help me fill my six year old cousin's ipod with glorious music that will make her a better person

so i've convinced my six year old cousin to allow me to sabotage her ipod and fill it with wonderful music she's never heard before. a teenage babysitter burnt me a cd that really got things moving music-wise for me, and i'm hoping to have a similar effect. it's proving to be harder than i'd imagined. i don't want to put anything on it that'll freak her out or bore her, which would alienate her from the rest of the stuff right off the bat, but otoh it would be cool if she were exposed to some weird stuff, too (do kids like kraftwerk?.) she already has a healthy (and adorable) love of radio pop, so i'm hoping to mostly expand on that by filling it with really good, fun songs with really easy-to-like melodies that would set the foundation for a long life of obsessive music loving. it would be amazing if she were to get into hip hop, and i don't think her parents would mind the obscenity (my aunt is hungarian.) i'm also trying to think of a punk band besides the ramones that a seven year-old could get into...

any recommendations help would be greatly appreciated. i was thinking of foregoing putting any entire albums on there so keep it to individual tracks, i could always burn her cd's once she expresses interest in a specific artist or genre.

blondie - rapture

sugarhill gang - rapper's delight, maybe an edit tho

duh, vampire weekend

stacy lattisaw - attack of the name game

Buzzcocks- Ever Fallen In Love?

prince paul has a hip hop group for kids called dino 5, him, Chali 2na, laddybug mecca, wordsworth and someone else, might be worth a look

http://hspussy.blogspot.com/2009/09/little-7-hass-c-b-sneakers-1986.html <--this is really noisy drum machine based hip hop by two kids that really appeals to the toddler in me, might be too loud and shouty for her though. but it does have some fart jokes iirc.

Xtc - that's really super supergirl

I wouldn't go with any song that could be much emotional besides the emotion of "fun"

The Beatles, duh. And for the punk side of things: the Ramones' Ramonesmania. And for the hip-hop: De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising

TOTALLY do Kraftwerk. Do stuff that's hyperactive and zany, kids love that shit.

and put Woob 1194 on it and tell her to listen to it when she goes to bed

Six seems pretty young for this project. Can you really "express interest in a genre" at that age? I dunno, she just started talking three years ago. Report back as far as where this goes, I am intrigued.

Bowie's Starman

Jackie Wilson - I Get The Sweetest Feeling

Some songs:

Ask-Smiths
Roam-B52's
Rollerskate- Matias Aguayo
Stand- REM
Breathless- Nick Cave

Album:
Stay Awake- excellent Disney versions by the likes of Aaron Neville, Tom Waits, Los Lobos et al

I would think twice about the extreme language rap stuff or punk, if only because both, besides the occasional obscenity, often have a ponderous, grim vibe that sounds like the opposite of childhood.

Tmbg - dr. Worm

Jonathan Richman, natch

Scott Joplin - Piano Rags

Beach boys - heroes and villians

fleetwood mac, sly & the family stone, al green, judy sill, neu, waylon jennings, bo diddly, the fucking beatles and the fucking rolling stones, blind willie mctell.

judee sill too.

Will be amazed if anything here is more appealing than Miley.

yeah i was gonna say, get her camp rock or something, she's six!

The Climb Miley Cyrus, well anything by Miley Cyrus. I know that probably sounds like a cliche, but I think she's interesting and sincere in a refreshing way.

the byrds, hank williams, charlie parker's dial sessions, louis armstrong's hot fives & sevens, gamelan music.

Basically Samosa should just consult the last third of "Losing My Edge".

What was on that CD from your babysitter, btw, and when did you start listening to it?

Debussy's "sirenes"

All of The Point! by Nilson, but specifically "Me & My Arrow"

blondie is a good one, that shit blew my mind at 6. also 'fade to grey' by visage, but i'm not recommending that one

*Nilsson

when my nephew was 6 he was obsessed with 'voices' by russ ballard.

When I was really young I loved the B-52's and Blondie. My sister's kid really embraced the Ramones and especially Devo.

