, is Pete Seeger's Children's Concert at Town Hall.

The marketing is working!

"There was also a number from the ubiquitous Dan Zanes, the frosty-haired, drippy-voiced Woody Guthrie for kids of parents who want to think they still know something about music but would be secretly happy listening to nothing but Norah Jones for the rest of their lives."

"After more than a year of Music Hours, Elijah was truly ready to rock. I reviewed my collection carefully and decided on the Hives. The songs are short, loud, silly, melodic, and not particularly complicated. The instinct proved instantly correct. When Howlin' Pelle Almquist opened the song with a gutteral scream, Elijah recognized the sound from direct experience and howled back. He began to flap his arms and run in a circle.
"That's good, Elijah. You're rocking out!"
"Rock out! Rock out! Thunder music, Daddy! This is thunder!"

great thread, btw. my nephews (3 and 5) like Dan Zanes a lot, but also most rap and disco, "the funky" as they call it.

Cyrus is only 8 months old and he kinda likes everything. he's a very happy baby. he has had to listen to lots of death metal in his short life. we'll see what that does...

Rufus is 3 and he has started his own band, The Dukes Of Hazzard Playtex Plays Band. He likes having band practice. It's a pick-up band. Basically whoever he can get into his room. rufus doesn't like monster music (metal), he likes country a lot. country involving trucks.

Yeah, he listened to that too, but the chorus isn't quite so identifiable to a two or three year old. I had to remix that tape.

So what to the kids listen to? The baby boy listens to Jurassic 5 and Slum Village a lot. The older onw listens to my free jazz--he dances to Joe McPhee, too! (Did I mention that he's 26? and that the baby is 23?)

And other free MP3 of a song she loves:
Grandfather's Clock - Joe Weed

I like both of those, they're beautiful.

As his own taste in music developed, a tatse for female voices came to the fore. Pink was his first obsession, followed by Averil Lavigne (her poster's still on the wall but she seems to have dropped from the playlist), a mercifully brief fling with Hilary Duff, the surprisingly not-bad Michelle Branch and for awhile the bland rock of Matchbox 20, Train and 3 Doors Down. These days approaching the decade-old mark, No Doubt/Gwen perservere as favorites, also Green Day and Coldplay and lots of Top 40 radio. He also likes R&B and reggaeton but vehemently dislikes hip-hop.

He also takes guitar lessons, sings in a chorus and writes his own songs. Current "project" is a band called Rampage 14.

I see that Zane-y kids rocker walking around the neighborhood from time to time- the last time I saw him he was wearing a white yachting cap. Usually I see him and think- OMG, I forgot to comb my hair!