A music snob reviews a children’s music CD/DVD

That Baby DVD and That Baby CD are music products from OyBaby aimed at 0-5 year olds and they are  available from their website. This is a review written by blue milk for MotherTalk.

I should have warned them that I’m a bit of a music snob. Hey, you may not want me to review your music product for children that grownups will love. I am really not an AM radio-friendly kinda mother. Because both That Baby DVD and its accompanying CD talk themselves up. Featuring acoustic cover versions of songs from Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley and others, they promise that “you and the kids in your life will be delighted by the sights and sounds”. On first listen I decided that delight was too strong a word. Our three year old daughter seemed to like it well enough, but this is not a CD that would accidentally find its way into the mix for one of our nights of wine and friends, I wanted to protest.

Had our family been capable of a pleasant trip to the beach this is where my review may have ended. But we  weren’t. It started with a forecast for rain, which prompted us to choose the closer but muddy sea rather than the further afield sparkling sea. The disappointment didn’t end there. We packed a boot-load of buckets and spades and towels and sunscreen that were never used because it was spitting with rain as soon as we pulled up. We couldn’t walk the length of the (relatively short) jetty because Lauca was too busy throwing herself on the ground and wailing to be carried. (You walked eight damn kilometres in the highlands of North Vietnam a couple of months ago). We couldn’t admire the view without her lamenting about how she hated the sand and hated the water. The wind, it was too breezy for her, the icecream cone was melting, the few steps back to the car were onerous, the seatbelt was uncomfortable, the dress was too cold and the shoes made her feet hot, and finally she didn’t want to listen to our radio, she wanted one of her CDs. The new CD, she said, That Baby. The first track, Happiness Runs/Circle Game (Donovan Lietch and Joni Mitchell) trickled out of the car speakers. What an irony, I remember thinking. So not effing happy right now. But by the second track, Neil Diamond’s Sunday Sun my mind wandered and finally drifted off to the perspective it was supposed to have found at the sea. 

Still, I recall being surprised when Lauca’s favourite song, Bruce Springsteen’s Pony Boy  (which curiously seems to be a tender gay cowboy love song to us) came on and I found myself sufficiently forgiving of her to be turning it up. Somehow I’d found peace with the world’s most ungrateful three year old. That CD, I decided, it wasn’t too bad, in fact it was actually pretty good. Its complete absence of adults pretending to be children, children pretending to be animals, and inane hoots and whistles was nothing short of a relief. Music made for three year olds which doesn’t grate on a parent’s fragile nerves, I suddenly decided to be a necessity in any music collection. 

Every parent dreams of indoctrinating their children into their superior music tastes. But the truth is kids don’t particularly care for much of our music. Sure they’ll enjoy a couple of songs here and there, but generally speaking, not so fussed. And sometimes it doesn’t matter because when you’re in a lovely mood and your family is being delightful, you can play any children’s CD in your car and you will probably enjoy it enough to even sing along. Kids love dinky nursery rhymes, those songs are enduring for a reason. You’ll love them just a little bit because there is nothing cuter than your kid singing. But when your family is not being delightful? When you and your kid are moments away from simultaneous tantrums, when you feel a murderous tingle in your fingers, and they have the steely glint of sociopath in their eyes, children’s music will. send. you. over. the. edge. The music onThat Baby may or may not be on rotation at your next dinner party, but with its gentle folk music qualities and its complete absence of whizz-pop-bang silliness, it will help you survive the car trip from hell.

That Baby features a range of singers and styles, but it is probably best pegged by its main singer, one of those whimsical female voices. The DVD is a calming assortment of animated and non-animated imagery mostly featuring children. There is equal representation of girls and boys on the DVD, and the children range in ethnicity. A child with a disability is among the children on the DVD. That Baby is created by husband and wife team, Rob and Lisi Wolf and the DVD has a genuinely sweet DIY feel to it. Some of the gorgeous animation looks like it has swirled straight off a poster for your local garage band. My three year old child found the film engaging, but it is probably better suited to younger children not looking for a narrative. 

If you’re buying a copy you can enter the coupon code “MotherTalk” when purchasing and save 20% on your entire order. From now until May 18th, all orders using the coupon code “MotherTalk” will be entered in a drawing to win a new iPod nano. And if you’re really clever you’ll decipher Pony Boy for us, Springsteen had an endearing gay cowboy phase, am I right?