..erm I've been picking music that a little kid would like. I don't think a kid would like Al Green but a classic Men at Work song, why not. Maybe Men at Work isn't much more of a band besides it's radio songs but those singles are good, harmless, fun, and a kid would like em

I liked The Presidents.. - Lump, Peaches when I started getting into music in Middle School

How about 99 Red Balloons, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Putting on the Ritz, Bicycle Race, and Our House

Daft Punk .: One More Time
Basement Jaxx .: Raindrops
The Cars .: Just What I Needed

Lykke Li
The Zombies

Ok wait, here's a small playlist that pleases my inner child maybe she'll like them:

Architecture in Helsinki - Do the whirlwind (Haima's mix)
Body Lotion and the Bloody Hands - Birthday Cake
Chairlift - Pillow
Emilie Simone - Flowers
Four Tet - Go go ninja dinosaur
Grabba grabba tape - Dr. Groxtronix and Lil kul lol
Gry with FM Einheit and his Orchestra - Princess Crocodile
I Was A Cub Scout - Pink Squares
KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See
Land of the Loops - Multi-Family Garage Sale
Max tundra - Cakes
Nina Sky - Secrets
Of Montreal - Disconnect the Dots
Plone - Bibi plone
Taken by Trees - Taken too young
The Fiery Furnaces - Waiting to Know You
Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days

I filled my cousin's I-Touch with a mix of my favorite songs from my favorite band. He's in 9th grade. Anyways when I saw him a week later at dinner I went to look at his I-touch to see if the songs were on there and he knew that was why I went to look at it. Anyways he said he lent it to somebody (probably the EMO girl he has been texting non-stop) and whomever it was "didn't like" my favorite band and deleted it all off there probably to make room for Brand New and Paramore. Pretty sucky, made me kind of sad/mad but at least I made copies of the mix on burnt cds for my cousin when I put the music on his i-pod (not that he will listen to them unless perhaps he still has them when he gets a car someday)

Make sure you keep all the mp3s for your cousin in a folder so you can always back up her i-pod should it all get deleted right away

a bit less adventuresome, but:

1. Beastie Boys - Peanut Butter & Jelly (2:16)
2. Bill Withers - Lovely Day (4:17)
3. Björk - It's Oh So Quiet (3:38)
4. Damien Jurado - Space Age Mom (2:10)
5. Electric Light Orchestra - Mr. Blue Sky (5:03)
6. Grandaddy - Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake (3:43)
7. Guided by Voices - Teenage FBI (2:53)
8. Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can (4:49)
9. Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather for Ducks (Radio Edit) (4:03)
10. Madness - Our House (3:23)
11. Marvin Pontiac - Little Fly (1:40)
12. Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (edit) (3:56)
13. Múm - Green Grass of Tunnel (4:51)
14. Neko Case - Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth (2:14)
15. Oscar the Grouch - I Love Trash (2:52)
16. Phoenix - 1901 (3:13)
17. Pixies - The Navajo Know (2:19)
18. R.E.M. - Superman (2:52)
19. Röyksopp - Eple (3:36)
20. Shuggie Otis - Strawberry Letter 23 (3:58)
21. The 6ths - San Diego Zoo (3:21)
22. The Apples in Stereo - Lucky Charm (3:26)
23. The B-52's - Rock Lobster (4:54)
24. The Beach Boys - Sloop John B (2:59)
25. The Breeders - Divine Hammer (2:41)
26. The Cars - Shake It Up (3:35)
27. The Chills - Heavenly Pop Hit (3:28)
28. The Clean - Beatnik (1:57)
29. The Cure - Close to Me (3:23)
30. The Dandy Warhols - Minnesoter (3:03)
31. The Go! Team - Feelgood by Numbers (1:58)
32. The Kinks - Picture Book (2:37)
33. The Magnetic Fields - Absolutely Cuckoo (1:34)
34. The New Pornographers - When I Was a Baby (2:26)
35. The Pointer Sisters - Pinball Number Count (2:40)
36. The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird (2:24)
37. The Velvet Underground - I'm Sticking With You (2:26)
38. Yo La Tengo - Center of Gravity (2:42)

if they wanna delete it you really should let them xpost

btw the next ilx comp should totally be a kids record

Care Bears on Fire (srsly suggestion: "Hey! They were your age when they started!")

A heavily edited 69 love songs (not even for content, really -- just coz all 69 is a drag for grownups too)

rolling stones between the buttons

the early beatles albums (pre-Sgt Pepper)

The Undertones

Queen -- News of the World

the slits, CCR and Marvin Gaye's vers. of I heard it thru the grapevine

vast and sundry amounts of motown/stax <MOST IMPORTANT. I can see wanting her to like hip hop, but I think a strong introduction to vintage soul is more valuable musically, esp when you can go into P-funk, etc and that can get you into hip hop.

similarly, you could go Chic Good Times into Rapper's Delight cause/effect

A heavily edited vers of the new pornos

A heavily edited vers of cheap trick

a heavily edited vers of AC/DC and Van Halen

smoosh

nah not really they're crap

I think a crib notes vers of why you included things could be fun/useful if only so that you have to justify to a six year old in words why something was included.

