New Music to Listen to in the Car

Paul Simon's 'Graceland'
Beatles 'Rubber Soul'
Best of the Beach Boys
or, if you're mellowing out - kids love James Taylor.

I think if I had to listen to something called Disney Princesses I might drive the car off a cliff.

We love Elizabeth Mitchell. Her stuff is great. Fun for kids, but also easy listening for Mom, too! I have found myself listening to her CD's on my work only to realize my daughter isn't in the car! Good luck!

OMG!! All theese responses and not one person suggeted the Imagination Movers? they are awesome! Just saw them at the Shubert Theater and the concert was so much fun for adults as well as kids! They also have a show on the disney chanel. 2 other suggestions not mentioned that we love are GO FISH, and AGENT 23 SCADOO. you can find them all on itunes and they all have there own websites - soooooo happy to have kids music i don't only not mind but like myself!!

"Veggie Tales" It is singing vegetable and my kids love them!

I'm a Suzuki violin teacher so of course I would recomment that she listen to some classical music! There are CDs available for all of the instruments that are taught by the Suzuki method (violin, viola, cello, flute, recorder, piano, guitar, etc.) Call your local Suzuki school or community music school or high-quality music store to find out where to purchase them. The selections on the CDs are short and quite musical and are folk songs and tried-and-true classics. She will soon be singing them along with the CDs!

Baroque music is always good for children to listen to as it is quite predictable and provides a good background for listening to more complicated music later. Go to your local store and look for music by Mozart. You might start with "Eine Kleine Nacht Music." It is for string orchestra. Any Mozart concertos (featuring your favorite instrumentwith orchestra) would also be good.

Now is an excellent age for your daughter to absorb and learn to love good music. I'm so glad that you are asking for help along this line.

G.,

My son LOVES The Wiggles and Sesame Street. He also loves disco, freestyle and pop music. "Puff the Magic Dragon", "The Magical Toy" and "Don't Laugh at Me" by Peter Paul and Mary. Classical music is a must when we're relaxing. HBO Family has some great dvds called Classical Baby, we watch those before bed, I'm not sure if they have CDs also, but I definitely recommend to dvds. My 2 year old son and 4 year old niece love them.

Happy listening,
R.

How about a cd with your daughters name in it? My son loves his. Also books on audio CDs are great instead of music as well! You can find educational CDs with songs that are sung about numbers, letters, sounds, hygeine, etc! Take her to a music store and have her listen to some before you buy them!

Here's one no one suggested: The Dirty Sock Funtime Band.
Also, we are Laurie Berkner Band fans. Beatles and other "non-kids" stuff is a good idea too!

Here's my lis of great CDs and DVDs. My toddle (and I) love them

http://www.amazon.com/DVDs-and-CDs-you-and-your-toddler-w...

My 3 year old and I listen to Camp Rock soundtrack, The Hannah Montana movie soundtrack, and we love Sugarland.

i listen to this when the kids AREN'T in the car! http://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Justin-Roberts/dp/B000EHQ832

I scanned the other responses and I didn't notice this mentioned, but the Bare Naked Ladies have a great kids' album called Snacktime.

My 5 year old son has chosen what he loves of his Mom and Dad's music...seems to me i can't play Phish or Metallica often enough for him. He also loves the Rolling Stones and Allman Brothers.

As for "kids" music, when he was younger we went to Music Together classes and have many of their cds which he still loves to hear. http://www.musictogether.com/OurMusic Each cd (a colorful rectangle on teh page) is a cd themed/named for the instrument highlighted in the songs. I believe you can buy the cds even if you don't sign up for the class. The nice thing about them is that even thought the music is geared towards kids, it's pretty good stuff.

We love Laurie Berkner and the Imagination Movers. We also love the Barenaked Ladies kids cd called "Snacktime." Good songs with humor for adults!

Hap Palmer - educational and fun.

Elizabeth Mitchell - she plays folk music, very pretty and calming. My favorite of hers is "you are my little bird." Every song is about birds. So cute.

Laurie Berkner - it's fun, easy to sing to, and not annoying.

Great thread!

They Might be Giants has two good ones, here come the 123s and here come the abcs... and a new one coming out.

We also enjoy Renee and Jeremy's It's a Big World. happy listening!

C.

My children love to listen to Laurie Berkner. I enjoy listening to her too.

We love Sesame Street Sings the Alphabet. The songs are catchy and you can listen to again and again. They are also educational - one song dedicated to each letter of the alphabet in order. We also like the CD on numbers (covers 1-10) and Fiesta Songs, which is an English/Spanish blend.

We also like Sara Hickman - unique and catchy tunes.

Cedarmont Kids CDs are sung by kids, but in a way that doesn't annoy parents. They are cheap (~$4 on Amazon) and have all the standard kids songs.

