Fids and Kamily 2013 Music Awards Announced!

When I started this website more than nine years ago, I held in my mind two slightly contradictory notions about music reviews:

1) There was not enough distinction between music reviews, especially for kids -- music was uniformly good in many reviews -- and therefore finer distinctions needed to be made to assist parents in allocating finite resources (monetary and time).

2) Cultural reviews are inherently biased and basing one's own opinion of a cultural product on that of just one other person could be deficient.

In other words, individual reviews are both important and insufficient.

I've tried to write at this site in a way that honors both notions. While I do tend to cover only music worth the time of at least some portion of my audience, there is some gradation in my reviews. And I've always tried to convey the idea that these are just my opinions. Really well-informed opinions based on thousands of hours of listening to thousands of albums, but opinions nonetheless.

All of which is to say that I consider the founding of the Fids and Kamily Music Awards one of the best things I've done for kids music. Since 2006, I, along with Bill Childs (Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child) and Gwyneth Butera (Gooney Bird Kids) (who took over for Amy Davis) have coordinated the awards, soliciting Top 10 lists from the people who spend more time listening to kids music than anybody in the country. There's lots of great kids music out there, but Fids and Kamily highlights the best of the best.

This year's list of 2013's best albums features some familiar faces along with a few newcomers to the list. It's 2013, so how about the Top 13 albums of the past year, led by Justin Roberts, returning to the top of the Fids and Kamily pile:

1. Justin Roberts - Recess
2. Frances England - Blink of an Eye
3. Alastair Moock - Singing Our Way Through-Songs for the World's Bravest Kids
4. Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell - Turn Turn Turn
5. Shine and the Moonbeams - Shine and the Moonbeams
6. Recess Monkey - Deep Sea Diver
7. The Not-Its! - Kidquake
8. Dean Jones - When the World Was New
9. Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke - Pleased to Meet You
10. Justin Roberts - Lullaby
11. Lori Henriques - The World Is A Curious Place to Live
12. Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band - Fantastico!
13. Lloyd H. Miller - S.S. Brooklyn

More details on the year's results, including 10 more honorable mention albums and the year's top 6 debut albums can be found on the 2013 results page.

Thanks to all the judges for participating, Bill and Gwyneth for coordinating (especially this year) , Jeff Bogle from Out With the Kids for logo design, and most importantly to all the kids music artists who continue to make such quality music for families to enjoy.

(Oh, and look for my personal lists in the near future.)

My Favorite (Best?) Kids Music of 2012

While the posting date on this says 2012, I have to tell you the truth. I am totally back-dating this thing. I am writing this at the end of October 2013 in preparation of writing my Top 10 lists for 2013.

You see, my secret shame is that I never published my list(s) of my favorite kids music of 2012.

Oh, the shame, it burns...

Now, it's not like I didn't seriously think about this subject last year. Besides co-coordinating the 2012 Fids and Kamily Awards, I also voted in them, and the top 10 albums below reflect my vote in the awards. But I do receive far more great kids music than I can fit into my ten-slot F&K ballot, so this is my opportunity to give some shout-outs to some artists. Looking at this list, there are easily 6 or 7 of those albums on the list from #s 11 through 25 that could easily be swapped into the Top 10 list.

So in order not to make this already more embarrassing or major-movie-romantic-comedy-like, without further ado (or, frankly, comment), here are my lists of the best (or at least favorite) in kids music, circa 2012. (If you define, as I do, 2012 as being Nov. 1, 2011 through Oct. 31, 2012.)

Top Kids Music Albums

1. The Okee Dokee Brothers - Can You Canoe?

2. Elizabeth Mitchell - Blue Clouds

3. The Board of Education - Binary

4. Dog on Fleas - Invisible Friends

5. Johnny Bregar - My Neighborhood

6. Lunch Money - Spicy Kid

7. Recess Monkey - In Tents

8. Various Artists - Science Fair

9. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo - Make Believers

10. Various Artists (Matt Wilson) - WeBop: A Family Jazz Party

Albums 11-25 (unranked, shown in alphabetical order)

Caspar Babypants - Hot Dog!

Coal Train Railroad - Swings!

Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band - A Potluck

Duke Otherwise - Creepy Crawly Love

Elska - Middle of Nowhere

Jennifer Gasoi - Throw a Penny in the Wishing Well

Jumping Through Hoops - Rockin' to the Fiddle

Randy Kaplan - Mr. Diddie Wah Diddie

Kori Pop - Songs for Little Bean

Elizabeth Mitchell - Little Seed

Elena Moon Park - Rabbit Days & Dumplings

The Pop Ups - Radio Jungle

Renee & Jeremy - A Little Love

They Might Be Giants - No! (Deluxe Reissue)

Laura Veirs - Tumble Bee

A special shout-out here to Adventures of Chicken Weebus , which isn't really kids music so I didn't really consider it for this list, but based on pure entertainment value definitely ranks in our Top 25.

Top Kids Music Debut Albums (listed alphabetically)

Duke Otherwise - Creepy Crawly Love

Elska - Middle of Nowhere

Kepi Ghoulie - Kepi for Kids

Jumping Through Hoops - Rockin' to the Fiddle

Kori Pop - Songs for Little Bean

Alison Faith Levy - World of Wonder (I know, not quite fair given her history with the Sippy Cups, but still...)