Wu Tang is for the children

lol Lorax any reason you're being evasive about what band you put on there?

A small sample of my selections upthread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3q_ft2VS14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KicVw7cYJ4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_1MR2XOjz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXIzyquw-kc

my 4yo nephew likes...

Depeche Mode "Everything Counts"
The Ting Tings "Shut Up and Let Me Go"
Jason Mraz "I'm Yours"
Kings of Convenience "Misread"
Michael Jackson "Thriller"

3/5 ain't bad.

Never heard that mix of "Multi-Family" before, is that the 7" version? What a song.

i loooove MFGS

yeah that sounds like the 7" versh

I have a weird idea about introducing my kid to pop music somewhat chronologically (probably starting w/ early Beatles and going forward from there),

it's a child not a tumblr

i think the muppets guests down the years have shown that kids respond to pretty much all popular music. my friend's kid is five and goes mad for the blondie appearance on DVD.

wonder if kids would respond to, or be bored by, the sort of music-box trip hop/electronica i hear in telefon tel aviv - farenheit fair enough, aphex twin - nannou, .Tape, uberkids remixes, i am robot and proud & stuff like that.

That Blondie/muppets thing was awesome!

Oh, another thing my kid responded well to was Celtic Frost.

why is it important for a kid to listen to "cool" music?

why else would you hang out with them?

i mean, i guess the lollingest part of this thread is like ppl suggesting that kids listen to like The Associates and the Go! Team because it's going to somehow make them better first graders than the kids who listen to the Beatles

i mean what a bunch of losers right, this kid is gonna be on the right track

Like I said upthread, we mostly listen to kids music together. It's important to remember that kids might not have a huge attention span for sitting down and music listening so don't overwhelm her. Maybe introduce a couple of songs into her ipod at a time, then ask her what she likes.

i hate to break it to yall but most 6 year olds like the critical thinking skills to understand why Extra Golden is cooler than Vampire Weekend. Just having her listen to ANY music is a good start, really

help me fill my six year old cousin's ipod with glorious music that will make her a better person parents think i'm so cool and worldly

rofl i totally blacked out on the "that will make her a better person" part til now, not down with that

but the thread is fun imo

actually think i took it as a joke and ignored after first registering, don't think it's serious

Ys

Monkey and Bear : )

actually think i took it as a joke and ignored after first registering, don't think it's serious

― zvookster, Friday, January 29, 2010 3:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it is a joke. she's a great little kid and she'll be a great older kid, too. i think of this more as my duty as a nerdy older cousin to try and rub off on her and maybe we'll end up sharing a few favourite songs (her current favourite is "hot n' cold," i think) and to maybe knock some taste into her before she's got a brokencyde poster above her bed.

help me fill my six year old cousin's ipod with glorious music that will make her a better person parents think i'm so cool and worldly

― ben bernankles (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, January 29, 2010 3:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

her parents will actually be the hardest to please, i expect. her mum was a b-girl in high school and her father is venezuealan. if anything they think i'm an insulated no-fun indie dork with bad taste.

sorry i didn't know we were dealin with venezuealans

When I was that age, I loved Michael Jackson, Frank Zappa and Witchi-Tai-To. Also, the Motor City Mutants, which my parents had to stop playing around me because there's a song called "Piece of Shit" that I'd repeat endlessly.

Kids respond really well to Ornette Coleman (The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century and This is Our Music are the albums to go with here) and Thelonious Monk (Brilliant Corners, Monk's Mood, Criss-Cross, Monk. and Underground are all good choices) because the melodies are loopy and super-obvious (not in the sense of being non-brilliant, but in the sense that it's really easy to spot what the melody of a given piece is) and they kind of sound like the sort of jazz Muppets would play.

edward III to thread

Jackson 5, Marillion, anything with narrative lyrics...

