You probably can’t name any Grammy winners for best children’s album — although you might guess a few if you go for the obvious. Disney movie soundtracks? Check. Elmo and Sesame Street? Check. In the ’90s and early ’00s, both of those ubiquitous properties won multiple golden gramophones. But recently this evolving category has found victors in the kindie (kids’ indie music) world.
This year’s roster of Grammy candidates, four of whom are independent recording artists and also previous nominees, illustrates the vibrant variety of music being produced with families, not just children, in mind. No matter what genre you like, there’s something on this list for you: hip-hop, bluegrass, electronica, pop rock. Most of the releases pair their sounds with sophisticated and playful lyrics, finding the sweet spot that appeals to kids and parents alike.
Which will win? We have no idea. How do you compare such different genres of music? Meanwhile, here’s another curveball: The fifth nominee is an audiobook of the young reader’s edition of “I Am Malala,” the memoir by the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner. (Until 2011, a separate Grammy category existed for best spoken word album for children.)
Whatever the outcome, we don’t expect Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, the Okee Dokee Brothers or Brady Rymer to get much attention or even any air time Sunday at the 57th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, so we’ll give them and other nominees their due here.
“The Perfect Quirk”
As Sly and the Family Stone once said: It’s a family affair. And who can resist the infectious rhymes of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, aided by wife Brooke (also known as Bootysattva) and their 10-year-old rap whiz daughter Saki (aka MC Fireworks). A follow-up to his magnificent 2012 kid-hop release”Make Believers,” “The Perfect Quirk”celebrates the weirdness in everyone. No matter your age, you’ll surely relate to the groovy funk (plus harmonica!) of “PJs All Day.”
Standout track: “You’re It” builds into its groove with a sample of kids on the playground and sails away with a joyful steel-drum outro. In between, the clever lyrics praise every child’s unique existence: “The one and only you / No other quite the same, that’s totally true.”
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“Through The Woods”
Brothers in spirit and friends since childhood, Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing weave their love of the outdoors and their bluegrass chops into another guitar-and-banjo triumph.”Through the Woods”is the Brothers’ second full-length studio album, boasting songwriting as insightful and harmonies as lilting as those in”Can You Canoe?” which earned them the Grammy in 2013. Grown-ups will find plenty of wisdom in the catchy “Lighten Your Load,” while kids won’t be able to resist the cover of the old standard “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
If this year’s award were being handed out for CD packaging, this release would win in a landslide — it has another gorgeously illustrated cover, and the fold-out jacket includes a bonus DVD of the pair’s travels along the Appalachian Trail (just as”Canoe”footage documented their adventure on the Mississippi). It’s a fun way to expose city kids to the splendors of nature, not to mention a great way to capture the attention of video-oriented youth.
Standout track: In a charming metaphor for life, “Out of Tune” honors singing on key but celebrates the fact that “sometimes the notes sound better when you play them out of tune” — and then a honky-tonk piano line proves the point. “Bad” notes never sounded so good.
“Just Say Hi!”
Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could
Known to some folks as the bass player for the Laurie Berkner Band, Rymer also has a prolific solo career, having released six kindie albums before this exuberant Kickstarter-funded release. He also made a mark in 2011 with “Love Me for Who I Am,” a ditty dedicated to special-needs kids embraced by parents and educators. On”Just Say Hi!” Rymer continues his tradition of penning songs that encourage a young audience to think about different perspectives — as with “Pet Song (We Thank You),” which playfully takes on the voices of pet frogs, dogs and birds thanking their human family.
Standout track: We defy you not to tap your toe or shake your booty to “Get This Party Started,” a roots-influenced rocker that everyone can love. (We can also easily imagine Springsteen, Mellencamp or Sheryl Crow covering it.)
“Appetite for Construction”
An electronica-oriented duo from Brooklyn, musicians Jason Rabinowitz and Jacob Stein create aural landscapes that don’t sound anything like the traditional children’s music of decades past. Still, the tunes often aim right at the preschool set: “All These Shapes” muses about various building blocks in geometry, while “Robot Dance” prepares little kids for future raves by getting them grooving — ’80s New Wave-style — with, yes, robots.
Standout track: The Pop-Ups have a history with puppets (they once wrote a show called “Pasta:A Pop-Ups Puppet Musical”), so it’s no surprise that “Puppet Playground” — complete with lyrics about how to make your own — is their best track.
“I Am Malala: HowOne Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World”
Read by Neela Vaswani
This audiobook of the “young readers edition” of”I Am Malala”presents a condensed version — 300 minutes long — of the full memoir by the Nobel winner. A Pakistani girl whose once peaceful existence was rocked by the Taliban, the young teen defied the reactionary terrorists when she insisted that girls be allowed to attend school. For this she was shot, point-blank, in the head; she survived to become a symbol of peaceful defiance and an advocate of education for all. Malala herself reads the prologue and epilogue.
The Grammy Awards show airs live at 7 p.m. Sunday on CBS. The pre-televised ceremony, streaming at grammy.com at 2:30 p.m., includes the award for best children’s album.
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