As some of you know, I recently traveled out to Brooklyn for the annual Kindiefest conference featuring kids musicians, reviewers, radio folks, and others who spend time in the world of making music for and with kids and families. My purpose of traveling out to New York, aside from catching up in person with kindiefolk of all stripes, was to make a presentation titled "$9.99: Kindie Music Videos in the Age of YouTube."
So late Saturday afternoon, I stood in front of a very large screen and gave a very brief overview of the history of kids music videos. I also talked a little bit about kindie music video styles and outlets. I got to say "next slide" a lot. (For what it's worth, you can see the Powerpoint slides here.)
But all that was really just a prelude to the opportunity to show 13 great kindie music videos from the past 5 or 6 years, videos that show the diversity of approaches, budgets, and styles available to kids music artists. The one common denominator, I think, is that they all fully commit to telling a story, both about the song itself and the artist's overall vision. Nobody would ever confuse Eric Herman's "The Elephant Song" and its video with Captain Bogg & Salty's "Pieces of 8ight" video, but nobody would ever say that either video isn't exactly perfect for its associated song.
I can't show you the 14th video we showed just yet -- it was the world premiere of the video for "Spicy Kid" from Lunch Money. The video, which Molly Ledford described as being a cross between a Mentos ad and a scene from The Blues Brothers (a spot-on description, by the way), isn't up for public consumption yet. [Ed.: And now it is!] Here they are.
