As of a few moments ago, not I.

Chances are your kids aren’t familiar with Soca, and given the subject matter of much of the music that may not be an entirely bad thing. That said, there is always an exception and this classic video featuring Machel Montano as a young boy singing “Too Young To Soca” will have your child dancing all day long.

I spent some time at a concert this weekend (Dave Matthews)… an outdoor concert in a natural setting, but one that had some serious volume to it nonetheless. There were no homes or businesses for miles, so no need to temper the experience with reduced noise.

There were kids at this concert. Understand that this was not an event geared toward children, however many adults brought their kids along anyway to ‘experience’ it for themselves. From what I saw ages ranged into the teens, all the way down to babies no more than a few months old.

This is something I saw at Caribana earlier this summer as well, though at Caribana the children were at least as young and the volumes near the big trucks twice as loud.

Surely this can’t be good for a child’s ears… and must be generally overwhelming to them as well. I wonder if studies have been done on the longterm impacts to a kid’s hearing resulting from attendance at concerts from an early age. It just seems wrong to me.

Want junior to cultivate a taste for the finer things? Get her off to a strong start with some notably shiny baby basics:

Gold Loop Rattle

Gold Barbell Rattle

Silver Loop Rattle

Silver Barbell Rattle

Hell, you might want to throw in a $1,500 Geneva Sound speaker while you’re at it.

This series was just brought to my attention today by a friend at work. The Rockabye Baby series consists of albums with keyboard and bell versions of music we’re all familiar with. The thing is, this is not the familiarity that you’d expect.

Sample artists include (among others):
Bob Marley (my personal favourite)
Radiohead
Nirvana
Tool (eek)
Led Zeppelin

Holy crap, listen to “Sober” on the Tool CD… terrifying. I thought the original was creepy, but the ‘kids’ version would have me curled up in a ball in the corner.

While identifying some of the tracks is a bit difficult, there are some genuinely entertaining items here… in particular the Bob Marley versions seem like options I’d play for my child.

Give them a listen – Amazon allows you to preview the tracks for each of the albums above. I’m going to load up on the Marley disc for future unforeseen gifting needs.

I’m definitely not a fan of music boxes… I find them terribly creepy. Blame my parents, horror movies, whoever, but the fact is I can’t be in the room with one.

Strange then that I don’t find this wooden music orb off-putting at all. Made of high quality oak, this “music orb” available from the Moma Store this little ball plays an 18 note chime from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

The only downside? My immediate desire upon seeing this thing was to pick it up and throw it as far as possible. Prepare to replace some windows.

Want.

Think Stevie lightens it up a bit for Sesame Street? Not a chance!
Judging from the kids in the background, they wouldn’t have it any other way!

Watch your back Raffi…

Ok, so I can say that I’ve actually purchased this CD… not for myself, but for some friends who welcomed a new addition to their home not long ago. I went with an old standby – Raffi and threw this in as something a bit more creative… at least that was the intention.

The CD I’m talking about is For The Kids, a compilation disc with classics performed by current artists. The true test is that I was over at their place and it was playing in the background and I didn’t notice it. Which is good. Then I heard Darius Rucker’s rendition of “It’s All Right To Cry” and was like “Ooooooh… that’s my jam from 1979!!!”

Mahna Mahna by Cake wasn’t half bad either