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CD Review: “MeeWee: Hip-Hop for Kids”

MeeWee: Hip-Hop for Kids (2008, MeeWee Entertainment)
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To those of us who grew up during hip-hop’s mid-to-late ’80s golden era, the idea of a hip-hop album for kids may seem silly and unnecessary; after all, you can play a lot of those old hits without worrying about objectionable content. (My daughter, for instance, developed an intense appreciation for Heavy D at a very early age.) And then there’s this project’s name: MeeWee? Seriously? When I first heard about this album, I didn’t even want to say the title, let alone listen to the music.

Here’s the good news, then: MeeWee: Hip-Hop for Kids is much better than its title. It isn’t as much fun as the hip-hop hits you remember from your younger days, but for the most part, it avoids using the music to do any truly obnoxious pandering to kids, and the majority of the songs do a fine job of holding up to repeated listens. (A notable exception is the horrible “Keyvo,” which makes me want to give whoever recorded it a few solid punches to his MeeWee.) Some of them are really pretty catchy, actually; for instance, I’ve found myself randomly getting “I Can Be Anything” stuck in my head, and songs like “So Much Love to Give” deftly combine positive messages with solid pop arrangements.

MeeWee was developed by a former teacher and one of the producers of MTV’s Lyricist Lounge, and MeeWee Entertainment has been doing a great job of outreaching the album to childcare professionals (teachers, camp counselors, dance instructors), offering them free downloads as well as lesson plans and other materials. It’s a smart way of getting the word out, and for the K-3 set, MeeWee might work as a spoonful of sugar to help the educational message go down. Older kids are a lot savvier about music, though — hip-hop in particular — and for future installments, the company could, and should, do a better job of connecting the dots between real hip-hop and age-appropriate messages. This stuff is cute, but it’s canned, and the world is still waiting for an album of kids’ songs from rappers with household names. (Biz Markie and the Roots have contributed to Yo Gabba Gabba!, after all.) In the meantime, there’s no arguing with results like these:

CD Review: The Baby Grands, “The Baby Grands”

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The Baby Grands – The Baby Grands (2008, Backspace)

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As has been discussed many times here at Dadnabbit, we no longer live in the dark old days of children’s music, when parents had slim choices for audio entertainment, and most of them involved sitting through untold hours of synth-laden arrangements and cutesy-poo lyrics. We’ve entered a more enlightened era, one in which artists who cater to kids often try to target adult tastes too — but even now, there’s a pretty stark split in kids’ music; some artists try to infuse their music with an approximation of the manic energy of youth, while others take a more thoughtful, laid back approach.

Atlanta’s Baby Grands fit the latter description, and even if their press materials overplay their hand a bit — whoever came up with the phrase “manna from kid music heaven” may wish to consider trying decaf — the trio’s self-titled debut still manages to blend a kid’s-eye view with smart pop songwriting with admirable, uncommon skill. Singer Donny Todd, multi-instrumentalist Ben Rowell, and lyricist Marc Castelo (whose presence makes the Baby Grands the kidscene equivalent of Procol Harum or the Dead, I guess) set out to create what they call “Kids’ music that’s not jus for kids,” and they get about as close as you could reasonably expect; you’re probably never going to reach for “Panda Rock” or “Diggin’ a Hole to China” when the little ones aren’t around, but (as I can attest from personal experience) you may very well find yourself humming the melody to “Sugar Makes Me Loco.”

What it lacks in wacky sound effects and silly gags, The Baby Grands more than makes up for with themes that will be relevant to its key demographic — stuff like the alphabet (“Why Is It W?”), the planets (“Pluto”), hopes and dreams (“Dream Big”), and the family pet (“Wet Nose Friend,” which is not, as I’d initially assumed, about my year-old son). It’s all uplifting, sweetly melodic stuff, with all the replay value you’d hope for from a band that got its start from a chance meeting at a playgroup. Try some samples at the Baby Grands’ MySpace page, or have a look at the good time had by all at their record release party last November:

CD Review: The Boogers, “Road to Rock”

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The Boogers – Road to Rock (2008, Spire)
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Putting together a kids’ version of a band whose music celebrated eternal adolescence might seem like a rather pointless thing to do, but don’t be so quick to write off the Boogers — as it turns out, making Ramones-inspired music for grade schoolers is a pretty good idea, and Road to Rock (patterned, from the cover on down, after Road to Ruin) is a lot of fun.

Now, having said that, I have to add that I’m not really sure who the audience is for this stuff, or if there even is one.

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Musically, Road to Rock has all the attitude you’d expect from a band that bills itself as “the anti-Barney” and “the Wiggles’ worst nightmare,” and packs 20 songs into its brief 26-minute runtime, but lyrically, it’s mostly made up of nursery rhymes, which creates a bit of a riddle — how many kids are old enough to get excited about punk, but young enough to put up with even the most rockin’ version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”?

The answer, I’d wager, is “not many,” although the Boogers seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, and I’m not ashamed to admit I got a kick out of listening to Road to Rock. I’d suggest these songs for vintage t-shirt-wearing boys and girls between first and fourth grades — sort of a narrow demographic, I guess, but why look an anti-Barney in the mouth?

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Crank it up, teach your toddlers how to make devil horns with their adorable little fingers, and get ready for them to raid your collection of the real stuff in a few years.

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