Radio Playlist: New Music October 2017

With the onset of fall comes the close of a Grammy eligibility window, so there are usually a bunch of releases up through September 30, then a bit of radio silence (so to speak). I've got 35 minutes worth of that early fall rush of songs in this month's new music playlist. (Feel free to check out the September list here if you missed it.)

As always, these Spotify playlists are limited in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list, nor can I feature songs from as-yet-unreleased albums. But I'm always keeping stuff in reserve for the next Spotify playlist.

Check out the list here (or right here in you're in Spotify).

**** New Music October 2017 (October 2017 Kindie Playlist) ****

"Wake Up!" - Brendan Parker

"Daddy's Beard" - Josh Lovelace

"Don't Let the Boogah Bug You Out" - Lard Dog & the Band of Shy

"Elephant in My Room" - Phredd

"Telephone - Dance Remix" - "The Laurie Berkner Band

"Amor Es Lo Que Siento Por Ti (Para Mama') - Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer

"Taken Over by Robots" - The Dilly Dallies

"The Quest for the Missing Polka-Dotted Pink Sock" - Mista Cookie Jar

"Better Than You Know" - twinkle

"El Coqui / The Frog" - Mister G

"Go Well and Peace Be with You (Hambani Kahle)" - Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Video: "Mundo Verde/Green World" - Mister G (World Premiere and Interview!)

One of the kids musicians who most successfully employs a bilingual approach in his music is the Massachusetts-based (most of the time) Ben Gundersheimer, or as lots of kids know him, Mister G. Over the course of seven albums, his music's become more complex, taking on the flavor of Latin American sounds and rhythms. Lyrically, he easily moves between English and Spanish (and back... and back again).

On his forthcoming eighth album for kids, Mundo Verde / Green World, Mister G takes those multicultural rhythms and lyrics in service of environmental concerns. All of which could be dull, but watch this new video for the album's title track, filled with a bunch of skilled instrumentalists who happen to be animals and slick kinetic typography, and I'm pretty sure your mood will lift as you bop along. (The illustrator in charge? Marcos Almada Rivero.)

After you watch the video, make sure you scroll down further for a quick, bonus interview with Mister G about the motivation for the album, memories from recording it, and more about his upcoming book series with Penguin Random House!

Mundo Verde / Green World (the album) is out September 15, 2017.

Mister G - "Mundo Verde/Green World" [YouTube]

Zooglobble: What motivated you to make a “green”-themed album now?

Mister G: Mundo Verde/Green World is my eighth album for children and families, but I've been writing about nature and eco-activism from the beginning. My first CD actually had several songs with explicit environmental themes ("Don't Waste Stuff" "Mister Chubby Pants" "Squirrels"). To me, there is no issue more important than working together to protect this one and only planet we share. Now more than ever, I think it's important that we inspire kids and families to enjoy the beauty of nature, but also to do all we can to insure a healthy green world for future generations.

Any favorite memories from the recording process?

That's a tough one! I was incredibly fortunate to record with so many phenomenal Latin musicians all over the world on this project. If I had to pick one experience, it would be recording the song "Gozar/Enjoy" in the Dominican Republic with the great merengue band, 440. It was an unforgettable experience to work with these great artists (and wonderful people) in their studio in Santo Domingo.

How do you pick animators for your videos?

We love working with our talented friends from different parts of the world. Many of our videos ("The Bossy E", "Cocodrilo", "Siete Elefantes") have been done by a great husband/wife team of Argentinians who are based in Barcelona. The "Mundo Verde/Green World" video was made by our friends in Oaxaca, Mexico. The illustrator, Marcos Almada Rivero, created the beautiful art for our last two albums, "Los Animales" and "Mundo Verde/Green World."

What can we expect from the books you’re creating?

The books we have coming out through Penguin Random House are based on my songs. In each case, I adapted the original song and created more of a narrative. The first book, "Señorita Mariposa," is about a monarch butterfly who is flying from the US to her winter home in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico. Happy to announce that Marcos Almada Rivero is illustrating the book!

