Here at the Coleman household we listen to a lot of music. We have over 700 records and over 800 CDs and there is of course an endless sea of music in the ocean of iTunes and Amazon Prime. We have music playing most of the time in the house, where other houses may have the TV on all of the time, we have either the CD player or the record player in constant motion. We are always listening to music in the car as well, where we can play more iTunes off of the phone than the radio or CD. The record player doesn't seem to work so well in the car, especially over bumps. With all of the music that we own and that is available on iTunes, not all of it is necessarily kid friendly.
When Ryland was on the way, I got rid of a lot of CDs that were questionable, usually just one or two songs with a word that I didn't want Ryland repeating. We could always go the Christian music route, but most of the Christian music that I own is punk and ska and the subject matter for almost all music in general is not necessarily what the kids want to listen to. Kids tend to love music that is annoying, even more annoying than the top 40 hits stations that play the same songs over and over again. So I went on the hunt for music that I would enjoy listening to and the kids would also like to listen to.
I first started looking for artists that I already liked that had children's music. I had heard that Josh Lovelace from NEEDTOBREATHE had a children's album. This is by far the go to album for the kids. It has songs about eating vegetables and a goofy song about a bear eating underwear, but there are also more adult songs like "More Time With You," that I enjoy, but the kids probably just tune out. He has put out another family album that we also enjoy, but "Josh Lovelace and Friends Present: Young Folk" is definitely our favorite.
Another favorite album is the Verve Pipe "A Family Album." From start to finish the songs are catchy, fun for the kids, and enjoyable to listen to for adults too. I know more of their kids songs than I do their adult music (remember they sang "The Freshman" back in 1996). They also have another album titled "Are We There Yet?" that we don't
listen to as frequently, probably due to the fact that there aren't as many songs about food as in "A Family Album." I really enjoy the song "Cereal," but also "When One Became Two," which is heartwarming and I'm sure that the kids zone out through.
Of course we can't leave out The Rend Collective, which we play a lot anyway, but they have also come out with a kids album called "Sparkle. Pop. Rampage." These are fun songs for the kids that also teach a Christian message, not just songs about bears and food and stuff, though there is a little bit about that too. One of our kids' favorite songs is "My Lighthouse" and there is a kids version on this CD as well.
Lastly, we tend to listen to a lot of Casper Babypants. There is not one album that I like of his more than another, they are all pretty good to listen to so we just randomly pick one. You might recognized him from The Presidents of the United States of America, a band that had a few hit songs in the 1990's. It's just him playing all of the music, and though this is not something that I would listen to without kids around like the other albums that I mentioned, they are also not songs that make you want to drive your car into a tree from hearing them over in over because you daughter just absolutely has to listen to "Noodles And Butter" RIGHT NOW!!
There are an endless number of musicians that we listen to that are kid friendly such as Rain for Roots, or have kids albums such as Johnny Cash, or the Barenaked Ladies (which their name is questionable for kids though) and others. These albums are some of our favorite go to albums that keep the kids happy in the car and also keep us from having to listen to "Let It Go" one more time.
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