Kids' Guide to the Globe

French Music Review: Le Monde Est Petite ("The World is Little") - Benoit

Benoit sings for the younger set, the 4-7 range, combining the sweetness and simplicity of Raffi with the humor of Ralph's World. 

Benoit sings about coloring, missing buttons and the four seasons.  He rejoices over mermaids in the bathtub  that sound uncannily like one's grandmother, and puzzles over the complexities of the adult work world.  But he does it all with a bouncy, goofy inflection which takes this album out of the realm of the too-earnest and too-sappy. 

The orchestration is simple - it's mostly just Benoit, a guitar, and some low-key embellishments.  (No electronics here, for those of you who are fed up with the latest trend in my reviews.)

My favorite track is  Les Fourmis / "The Ants"

"Parents
Never have the time to play
They spend their time working
To  eat, one has to pay.
To pay, one has to work.
Ahh, work - it's hard to understand."

The song starts out as a fast-paced swing.  Benoit, as the child, laments how hard his parents, friends, and even the ants work, with no time for him.  But he decides what he wants to be when he grows up - he'll help his parents, friends, and the hard-working ants to take time to play.  Here (the part I could listen to over and over), the song morphs into a Carlos Santana-inspired fantasy.

Tout le monde en rond, tout le monde en rond
On joue au ballon, on jou au ballon

("Everyone in a circle!  We're playin' ball!")

There's a DVD available, with Benoit clowning around with some unashamedly home-made sock puppets, which nevertheless exude their own unique personalities.  You can visit Benoit's website (looking equally homespun in a cool, pulled-together way) and post pictures of your own sock-puppet creations.

Liner notes include lyrics in French.

 

 

German Music Review: "Die 1ste. 2 CDs" - Junge Dichter Und Denker "Young Poets And Thinkers"

 
Germany: often called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("The Land of Poets and Thinkers").  Think Goethe.  Schiller.  And we won't even get into its musical giants.

Germany: home to one of the largest and most vibrant hip hop scenes outside of the US. 

Any common ground here?  Yep - Junge Dichter Und Denker ("Young Poets and Thinkers"), a group of German kids who rap out classics from German literature to an electronic, hip hop beat.

Be warned: this is not "music" in the strict sense.  Junge Dichter Und Denker's material floats around in that gray area between speech, prose, poetry, rhythm and music.  Only one track is sung, and the album is a tough sell for younger kids who don't already speak the language.  But my son (11, and only at the beginning stages of learning German) likes it, and there's something about it... I find myself listening to it over and over, with pure enjoyment. 

The rhythms are sharp and mesmerizing, but more than that, the tracks totally bust up all my stereotypes of German as a harsh, clipped language.  (Too many World War II movies.)  German actually has a soft side, yet the right amount of punchiness for rap.  The voices of these children are beautiful, and I find listening to this album extremely restful.  I can zone out to it, all the while knowing that I'm listening to some really important works of literature!

This particular and most recent album of Junge Dichter und Denker (and they've got a few) includes selections from classics like Goethe's "Confession" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (which inspired Paul Dukas's symphonic poem of the same name, which inspired Mickey Mouse's well-known housecleaning debacle), Freidrich Schiller's "The Glove", and Theodor Fontane's "The Bridge At The Tay".

I would recommend this album for serious students of German, bi-lingual households, and parents who really want their children (or themselves) to be immersed in the sounds of German, regardless of the level of ability.  And, of course, anyone who wants to commit German literary classics to memory.  The hip hop beats make the listening easy and habit-forming.  If I were planning to learn German, I would play this cd over and over and over.  And at this point, I just might.  (Learn German, that is.)

Liner notes include lyrics in German; karaoke disk included for when you've got everything memorized.
 

French Music Review: La Banquise ("The Ice Field") - Pigloo

To the venerable and time-honored cinematic tradition of penguins struggling for self-expression (Happy Feet, Surf's Up), now comes Pigloo, The Ice Field.  To appreciate this album, you have to get over your long-held prejudice against repetitive, synthesized, electronic penguin music.  Once past that hurdle, you're in.

I know what you're thinking:

a)  Do we really need more penguin animation?

b)  What do the French know about a penguin's existential crisis?

c)  Can I get that baby on the E*TRADE ads to pick my stocks?

The answers are:

a)  Yes;

b)  Plenty; and

c)  A little focus, here?

La Banquise predates Happy Feet and Surf's Up, so it's actually the granddaddy of the penguin genre.  Kind of like Odysseus is to Ulysses.  Like Degrassi Jr. High is to Beverly Hills 90210.  Like the Book of Job is to Goethe's Faust. 

My first reaction to the music was: "Turn this off now before I suffer from a nervous breakdown and attempt to remove my own fingernails."  But my daughter listens to Pigloo with such good humor and pure enjoyment.  She used my tactics on me: repetition and enthusiasm.  She hopped around the house singing:

Sautez, criez, chantez, dancez! (Jump, yell, sing, dance!)

Sold.