Radio Playlist: New Music June 2017

Summer is here -- today! -- and there's no stopping the kids music playlists. A dozen songs, three dozen minutes, and if you want more, feel free to check out the May list here.

Check out the list here (or right here in you're in Spotify).

**** New Music June 2017 (June 2017 Kindie Playlist) ****

"Tilt-A-Whirl" - Trapper Schoepp

"Dance party avec un hérisson" - Dana & the Petit Punks

"Sunshine Sunny Sun Sunshine Day" - Danny Weinkauf

"Gozar" - Mister G

"Elephants" - Uncle Dox

"Superhero 2017 Remix (feat. Carly Ciarrocchi)" - Tim Kubart

"Go Out and Play" - Zigzag and the Astronauts

"I'm a Bear Now" - Will Parker

"Toss the Toys Blues" - Brenda Kahn

"Mozartistic (feat. Orion Weiss & Marley Carroll)" - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

"Subway" - Joanie Leeds and the Nighlights

"Captain Brown Beard" - Mr. Dave

Radio Playlist: New Music January 2016

It has been more than two months since I last posted a playlist of new music, so, understandably, this first list of 2016 is longer than most. Lots of new music coming up, too. (If you want to catch my list from October you can see that playlist here.)

As always, it's limited in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list, nor can I feature songs from as-yet-unreleased albums. But I'm always keeping stuff in reserve for the next Spotify playlist.

Check out the list here.

**** New Music January 2016 (January 2016 Kindie Playlist) ****

"He & She" - Linda Perry and Sara Gilbert

"Grandma Gatewood" - Jeff & Paige

"Over in the Meadow" - The Laurie Berkner Band

"The Boy Who Cried Chupacabra" - The Hipwaders

"Fiddlin' Jim" - Liz, Holly, and the Jolly Lollies

"La Golondrina" - Sonia De Los Santos

"When I Grow Up" - The Raging Idiots

"Stella Ella Ola" - Mr. Chris & the Gassy Bubbles

"Latkes for Breakfast" - Mister G

"Do the Latin Alphabet" - Kinderjazz

"Looking Up" - The Jamberries

"Buzz, Buzz, Buzz" - Tom Proutt, Emily Gary

"Wave Hello" - Sonshine and Broccoli

"Sharky Life Forever" - Sharky Sharky

"Fais dodo" - Nadia Gaudet, Jason Burns

Ten Great Spanish-Language Kids Music Albums

Earlier this week, the 16th Annual Latin Grammys were awarded, and the Children's category featured 3 familiar names to fans of kindie (and Zooglobble): Mister G, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, and 123 Andrés. (The winner this time around was Mister G for Los Animales; Diaz won a couple years ago for ¡Fantástico!.)

Concurrently, as I wrote recently in my review of Sonia De Los Santos' latest album, I think we're in a third wave of Spanish kids music. And I believe that because this new wave has a broad range of musical sounds and is made for entertainment rather than explicitly educational (read: language-learning) reasons, it's likely to stick.

So I thought it was an appropriate time for me to produce a list I've been pondering for awhile, and that's this list of ten great Spanish-language kids music albums.

I'll be the first to admit that the relative paucity on this list of albums released before 2000 is a weakness of this list, but there are no weak albums here -- they are either essential albums from a historical or classroom setting, or they are lots of fun regardless of whether Spanish is your first, second, or sixth language.

I'll also say that this list was harder to compile than I initially thought it might be, not because I struggled to find ten albums to be on the list, but because I had to cut some albums that I initially thought would make it due to sheer numbers. But it's folks like Andrés Salguero and Mariana Iranzi, for example, whom I expect to continue to make quality music along with the rest of these artists.

It's a good time to listen to kids music sung in Spanish -- here are ten albums, ordered chronologically, to let you dive in.

