6 Kids' CDs for Hip Grownups

By James Poniewozik

Of all the costs of new parenthood--stretch marks, lost sleep, depleted funds--the most traumatic is to one's ears. You spend years curating a hip CD collection, then--wham!--your life becomes a death march down the Barney highway. Here are half a dozen kids' albums you'll be proud to blast out your minivan windows.

THE INNOCENCE MISSION: NOW THE DAY IS OVER "It'll put you to sleep" is not the kind of rave most musicians seek. But it's praise for these sparely arranged, lullaby-like songs. The selections of classical pieces and standards can be a little obvious (What a Wonderful World, Over the Rainbow), but the execution is hypnotic. Singer Karen Peris (who wrote the lovely original My Love Goes with You) has a transporting quaver that makes this bedtime disc positively sopor-riffic.

DAN ZANES AND FRIENDS: HOUSE PARTY The Muppet-haired guitarist of '80s indie-rock band the Del Fuegos now makes eclectic folk rock for kids. House Party combines covers of the familiar (Jamaica Farewell) and the obscure (the rollicking Tennessee Wig Walk) with crafty originals, like the R&B-inflected House Party Time. And the cast of surprise guests, such as Deborah Harry and Bob Weir, will give you an excuse to inflict Blondie and Grateful Dead albums on your children later.

RALPH'S WORLD: THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KID ASTRO Imagine Ziggy Stardust--era David Bowie doing the theme for a Nickelodeon cartoon, and you'll have the title track, a 3-min. rock operetta about a space boy who gets powers from a magic comet (but still has to go to school). From there, alt rocker turned children's rocker Ralph Covert runs through genres like a kid hitting every ride at a theme park: British Invasion backbeats, infectious Buddy Holly stomps and fanciful finger picking.

LAURIE BERKNER: UNDER A SHADY TREE If you're Sting's or Madonna's child, you want Mom or Dad to play at your birthday party, right? Wrong. You want toddler-set diva Berkner. A kind of sippy-cup Sheryl Crow, Berkner inhabits a kid's curious perspective in her lyrics and pens folk-pop melodies that bear repeated-- very repeated--listenings.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: HERE COME THE ABCS This Brooklyn duo's work for adults is arty and wacky--think Spike Jones with an M.F.A. degree. And TMBG's album of alphabet songs is, well, pretty much the same. The loopy tracks--26 of 'em, of course--include the delicately pretty C Is for Conifers, the funk meltdown E Eats Everything and I C U, very likely the first-ever country ballad composed entirely of letters that sound like words ("I C U/ I C U/ N U R O K"). U R O.K. 2, TMBG.

VARIOUS ARTISTS: FOR THE KIDS TOO! Proceeds from this kids' alternative-rock collection benefit children with neurological disorders, but there are reasons other than charity to buy it. It combines playful tunes first recorded for grownups (Robyn Hitchcock's I Often Dream of Trains) with new originals and covers (among them a haunting, mandolin-laced My Favorite Things by Winnipeg band Nathan). It's a diverse hipster primer for your favorite alternatoddler.