There are plenty of bands and artists out there with new albums that I want to listen to. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of the Tuneyards, Yuck, and Those Darlins, although there are others that I’m sure I’m missing. Even though my husband owns all of those CDs and I could just borrow them or download them to my iPod so I could listen to them in my car during my drive to and from, I haven’t yet bothered to do so. And the reason is another one of those things I’m going to blame on parenthood: I have one of my daughter’s CDs running in an endless loop on my car stereo.
It’s not that the CD is literally stuck in there. It’s that this particular CD for children is awesome and I’m having trouble ejecting it in favor of anything else. It’s “Here Come the 123s” by They Might Be Giants, and there is just so much to like about this album that I’m not really sure where to begin.
I suppose a natural place to start is to say that it’s pretty much the anti-Barney. For the most part, with the exception of two Yo Gabba Gabba soundtracks, we have avoided buying any albums aimed directly at kids. Instead, we’ve tried to get our daughter, Lucy, to listen to our music. The two worlds collided when my husband brought “The 123s” into the house. They Might Be Giants is a band we both like that happens to also have made a few albums of kids’ music. So it was a happy moment when the CD and its accompanying DVD – which really helped sell the songs to Lucy – went into heavy rotation.
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As you probably guessed, the 123s album is all about numbers, simple arithmetic and mathematical concepts like infinity. What’s great about these guys is that they are teaching Lucy, who is 3 ½ , some pretty high math concepts for her age. For instance, she’s learning about even numbers. I can’t say for sure that she’s actually learning how to add, but there is a catchy song that happens to be drilling her on basic addition while she sings along. Of course, I don’t remember being a toddler, but I doubt I was singing songs about many sided polygons throwing a dance party the way she is.
A big part of this album’s appeal, besides it’s overall likeability and up-tempo songs (uplifting during several multiple-hour commutes I’ve been subjected to lately), is that it reminds me of my daughter when we are apart. Another bonus to playing it when I’m by myself in the car is that there is no one there to violently shake her little blonde pigtails in protest of my singing. I thought I had a good 10 years before she started being annoyed by my performances, but I guess I was wrong. So if you are looking for some music that both you and your kids will dig, look no further and be ready to be scolded for singing along.