ALERTA Sings / Songs for the Playground cover

Artist: Suni Paz

Album: ALERTA Sings & Songs for the Playground (2000 on CD; the two albums date to 1980 and 1977, respectively)

Description: 44 traditional nursery rhyme and playground songs, with some folk songs as well, sung by perhaps the best-known bilingual Spanish-language (female) kids' musician. (Paz has a number of albums for adults as well.) Released on Smithsonian Folkways. Features a handful of songs in English to go along with the primarily Spanish-language songs. Many songs for preschoolers, but also older

Artist: José-Luis Orozco

Album: De Colores and Other Latin American Folk Songs (2003 on CD, though it dates back to the '90s at least)

Description: 27 traditional folks songs for children, sung by perhaps the best-known bilingual Spanish-language (male) kids' musician. Looking for an album to learn songs for use in a (preschool) classroom setting? Start here.

Putumayo Kids - Brazilian Playground album cover

Artist (Label): Putumayo Kids

Album: Brazilian Playground (2007, tweaked and re-released in 2012)

Description: Putumayo has of course built its business on bringing songs from around the world to the English-speaking part of the world. This album is particularly dance-y. It's not necessarily "kindie," but it's a lot of fun. Oddly enough, even though the album got a second release, it's now out-of-print. Latin Playground, which draws from a broader range of countries, is an acceptable (in-print) substitute. [Review]

Artist: Dan Zanes

Album: ¡Nueva York! (2008)

Description: Probably the first "kindie" Spanish-language album, almost entirely in Spanish, but with an undeniably Zanes-ian roots-rock spin. It's not quite a "Dan Zanes" album -- it's missing some of the goofiness interwoven through his best work -- but it's generous and open in sharing the stage (or recording studio) with many wonderful artists and songs. [Review]

Artist: Baby Loves Salsa

Album: Salsa for Kittens & Puppies (2008)

Description: Part of the "Baby Loves..." series, which started with disco and then (briefly) branched into a series of different genres. This one is produced by Grammy winner Aaron "Luis" Levinson and features a host of all-star players, including Jose Conde on vocals. The lyrical content (mostly Spanish) is for preschoolers (it is "Baby Loves..." after all), but the music will appeal to a broader range.

Artist (Label): Minimusica

Album: Los Animales / Els Animals (2012)

Description: There is plenty of traditional Spanish-language folk music and instrumentation on this list, but this compilation was the first album that really changed my notion of what Spanish-language kids music could be -- it's basically indie rock for kids in Spanish, made for Spanish kids. Subsequent albums (Stateside) took a similar approach, but this is my favorite from Minimusica's four such collections. [Review]

Artist: Moona Luna

Album: Vamos, Let’s Go! (2013)

Description: Sandra Velasquez's band for kids can sometimes feel like it has an "educational" bent in that its lyrics are simple, often mimicking the English in its Spanish verses and vice versa. But she has a sharp ear for hooks, and this particular album, which uses the sounds of late '50s and early '60s rock and roll, has a unique sound not duplicated elsewhere on this list. Definitely one of my favorite bilingual artists. [Review]

Artist: Mister G

Album: Los Animales (2015)

Description: As the Massachusetts-based Mister G has recorded more albums in Spanish and English, his songs have become pared down more to their bare essentials. This album focuses on animals and is focused on preschoolers, but he brings in a number of top-notch musicians to give the songs a rich folk-rock texture with Latin accents. [Review]

Artist: Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

Album: Adelante (2015)

Description: Diaz is another artist who is pushing the boundaries of what Spanish-language kids' music can sound like. This is a big, poppy bilingual record with a foot planted in English-language pop-rock and the other foot planted in more traditional Spanish sounds. If there's an album on this list that will challenge preconceptions of what Spanish-language kids music made in America can sound like, this is it. [Review]

Mi Viaje: De Nuevo Leon to the New York Island album cover

Artist: Sonia De Los Santos

Album: Mi Viaje: De Nuevo León To the New York Island (2015)

Description: I think it's appropriate that one of the artists featured by Dan Zanes on his ¡Nueva York! album gets a spot of her own. It takes a very broad view of Spanish-language music, covering songs from either side of the Atlantic Ocean and recounting, in a manner of speaking, her own journey from Mexico to New York City. Ecumenical in its musical approach, from traditional instrumentation to Dan Zanes roots-rock. [Review]

Review Two-Fer: Mister G's "Los Animales" and Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band's "Adelante"

The first wave of Spanish-language kids music was essentially created by Jose-Luis Orozco and Suni Paz, who've been recording music in Spanish for young children for decades. (They continue to do, and you'll be hearing more from them in the months to come, but not today.)

