dispatches from the cosmos 002
Kids' music that doesn't suck
English
Hi and welcome to Dispatches From the Cosmos, your bilingual digital zine where, twice a month, we send straight to your inbox thoughts, ideas, drawings, writing, music, and anything else we can dream up around one theme.
In this issue, we tackle a big topic for music-nerd parents: Kids’ Music That Doesn’t Suck. Jorge complains, while Josh’s picks will have you covered for the next time you’re in the car with the little ones and want to blast something everyone can enjoy.
Español
Hola y bienvenidos a Dispatches From the Cosmos, tu fanzine digital bilingüe donde, dos veces al mes, enviamos directo a tu bandeja de entrada pensamientos, ideas, dibujos, textos, música y cualquier otra cosa que se nos ocurra alrededor de un tema.
En esta edición hablamos de un gran tema para los padres melómanos: Música para niños que no apesta. Jorge se queja, mientras que Josh te tiene cubierto para la próxima vez que estés en el coche con los pequeños y quieras poner algo que todos puedan disfrutar.
A falta de levedad
Malfunciones Personales
Tener hijos es increíble, surreal, fantástico, gratificante y otras mil cosas buenas que han sido descritas hasta la muerte. Pero también es difícil. Rachel Cusk, en su libro A Life’s Work, lo pone de manera sutil:
Cuidar niños es una ocupación de bajo estatus. Es aislante, con frecuencia aburrida, implacablemente demandante y agotadora. Erosiona tu autoestima y tu pertenencia al mundo adulto.
¡Auch!
Una de las cosas que lo harían más fácil sería que la música que escuchamos con ellos no fuese tan terrible. Durante los primeros meses da igual qué les pongas: puedes ponerles hardcore sueco, ambient, lo que sea realmente. Pero conforme crecen y empiezan a ser más ellos mismos, la música —como todo lo que consumen— tiene que servir para algo: entretenerlos, enseñarles, distraerlos o simplemente frenar un berrinche.
Y ahí entramos en el hoyo negro donde el tiempo y el espacio dejan de tener sentido y todo se vuelve un bucle eterno: Baby Shark tu tu ru ru tu ru… ad infinitum.
De pronto ya es Navidad otra vez y tu servicio de streaming te dice que tu canción más escuchada del año es Libre Soy de Frozen, y tu álbum favorito, el soundtrack de Sing. Oyes un eco: “Erosiona tu autoestima y tu pertenencia al mundo adulto.”
Como en todo hoy en día, creemos tener opciones infinitas, pero somos animales de cultura y costumbre, así es que cada generación termina por gravitar hacia ciertas cosas. Qué más quisiera que a mis hijos les encantara The Clash. “¡Papá, pon el disco 3 de Sandinista!”, o "Me encanta Cobra de Geese". "Deberías de poner otra vez el You’re Weird Now de Guerrilla Toss o la nueva de Los Blenders. ¡Ándale!"
Ya sé que eso es empujarla demasiado. Pero hay cosas buenas para niños. ¿Qué tal Raffi, Caspar Babypants, Yo Gabba Gabba, 31 minutos o El Jardín de Clarilú? Tienen su onda. Tienen rango también. Están hechas por gente a la que de verdad le gusta la música y decidió llevarla a los niños. No lo pondría si estoy solo, pero no está mal.
Y he tenido éxito variado con algunas de esas cosas, pero seamos realistas: todas son el equivalente a comer verduras. Baby Shark, en cambio, es inhalar cocaína. Y si algo sabemos de los niños es que son cocainómanos, por lo menos en espíritu. No muy diferentes a ese amigo que a las tres de la mañana quiere poner la misma canción una y otra vez, se enoja si no lo dejas y amenaza con violencia.
En la música para niños hay cosas de terribles a muy terribles. Entran aquí los opioides: Cocomelon, Hoggy, etc. Los he puesto, claro, pero siempre con algo de miedo, cuidando que nadie me vea por temor a que me denuncien con la policía por cómo los imbeciliza. De repente hay dos niños babeando en la sala y parece que se bajaron un caja de rivos.
Compartiendo espacio en ese espectro, en México, lo de moda es una canción de amor (¿platónico?) entre una niña y una rana, que me recuerda a ese video incómodo de las Tortugas Ninja en Oprah, donde Rafael acusa a April O’Neal de mojigata por no ceder a un amor interespecie.