The cd comes with two amazingly engaging and adorable video clips (I've posted one above).  And the songs are slowly worming their way into my good graces.  The sound is predominantly electronic, but there's a bit of reggae, twist, and my personal favorite: samba.  The final track, La Banquise S'en Va, takes its place next to the best island songs, like The Beach Boys' "Kokomo".  La Banquise S'en Va is a truly sweet song that, I confess, I listen to over and over.

Liner notes include French lyrics.

 

German Music Review: A Capella Album - Die Prinzen

Die Prinzen ("The Princes") is a German music group  which takes its name from the Brother's Grimm fairy tale, The Frog Prince.  (Hence the frogs that appear on so many of their album covers.)  The band is made up of former members of the Thomanerchor, a choir of the St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig, Germany, where Johann Sebastian Bach was music director for many years.  Their lyrics are "often humorous, tongue-in-cheek critiques of German government or society" (from Wikipedia).

Well, I can't say that we totally got all the political humor... in fact, about 100% of it sailed right over our heads.  German is not a strong language in this household.  When I help my son with his German vocabulary words, he has to correct my pronunciation on every single word.

No matter.  These guys are cool - pop, fairly mellow, nice melodies.  This was my first Die Prinzen album, and I chose it because it was a capella, and hopefully easier for us to understand, or at least pick out a few words here and there.  I was right.  We all like listening to Die Prinzen, for those times when we don't need a high energy anthem or crashing rock sound to get us going.

The album is made up of Die Prinzen's previous hits, done this time in a capella style.  My favorite tracks are "Blaues Blut", "Millionar" and "Mein Bester Freund".  The sound reminds me of the a capella groups I used to swoon over in my pre-college days, in the late 70's. 

This album is easy on the ears, and palatable for kids.  I can't vouch for the content (because I can't, um, understand one friggin word of it), but judging by the sound and the graphics on their albums, there's nothing hard-core here.   This is a mainstream group, and one I hope to explore further.  I'll let you know what I turn up.

French Music Round-Up: Shilvi

Want more Shilvi?  Look no further...

14 Pistes Pour Debutants  (no image available)

Tour De Bebelles

Books:

Tambourin perlimpinpin - Shilvi

Get a Shilvi  doll!  And more...

Shilvi's Official Site

(click anywhere to enter, then click on "Jeux" on the top menu to play some games.  If you don't speak French, don't worry... let your kids click around.  You'll be surprised at how much they can navigate without knowing a word.  But hopefully ... they'll LEARN SOMETHING.

French Music Review: Dans Le Sous-Sol ("In The Basement") - Les Petites Tounes

Four guys: Claude, Carlos, Martin, and Rodolphe. 

Influences: South American (Carlos is originally from Chile), the Beatles, Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Yes, Genesis. 

Instruments: electric guitar, mandolin, kazoo, accordion, charango (a traditional South American stringed instrument). 

Put them all together.  Result: Canada's only rock band for kids.  Incredibly high energy fun, called "U2 for kids". 

I love this album.  Like all of the best stuff for kids, it draws on a bunch of musical styles that will appeal to adults as well.  The title song, "In The Basement", has a
hard driving, Beatles-garage-band sound, but is completely upbeat and fun:

Where can you go when you want to have fun?
In the basement, down in the basement
Where can you go when you want to laugh and dance?
In the basement, down in the basement

When you invite your friends
That's where you can play until midnight
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

This album is distinctive for its healthy dose of South American sounds.  Our current favorite is "Volando", which includes a few Spanish words mixed in with the French.  It's a beautiful song, but subtle and therefore difficult to really render into English.  A child imagines himself flying in his dreams:

He is gone, flying, like a bird in the sky
But I know he will return when I sleep again

I can climb in the clouds
When the sun rises, it takes off in the sky
Reminding me that it's just a dream

Everyone knows pirates are hot these days (the nice, goofy pirates, not the nasty real ones) and "Les Pirates" will feed your need for good pirate sounds.  Les Petites Tounes sound like they're having a blast as they grunt and growl pirate-style.

The captain has a hook, and a parrot friend
(The pirates, the pirates)
They frighten sailors with their hideous flag
(The pirates, the pirates)

We are the pirates
We're really scary
We steal jewels and treasure
And all the candy

 

Check out some of the video clips of Les Petites Tounes clowning around on their official website.  These guys seem to have fun in everything they do.

Liner notes include French lyrics.

French Music Review: Ma P'tite Poupoune ("My little dear") - Shilvi

I'm starting with Shilvi because this was my first French album. I adore all of the Shilvi's thus far - I currently own three.  Having said that, let me say right up front:

Shilvi is an acquired taste.

Shilvi is a little French Canadian girl, singing songs full of word play and delicious flights of fancy ("When The Sky Weeps", "The Big Elephant", "The Baby Robot").  The disc includes musical styles - jazz, various Latin rhythms - that keep it fun for adults as well as kids.  Much of it has a sweet, almost classical sound, but not at all cloying.  The lyrics are so clever that they elevate the whole album.