The second wave of Spanish-language kids music was in the late 2000s and early aughts when there were a number of Spanish-language albums whose primary purpose was to, well, teach Spanish. Songs about counting, about animals, about... well, the things a 4-year-old might be learning about. While some of these results were reasonably sophisticated in their production and songwriting, they often put the learning in the foreground, limiting their appeal if your family wasn't specifically trying to learn Spanish.

The third wave might have started almost concurrently with the second wave, but as opposed to the second wave, which has petered out, has gained strength. Rather than using music primarily as a tool for learning a language, this third wave uses Spanish-language music and musical styles because... it's fun to sing and write in those genres. Unsurprisingly, the results, musically, at least, have been better, as illustrated most recently by two releases from this summer.

The first of the two summer releases is from Massachusetts-based Mister G. For Mister G (aka Ben Gundersheimer), his music has gradually taken on a more bilingual bent, and his latest album, Los Animales, is his third such album (to go along with three other albums which are primarily in English).

As you might guess from the title and cover artwork, this new album takes animals as its focus -- elephants ("Siete Elefantes"), frogs ("La Rana") and dancing ants (the excellent "Baila como las hormigas") all make an appearance along with other members of the animal kingdom. Almost entirely in Spanish, some of the songs are simple enough lyrically that no translation is needed ("Siete Elefantes" is a counting song), but others need translation if you're not a Spanish speaker, so I hope that the lyrics and translations get posted to the website soon. (Hint, hint.)

Musically, some of the songs, like the folk-funk of the leadoff title track, or the Americana bent of "Vamanos," have familiar musical textures, but Gundersheiemer and his co-producers Noe Benitez and Emilio D. Miler take full advantage of the trio's many friends in the recording community who make music in the Latin and Hispanic worlds. Some of highlights are the soulful "La Rana" and "Una Jirafa en Mi Casa" and the salsa-drived "Baila como las hormigas" (roughly, "Dance with the Ants"). (You can stream the 22-minute album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7, here.) Recommended.

As for the Los Angeles-based Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, they, too, have gradually discovered the joy of recording in Spanish. Adelante is their seventh album, and third primarily in Spanish. Their first Spanish-language album, ¡Fantastico!, featured re-translated versions of some of their shiny English-language pop hits (and was co-produced by Noe Benitez), while the follow-up Aquí, Allá featured original songs and a somewhat more traditional sound. (I called the music on Aquí, Allá "indie-jano," or indie + Tejano.)

While I liked those two albums, Adelante, advances what Diaz is doing -- this album merges his unerring pop-hook sensibility with what happens to be Spanish-language lyrics. "Piñata Attack" is already a big hit, and features a sneaky surf-rock guitar line from Diaz himself, but that's hardly the only earworm on here. "Cuantos Tacos (The Taco Song)" deftly weaves Diaz's Spanish-language verses (featuring a lot of counting) with Alisha Gaddis' English-language counterpoints -- even if you know very little Spanish, her "That's a lot of tacos for a guy who wanted nachos" hook in the chorus gets the basic point of the song across. There's some updated '70s electronic funk ("Aquel Caracol"), hip-hop ("Guacamole Boy"), and new wave ("Cantaba La Rana" -- again with the frogs!).

While it's not entirely in Spanish -- there's more mixing of Spanish and English, some songs do need translation if you're not a Spanish speaker, so I hope that the lyrics and translations get posted to the website soon. (Hint, hint.) The 34-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9. Definitely recommended.

The third wave of Spanish-language kids music is really the wave in which an English-language family puts on an album not because they want to learn Spanish, but because it's fun or helps the child grow in a global sense. Both Los Animales and Adelante succeed on that score. Los Animales is more for the younger listener, Adelante is more for the pure dance party. I happen to like Adelante more, but that's mostly just personal musical preference. I'd be happy to have either of these albums pop up in a record rotation.

Note: I received copies of both albums for possible review.