ROYAL TRUX

JUICY JUICY JUICE
JUICY JUICY JUICE

Talking Heads.

misfits

i mean, i guess the lollingest part of this thread is like ppl suggesting that kids listen to like The Associates and the Go! Team because it's going to somehow make them better first graders than the kids who listen to the Beatles

the go team are pretty hyperactive and zany and 'party fears two' sounds like a fairytale so i think they are both good calls

party fears two is pretty frightening imo

field music - closer at hand
deadeye dick - new age girl
the buggles - video killed the radio star

del amitri - roll to me
nada surf - happy kid, fruit fly, hi-speed soul
sloan - she says what she means, underwhelmed
geggy tah - whoever you are
broken social scene - anthems for a seventeen year old girl
roxy music - mother of pearl

takako minekawa

the knack - my sharona
thomas dolby - she blinded me with science
lizzy mercier descloux - jim on the move, no golden throat
stereolab - cybele's reverie

toy dolls - nellie the elephant/ james bond lives down our street
chingis khan (spelling?) - moscow
swingers - counting the beat
beach boys - sloop john b / wouldn't it be nice
cat stevens - moonshadow
wall of voodoo - mexican radio
run dmc - peter piper
de la soul - ring ring ring
salt n pepa - push it

(based on what I've seen my niece/nephews/friends kids go NUTS to. On a camping trip I witnessed a 4 year old sing along to the entirety of Mexican Radio while dancing around the campfire...best thing EVER

Tom Waits (as mentioned by Now and Moodles) is a great idea I think! E.g. "Singapore" or "Cemetery Polka" off Rain Dogs. Sounds like pirates and weird uncles, with comedy instruments and gratuitous sound effects.

earyly beatles
early beach boys
late amanaguchi

Puffy AmiYumi

Peter Tosh - Legalize It

We're the kids of america
Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Phish - gotta jiboo

anything but the jack johnson kids record, oi

update: she likes dj quik & kurupt

When I make mixes for my girlfriend's kids, I add little voice-overs ($15 mic from radio shack + Audacity which is free) so it's like a personalized radio show. I find that they'll listen to anything as long as you speak to them about what their hearing. As wonderful as the music might be, it's so cool for a 6 year old to hear her name coming from the stereo. So many people above have suggested pop music or kid records. Children don't have a huge context for this. You can be the ambassador for anything, if you introduce it in a way the child will relate to.

I almost put "Sunshine & Lollipops" on the last mix until I realized it'd drive both my girlfriend and me insane. Tinariwen was a much better choice.

I know you're talking about a whole iPod and not just a mix, but playlists work, right? Music with a suggested purpose is also a good way to go - music to wiggle to, music to draw to, music to relax to, etc.

wall of voodoo - mexican radio

This is massively OTM

Reading this thread, I feel a little less weird about being such a huge Blondie fan when I was little. So I guess that's another vote for Blondie!

ROYAL TRUX

― No, YOU'RE a disgusting savage (Scik Mouthy), Saturday, January 30, 2010 2:55 PM (2 days ago)

JUICY JUICY JUICE
JUICY JUICY JUICE

― No, YOU'RE a disgusting savage (Scik Mouthy), Saturday, January 30, 2010 2:55 PM (2 days ago)

Also, ^^^^^^^^this X 1,000,000. If you omit the dirty language songs (like "The Banana Question"), I can imagine kids loving the shit out of a lot of Accelerator and Veterans Of Disorder. There's a lot of sing-song-y stuff on those two.

I WANNA GO TO THE WATERPARK!
THE WATER'S COOL AND THE SUN IS HOT!

Oh! And the Kleenex/Liliput retrospective, which is also full of similarly-styled (and amazing) songs.

between the ages of 6 and 8, I was all about:

Led Zepplin
Prince
Rush
Adam and the Ants
Bow Wow Wow
Men Without Hats
Steely Dan
Average White Band
James Brown
Vanilla Fudge
Pink Floyd
Dave Brubeck
Vangelis
Devo

kind of obvious that I was basically a walking sponge for whatever the hell my brothers/parents were playing at the time

Toots and the Maytals - 54-46 was my number
King Tubby - I Trim the Barber
Hawkwind - Silver Machine, Space is Deep
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray
John Spiers and John Boden - Seven Stars
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil, Streetfighting man
Adam Ant - Stand and Deliver
Krafwerk - Ruckzuck
Neu! - Hellogallo
The Chambers Brothers - Time has come today
KLF - Justified and Ancient
Charles Mingus - Better Get Hit in your Soul, Pithecanthropus Erectus

M.I.A. - Kala

canible corpse
slayer
etc.

The Harder They Come soundtrack is great for kids - some very kid-friendly lyrics about stopping trains, eating cake, pie in the sky, Johnny too bad,getting what you really want if you try and try.

"The Valleys" by Electrelane

The Mary Poppins soundtrack