Baby
Top 50 Baby Music Albums
Humans are hardwired to love music. It holds a place in us that almost nothing else can reach. As anyone who has seen a grin of delight spread across a listening baby's face knows, there's just something simple and profound about our relationship with sound. And while it's true that the littlest babies don't much care what's playing, as time goes on, they start to listen, move, and sing along (suddenly making half our old music collection off limits for the next 16 years). Luckily we live in a fertile time for kids' music, with rereleases of classic recordings, scores of talented newcomers making charming records, and seemingly every third rocker from the '90s inspired to settle down and create great children's music of their own. Read More ↓
For Babble's first Top 50 Baby Music Albums, we chose recordings that could grow up with babies rather than becoming obsolete as soon as the babies are old enough to crawl away from the stereo. This also meant we stretched the definition of "baby" into the toddler years. Since you may be hearing some of these songs fifty, a hundred, a thousand times, we chose with parental sanity in mind and included a category for the best albums for adults that also work for babies. With music so intimately wrapped up with our emotional lives, we're sure to have made choices you'll disagree with, so feel free to nominate any gems we missed. -Colin Murphy
39 / 50
39
Jazz For Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake
Various Artists
This is real jazz from real jazz performers – they just happen to be doing songs children will know (or want to learn soon enough). This short collection from jazz powerhouse Verve Records opens with Ella Fitzgerald swinging out on “Old MacDonald,” the first of two tunes from her.
Among the familiar numbers are “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” “Rag Mop,” and “The Muffin Man.” Others are more obscure, but well worth getting to know. Prolific vocal madman Slim Gaillard is here with two oddball originals, “Chicken Rhythm” and “Potato Chips” (unfortunately both are in English rather than the invented hipster patois he called “Vout”). All the tracks are solid, entertaining performances, and the album closes with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
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I love this list! So much better than the usual. Can’t wait to go get some of these.
I bought You Are My Little Bird in 2007 when my son was only a couple months old. We still play it on a weekly basis! He even gets super excited when he hears 3 little birds on the radio! Not annoying baby music and great to sing along with. I can play it on the car ride and don’t get sick of it.
Very true! Makes a change to see somneoe spell it out like that.