Finally, we occasionally like audiobooks. Magic Tree House has great CDs. We also got a Disny storybook on Winnie the Pooh that had multiple stories on CD - I've seen other combos by Disney as well.

Good luck finding some new options.

Have you tried audio books? We actually got one with a kids meal (go figure) and my daughter loves it cause we can talk about the story, even though she's heard it a million times, she still gets excited at the "dangerous" part. You can guess what Nana is getting her for Christmas. She said that she picked some up at a teacher store (not sure which one she lives in California).

Another one, if you're into country, is Taylor Swift. I found that she has catchy tunes with no cursing (though on song has "hate" and "stupid" which are considered "bad words" in our house) so we don't listen to that part of the song, otherwise tame music by today's standards.

Good luck!
Kristal

Tom Knight, Elizabeth McMahon and Sandra Boynton. My kids favorites among these were: Library Boogie (Tom Knight), Walzing with Fireflies (McMahon also known as Mrs. McPuppet)and Philidelphia Chickens (Sandra Boynton). You can listen to some of these online (see http://www.mrsmcpuppet.com/ and http://www.tomknight.com/rec.html for more info.)

I love the toddler tunes 3 cd collections from Costco. There are over 15 songs on each cd and lots of opportunities for learning language concepts.

My 4 year old daughter loves Raffi- Baby Beluga in the car.

The Sippy Cups make some great kids' music that adults will also enjoy. My favorite song is "Move Your Pants" from the Electric Storyland CD. Also agree with the mom who suggested Laurie Berkner.

raffi is our all time fav and i love a little burl ives,nutcracker suite and disney classic movie soundtracks - jungle book,bambi etc! there is also a great kids singer in the berksires MASS named david grover and he has a bunch of great music! Happy holidays!

We listen to all the stuff named, if you are looking for different suggestions go to the library and get a few different cd's to try out and see what you both like.

Discovery Toys has some great CDs like Traffic Jam by Joe Scruggs, and is coming out with more in a few weeks. Look for the book The Musical Life of Gustav Mole with its companion CD (the story is recorded, as well as the music!), hand puppet and card game! Also coming soon, The Big Hungry Bear storybook and its companion CD. www.toysofdiscovery.com

How about some of the Schoolhouse Rock CD's? My kids loved them and now my grand kids do. I also make CD's for them with their favorite songs. There are so many websites that you can download songs from to make them.

We listen to the backyardagain CD's....we also listen to regular radio....

My three year old daughter loves the new CD she was given for her birthday. It's the Science CD from They Might Be Giants. It's super catchy and teaches great Science concepts. I love it too (unlike most of the other music I have for her!).

Hi G.,

We are listening to some great music for little ones from a band called "Hot Peas N Butter" web address: http://hotpeasnbutter.com/ - I have to be honest, after listening to this music for a while I couldn't even put some of the other CDs back in the player.

The words are for kids, but the tunes are so appealing to adult ears. In fact, my husband and I have both admitted to keeping the music playing even after we drop our daughter off at preschool.

I think they've got 5 CDs so far, but our faves are #3 - Mo Hotta Mo Butta and #4 - The Pod Squad. We've seen them live and they are amazing.

Check the site out.

- R.

Have you considered classical waltzes?

We're listening to a classic sesame street cd. It's fun for the kids because it's sesame street, but it's fun for us too, because it's all the songs we remember. We also like the Laurie Berkner Band. My daughter mellows out to James Taylor all the time, and she does like Bon Jovi!

I love the Laurie Berkner Band!

Laurie Berkner band and "B is for Bob" by Ziggy Marley are big hits with my daughter. We also listen to music my husband and I like (rock and new wave) as long as it's not too over the top.

Amazing Baby Clap and Sing (book + CD)

The Barenaked Ladies put out a GREAT kids CD called Snacktime. It's fun for both of you!
http://www.amazon.com/Snack-Time-Barenaked-Ladies/dp/B001...

I have some great music suggestions for you. Never be afraid to try new artists. A lot of them are available at the library, and if you like them a lot then you can purchase the CD. I love Laurie Berkner, she has some great songs that are not only fun for children to listen to, but I catch myself singing them also. Another group that is so much fun is the group "They might be Giants." They have an album called "Here come the ABC's" and another one called "Here come the 123's". Both of them not only teach letters and numbers but they are so fun to listen to. I also bought there creative album called "No!" I use to enjoy there music when I was a teenager in the 80's and they create wonderful children's music. Other fun albums that I enjoy include and albums called "For the Kids" and "For the Kids Volume two" which is a various artist comilation of fun kids songs. And the last but not list albums that I love are the Mother Goose Rocks albums. There are six volumes of nursery rhymes that have been set to the sounds of modern beat songs. I love how creative they are. Again when you recieve suggestions, all of the things i have suggested I found in the library first and then I fell in love with them and went out and purchased the ones I love the most.