Bugsy Malone soundtrack

Oh my, but weren't the 70s strange? Here's a musical about murderous gangsters and dancing girls in speakeasies, all played by children. Bizarre.

Anyway, there are some cracking tunes in this. "So you wanna be a boxer?", "Bad guys", "Down and out" (which I remembered the tune from since I saw it on my granny's tv as a child) and more. It's a bit uneven for kids I think - the quieter songs slow the momentum so that little attention spans wander. Isabelle loves it so long as we skip the quiet ones, her favourite being "My name is Talulah" (IMHO the worst of the 3 weak songs in the film), on account of Talulah's sparkly dress.

Reggaeton Ninos Vol. 2

This is one of the worst sellers on the kids tunes site, and I really don't know why. A year after we got it the kids still go absolutely crazy for it, and even me and Niamh still love it despite having heard it approximately one bazillion times. What's wrong with you folks? It's kids singing reggaeton hits, and it's great.

Buy it (and other supercool danceable kids music) now on kids-tunes.com

The Final Funktier - Recess Monkey

Recess Monkey are 3 primary school teachers from Seattle, and Stefan over on Zooglobble calls them "the heart of kids music today". The basic template is, I suppose, kinda funky American rock and it's upbeat, danceable and loads of fun.

I have a few reservations about it - the melodies can be a bit undercooked - but the band is great (they sound like they'd be dynamite live), the arrangements are bursting with ideas and the words are funny (Isabelle especially relates to "Satellite", where the singer's younger sibling follows him everywhere). Good!

Music is awesome - Yo Gabba Gabba

Music from the kids TV show, which regularly has cool bands like The Melvins, The Roots, MGMT and even Devo as guests . There's also a house band of characters from the show.

On the Gabba Band's own tunes, the voices are quite squeaky-kids-tv and a tiny bit grating. I really don't know my genres well enough to be trying to describe the music, but I guess they're mostly the characters' voices singing over squelchy-sounding electronic tracks. And you know what? They're actually pretty good.

The guest artist tunes include songs from I'm from Barcelona, The Shins, Mark Kozelek, Of Montreal and more. My experience of kids music compilations from grown-up artists hasn't been all that good (see the review of For The Kids) but these songs are mostly very good, especially "Nice and clean" from Chromeo which is an 80s-retro delight (not that I normally dig 80s-retro, having grown up in the 80s, but there you go).

I like it! Good in an understated indie-cool kinda way.

Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery

Another from Classical Kids. The story this time is about an orphan girl arriving in Venice to play in an orchestra that's run by Vivaldi. At the end she's re-united with her grandfather who's been looking for her since her parents died and is (gasp!) a Duke. The story and acting both are very much overcooked - full of the Tragic Heroine lamenting her Terrible Fate - and you know what? I'm not really a Vivaldi fan, so I'm not particularly wowed by the music either.

Not the worst of the Classical Kids series, but pretty mediocre and not a patch on Beethoven Lives Upstairs.

Putumayo Kids presents Celtic Dreamland

I (thankfully) don't have much cause to listen lullaby music much these days, but I still stick this on the headphones in work the odd time. Don't be put off by the title, it's a really good collection of quiet Scots / Irish music - consistently good all the way through, and really spine-tingling in places.

Buy it, and other lullaby music, here on kids-tunes.com (where it's one of my best sellers)

Putumayo Kids presents Caribbean Playgound

A collection of tunes in a variety of Caribbean genres - reggae, ska, soca, zouk and others I can't put a name to, but, oddly, without anything you might call "Latin". There's one amazing song - Asheba's "Little Anansy" (just bass, a tiny bit of guitar, Asheba's voice and an irresistibly danceable drum track) - and a handful of decent ones, but a lot of pretty undistinguished genre music too.