Children’s music and the Christmas music test

When we first thought about children’s music it was a pan flute performed by dinosaurs with sing-songy lyrics about sharing.  Certainly some children’s music gleefully and willingly falls into that description.  However, there are many more choices than those that you just thought of.  Some children’s music pass the Christmas music test and some don’t.   Here’s what you need to pay attention to and why the Christmas music test might apply to you.

What is the Christmas music test?

Christmas music can be good, but all too often it’s not.  Any slack jawed semi-famous pop star can release a Christmas song or album and someone will buy it.  It could be genuine affection for that artist or maybe they’re just getting it because it’s a Christmas music song.

Likewise, some children’s music is great for kids and adults, while others might be good for kids-but unbearable for adults.  And some children’s music is performed by characters in costume suits, solely because said character can prattle on about manners, sharing or caring and some guilty parent, somewhere, will buy it.

This is the Christmas music test.

If the Christmas song is something that you could listen to at anytime of the year, within reason, and not get tired of it, then it passes the Christmas music test.

If the Christmas song is bad and most likely being released because the artist is trying to cash in on people wanting to hear Christmas songs, then it fails the Christmas music test.

Of course there are exceptions.  Some music should only be heard during the Christmas holiday and some artists only want to play seasonal songs.  Likewise, some children’s musicians and groups will play the overly sweet music that is babyish.

For example Kelly Clarkson’s Christmas album is amazing.  It’s the type of seasonal music that I could listen to regularly.  The Mariah Carey Christmas album is great, albeit overplayed in December.  Both of those releases pass the Christmas music test.

Paul McCartney, Justin Bieber, Jessica Simpson and Twisted Sister all fail the Christmas music test.

Lisa Loeb fails the Christmas music test.  Her latest children’s music release is silly, too silly for our kids to even listen to it.  Mind you, they did listen to it, but out of the 10 songs on the disc only 1 was worth hearing again.  And, while that one song, Everybody Dreams is great, it doesn’t merit purchasing the entire disc.  File under: truthful advertising, her disc is called Lisa Loeb’s Silly Sing-Along.  To paraphrase Kirk Lazarus from Tropic Thunder, she went full silly.

So, since we’ll be talking about children’s music more, we wanted to share with you our thought process about the phrase Christmas music test.  The Pop Ups pass it, as does Gustafer Yellowgold and Key Wilde and Mr. Clarke.  We’ll be digging a couple new releases for the kids soon and some of them don’t pass, while others gleefully wallow in the children’s zone and that’s great for them.