Tu gusto musical siempre se va a enfrentar a un presupuesto gigantesco de Disney; a animales antropomorfizados con carisma que no tienen que disciplinar a tu hijo; y en general, esto es lo peor, al gusto de los pares de tu hija/o que han sido criados por bestias que no les importa la música. Pero tienes que intentarlo, carajo. Por primera vez en su vida hazlo por ti, porque eres una persona necia y testaruda que pide poco o mucho pero que quiere escuchar una canción que le guste de verdad por primera vez en meses con algo de gente al rededor sin que haya berrinches o peleas, sólo harmonía.
Estamos aquí para ayudarte. En Cosmic Journeys International / Viajes Cósmicos SA de CV tomamos cartas en el asunto. Josh se dedicó a buscar canciones para niños que son bangers. Le preguntó a algunos amigos qué recomiendan y sacó de su colección de LPs usados un mix muy trippy de casi una hora con música rara y olvidada para niños (más sobre eso abajo). Y yo… yo me dediqué quejarme. Cada quien.
Ponle play, súbele al volumen y espera lo mejor.
In the Absence of Lightness
Personal Malfunctions
Having kids is incredible, surreal, fantastic, rewarding, and a thousand other good things that have already been described to death. But it’s also hard. Rachel Cusk, in A Life’s Work, puts it subtly:
"Looking after children is a low-status occupation. It is isolating, frequently boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting. It erodes your self-esteem and your membership of the adult world."
Ouch.
One of the things that would make it easier is if the music we listen to with them weren’t so terrible. During the first months it doesn’t matter what you play: Swedish hardcore, ambient, whatever really. But as they grow and start becoming more themselves, music—like everything they consume—has to serve a purpose: entertain them, teach them, distract them, or simply prevent a meltdown.
And that’s when we fall into the black hole where time and space stop making sense and everything becomes an endless loop: Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo doo… ad infinitum.
Suddenly it’s Christmas again and your streaming service tells you your most-played song of the year is Let It Go from Frozen, and your favorite album is the Sing soundtrack. You hear an echo: "It erodes your self-esteem and your membership of the adult world."
Like everything these days, we think we have infinite options, but we’re creatures of culture and habit, so every generation ends up gravitating toward certain things. I wish my kids loved The Clash. “Dad! Put on disc 3 of Sandinista!” Or “I love Cobra by Geese.” “You should play You’re Weird Now by Guerrilla Toss again, or the new one from Los Blenders. C’mon!”
I know that’s pushing it. But there is good stuff for kids. What about Raffi, Caspar Babypants, Yo Gabba Gabba, 31 Minutos, or El Jardín de Clarilú? They’ve got their thing. They’ve got range, too. They’re made by people who genuinely like music and decided to bring it to kids. I wouldn’t put it on when I’m alone, but it’s not bad.
And I’ve had mixed success with some of that, but let’s be realistic: all of it is the equivalent of eating vegetables. Baby Shark, on the other hand, is inhaling cocaine. And if there’s one thing we know about kids, it’s that they are cocaine addicts, at least in spirit. Not so different from that friend who at 3 a.m. wants to play the same song over and over, gets mad if you don’t let him, and threatens violence.
Children’s music runs from terrible to very terrible. Here come the opioids: Cocomelon, Hoggy, etc. I’ve played them, of course, but always with a bit of fear, making sure no one sees me in case they call the police on how it zombifies them. Suddenly you’ve got two drooling kids in the living room and it looks like they downed a box of benzos.
Sharing space on that spectrum, in Mexico, the big thing right now is a love song (platonic?) between a girl and a frog, which reminds me of that uncomfortable Ninja Turtles segment on Oprah, where Raphael accuses April O’Neil of being uptight for not giving in to an interspecies romance.
Your musical taste will always be up against Disney’s massive budget; against charismatic anthropomorphic animals who don’t have to discipline your kid; and worst of all, against the taste of your kid’s peers, who were raised by beasts who don’t care about music. But you have to try, damn it. For once in their life, do it for yourself, because you’re a stubborn pain in the ass who asks for little or a lot, but who wants to hear a song you genuinely like for the first time in months with people around, without meltdowns or fights—just harmony.
We’re here to help. At Cosmic Journeys International / Viajes Cósmicos SA de CV, we took matters into our own hands. Josh went looking for kids’ songs that are bangers. He asked some friends for recommendations and pulled from his used LP collection a super trippy, almost hour-long mix of rare and forgotten children’s music (more on that below). And me… I dedicated myself to complaining. Everyone does what they’re good at.
Hit play, turn it up, and hope for the best.
