Friday, May 2, 2008

Dad tip #13: Baby music doesn't have to drive you bat-s**t crazy

Is there some secret rule I don't know about that baby music has to sound low budget, annoying, and quite simply crappy? Certainly any song written for kids has the potential of being annoying on its own -- hello anything that comes out of Barney's big fat yap -- but what about classical music that's positively beautiful in its intended format but instead gets bastardized into something soulless like a deranged tone-deaf Jack-in-the-box made up of spare parts from a 1980s Casio keyboard?

So, let's say for some reason you'd prefer easing your child into "real" music but you'd like something contemporary. And for some reason you'd prefer something more evocative of lullabies and babies, but you'd rather not hear the same old songs over and over again. Well, I found something that may keep you saner: Rockabye Baby CDs. Think lullabized versions of must-have greatest hits albums. Take a look:

In addition to The Cure, The Rolling Stones, U2, Metallica, and The Beach Boys, you can also get your lullaby fix of Bjork, Nirvana, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Bob Marley, and many more. Fundamentally, these albums are also bastardizations of modern classics, but at least they're somewhat more tolerable bastardizations. Maybe it's the novelty factor.

But really, I don't see the issue with playing the original albums in most cases. Oh, for the record, the Nine Inch Nails Rockabye Baby album is waaaaay creepier than the original tracks.

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