Elena Moon Park - Rabbit Days & Dumplings

Play Date - Imagination

Laura Veirs - Tumble Bee

Various Artists (Matt Wilson) - WeBop: A Family Jazz Party

Best Kids Music 2011: Top 25 Albums

The high point in my list of the best kids music of 2011 is this, my list of my favorite kids music albums of the year. By "year," again, I mean albums with Nov. 1, 2010 through Oct. 31, 2011 release dates available to the general public. That means albums like Laura Veirs' Tumble Bee, with a Nov. 8, 2011 release date, have to wait another 12 months before appearing in this list. (I would be shocked -- albeit incredibly delighted -- if there were 25 albums better than that particular one in the next year.) I do use the word "favorite" advisedly. I receive something approaching 300 family music albums every year. I review maybe 20% of those. Last year I picked out 20 albums, and cutting off this list this year at 20 just seemed cruel. But, as it turns out, increasing the number on the list to 25 didn't make things any easier. Albums from folks like Laura Doherty, Chip Taylor, Todd McHatton, and ScribbleMonster -- albums I genuinely liked -- didn't make the list. That's what happens when albums in the top 10% of everything I heard this year can't fit into the number of slots available; I had probably about 40 albums I was seriously considering for this list. So the difference between what goes in this list and what stays off is as much about personal preferences as it is about "objective" quality. (That's why I came up with the idea for Fids and Kamily, thinking that the personal preferences of many folks would be a much better approximation of "best.") In any case, here are those 25 albums, ranked from most favorite to a little less most favorite, that I (and we) most appreciated this year. (As always, the top 10 reflects my Fids and Kamily ballot.)

1. Caspar Babypants Sing Along! [Review] "I really, really like Sing Along! -- the Caspar Babypants disks have been favorites at our house for a long time, and I see no reason why this new album won't join its predecessors in heavy rotation. If he can keep it up, Chris Ballew might just create a body of work for preschoolers to rival Raffi's."

Best Kids Music 2011: Top 10 Debuts

I'll kick off my review of the best kids music of 2011 with a look at the year's best debuts. As was the case last year, we didn't know many of these artists a year ago (or if we did, we had no idea they had a kids music album in them). But these albums caught my ear fairly quickly and some of them even made my top albums of the year list. I should note that, as I did last year, by using the word "debut," I'm assuming that this isn't the last family music album from each of these artists. Albums from Holly Throsby and Chip Taylor, for example, would've been considered for this list, but I've made the assumption that their family albums will be their sole foray into the genre. I would be happy to be proven wrong, next year or at any point in the future. So here are ten debut kids music albums (listed alphabetically by artist) worth celebrating.

The Alphabeticians Rock Leading off this alphabetical list is this Portland, Oregon duo (Eric Levine and Jeff Inlay, AKA Mr. E. and Mr. Hoo) who trade in sharp, hook-filled guitar jangle-pop and slightly absurd lyrics. (Sample song title: "Eric Saw Peter Buck's Girlfriend and Then He Saw Peter Buck".) But then again, isn't looking at life through a child's eyes a little absurd once we've left our adult glasses on too long? Listen here.

Best Kids Music 2011: An Introduction

Well, it's December, and if you write for, well, just about any website, you are now constitutionally obligated to start putting together lists of the year's best stuff. Last I put together a comprehensive list of kids music worth your time and this year's list is even bigger. Better? Well, that's up to you, but from my perspective, there is no sign that the creative flowering of the genre shows any signs of slowing down. As always, my year meets the definition of the Fids and Kamily year -- November 1, 2010 through October 31, 2011. I'll be updating this post with links to the relevant subject posts as they go up. Top 10 Debuts Top 10 Album Packages Top 25 Songs Top 25 Albums Big Ideas Thanks as always for taking time out of your day to read this or anything else on the site. I appreciate it!

Great Kids Music: 2011 Fids and Kamily Awards Announced

It's November, which in my mind is the month featuring two great things worth celebrating: 1) bountiful harvests and gratitude (tip o' the cap to my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving), and 2) kids music. This was the sixth year for the Fids and Kamily Awards, and this weekend the list of the top kids and family music of the year was announced, led by Recess Monkey's win for FLYING!. Every year it's hard for judges to pick out their individual ten favorite albums of the year, but I heard that complaint more so this year than ever. It's one of the reasons I came up with the idea for F&K -- ask me tomorrow what my ten favorite albums of the year were, and you're liable to get a different answer than what I gave in my F&K vote. But crowdsourcing the thing helps even out those ups and downs and personal idiosyncratic preferences. F&K's 29 judges this year (the largest judge pool in our history) listen to a lot of music and the list that resulted is a great list to share with friends who aren't yet completely clued in to this kids music resurgence. Thanks as always to my fellow F&K coordinators Bill Childs and Gwyneth Butera and of course to all the judges. Thanks, too, to Jeff Bogle for updating the F&K logo. It was fun -- let's vote next year, OK? Complete list of winners after the jump.