Josh takes action
Having kids, friends and special bargain bin vinyl skills pay off
As music lovers it can be a total bummer to have your feed taken over with the worst kids music. It's that really cheesy generic music amped up with sort of saccharine EDM pop mentality, using ancient songs from the public domain, to get your toddler's seratonin going crazy. I'm open to different sounds but it sucks when the algorithm starts delivering more of that blergghhhhhh. There is hope out there. Tunes that your kids will dig, without having you pull the hair out of your head (if you still have some.) I know that when my kids were babies I played a lot of Jackie Mittoo, feel-good organ-driven instrumental ska/rocksteady. We also visited Kauai when they were young, and I made a playlist of some of the tunes we heard on the radio. That still can work as lullabies for long car rides. Also that Johnny Cash Children's Album rules.
I asked a few homies with kids from the group chat for their picks on kids music that doesn't suck:
Joel Walsh loves those "Yo Gabba Gabba collabs."
Gautam Joshi proclaims "I've moved past my embarrassment over loving K-Pop Demon Hunters." He also messes with "Wicked, Frozen, Frozen 2 (extra points for pro-indigenous, anti-colonial plot)" But for him the "top prize for me goes to Sofia the First which is a really annoying and stupid show but…" Well, this is what he's squawking about.
Donnie C. Cutler AKA Country Cutler points to Casper Baby Pants and says "Parry Grip is fun if you let it be fun. It can be exhausting." Then he went back to the old school, "honestly a lot of old folk music is great. Lots of stories with deeper meanings." He also sent one of the current earworms that he's digging at the moment.
Gab Chabrán hits us with a solid playlist of kids tunes that don't suck: Land of Frooze, Born To Add, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Snow White's I'm Wishing, Quiero Ser Tu Amigo, Jane Birkin's Orang-utan.
Check our playlist on Apple Music and Spotify
Josh made an all vinyl mix
BARGAIN BIN KIDS RECORDS, a 50-minute COSMIC JOURNEYS all vinyl mixtape.
(Link here too because the embedded player doesn't show on the email just on browser)
Whenever you go record digging you find these weird kids records. Honestly at this point in the diggers game it is absolutely not worth purchasing any children's records because the price of the thrift store record has risen to $3.99 — a lot of these should be buffalo nickel records — like they should be free, maybe even pay you to take them. Maybe they shouldn't exist — but they do and here we are.
These are the type of records I bought because I thought I could maybe sample them. They still might be sampleable, but here I am playing them back because these old dusty pieces of plastic will become unlistenable as they take their 1,000 year journey to eventually decomposing in a landfill.
-JH
Recommendations
Sato the Rabbit
A series of 4 books by Yuki Ainoya that are incredibly surreal and beautiful. Originally in Japanese and pressed by Enchanted Lion Books in English and Spanish. Overall, just look at the Enchanted Lion catalog, the books there are very pretty. -Jorge
Garfield and Friends
Highly recommend watching those old episodes of Garfield & Friends which is available for free in the U.S. on Tubi. Loved it as a kid — really great writing that holds up— and my kid is always cracking up — produced by Film Roman who made The Simpsons. Full eps on YouTube here. -Josh
The Wiggles Covering Tame Impala
Yeah. It's tight. It's Elephant from Tame Impala's best album: Lonerism. Fight us! With Kevin and without Kevin. -Josh
Activity
I have a rec for an activity to do with your kids — just take a piece of paper and draw some squiggles on it — and then have them fill out the next set of squiggles — and then you just keep going back and forth — my kids are into it and it’s also sort of therapeutic way to pass the time.+
Extra: Also an activity that can keep your kids busy for a solid 5-7 minutes — let them put tiny doll shoes on chopsticks. -Josh
Impossible Monsters
If you have kids chances are you are going to be reading dinosaur stuff for them for a while, but you can also read this one for you. It's an amazing story of how this prehistoric creatures reshaped society (mainly the English society then) when the first fossils were found in the early 19th century.
Extra: You can also read Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs to impress your kids with more data. -Jorge
Broadcast's Distant Call
Broadcast is one of my favorite things in the world. Trish Keenan’s melodies are timeless in every sense: a person of 6 months, 8 years, or 89 can listen to them, and I can also imagine them being sung in the 1960s, in 2025, by a nun in the 11th century, or by another mammal in a distant future. This album of demos softens some of the abrasiveness of their usual productions, making it even more suitable for children. Just listen to Colour Me In. -Jorge
Contact(o) Us(ted)
Say hi: hey@viajescosmicos.com
More from us: Josh has a Substack Newsletter where he reports San Fernando Valley News weekly. He also has, not one, but two radio shows: La Hora Dorada and The New Josh Heller Show
Jorge makes animations, graphic design and other shit at Jagwaves
