Heart Beats: Feel Good Songs for Families, love kindie for anytime

Imagine a snack party tray that has chocolate, bacon, vegetables, fruit, as well as, exotic new bites that you haven’t tried before. The second kindie version of this catch-all audio cornucopia is out with a ‘love’ twist.  Heart Beats: Feel Good Songs for Families from Mighty Mo Productions takes 12 songs from kindie music artists for a near perfect sampling of music that’s great for all ages.

Some of the songs on Heart Beats are kindie chameleons that straddle the line between a great pop song and G-rated lyrics. Granted, that’s what kindie is, but some examples on this disc are pop jingles just waiting for a commercial to come buy them.

Little Bitta You by Andrew & Polly is like that. Sure it’s got what sounds like a ukulele in parts of it, but it quickly becomes a fun, happy, jangle prone song that anybody, regardless of their child status will love. That is followed up by The Verve Pipe and When One Became Two. The first couple of lines you’re thinking it’s a gimmicky rhyming song with the lyrics seemingly tripping over each other with flute, snapping fingers and rich harmonies in the background.  This almost-acapella song is an ear worm of the best variety, you’ll smile, tap feet, love the quality of the music and be secure that it’s A-OK for any age. And the songs on this disc do it without singing about colored dinosaurs with smart, peppy music that’ll do anything but make the kids want to nap.

The closest thing to a kid song is Love My Lovey by Katydid. It’s a song about a child who leaves their blanket at school. The lyrical content is something a 3 or 4 year old would do, but the song is something that any age can chill out and enjoy. Except for the 6 or 7 year olds when they realize that she’s singing about a blanket, because that’s for babies, said the peanut gallery from our back seat.

Heart Beats: Feel Good Songs for Families are all songs about love, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The songs on the disc (or download) are good anytime. This is not a seasonal disc of music and it’s one that will stay near the cd player for a long time.  These songs were previously released on the individual artist’s respective releases. Think of this as a mix tape of some great kindie artists that are fabulous examples of why the genre is approachable for any age. It’s that, without you putting it on a sixty minute cassette and forgetting to punch out the plastic tabs, whereupon your sister accidently erases it.