Kindie rock

Roll over, Raffi! A new wave of kids artists, most of them former grown-up rockers, are making music for 5-year-olds that the rest of us can listen to without wanting to die.

By Scott Lamb

Read more: Arts & Entertainment

June 24, 2006 | When Dan Zanes was 23, his band, the Del Fuegos, had already been named band of the year by Rolling Stone. This was 1984. The Del Fuegos had formed only a year or so before, and after fermenting in the underground scene around Boston, had already signed with Warner Bros. A string of records followed, as well as a few moderate hits like "Don't Run Wild" and "I Still Want You," before the group broke up in 1990 -- "We made a lot of mistakes, and it all spontaneously combusted," says Zanes, now 45 -- and he set out on his solo rock career, which all but ended after one record. The group's fate set the classic arc for an indie act through the '90s -- alternative credibility leads to mainstream attention leads to chaos and dissolution.

But the Dan Zanes story doesn't end there. Last month, the indie rocker released a new album, "Catch That Train." It's Zanes' sixth record on his own Festival Five Records label, and like the other five, the newest is a collection of folksy rock songs for children. Co-released through Starbucks' Hear Music label -- yes, you can pick one up along with a latte -- the album was hotly anticipated by fans, earned positive reviews from the music press as well as a variety of kids music blogs, and and peaked at No. 4 on Billboard's new kid audio chart (it also debuted at No. 9 in the Billboard independent album rankings).

After the birth of his daughter, Anna, in 1995, Zanes was casting around to find some really good music that the whole family could enjoy. A trip to the local Tower Records left the Brooklyn, N.Y., musician empty-handed: "Everything was tied into TV shows and movies -- which ishn't to say the music wasn't any good. It just wasn't what I was looking for." So Zanes started recording his own music, making funky tapes of kids songs from the comfort of his own home. "I didn't start doing this because I thought kids music was in terrible shape," he says. "I just didn't find the particular sound that I hear in my head." In 1999, he started Festival Five and began putting out his own records.

Seven years later, Zanes is one of the biggest names in the new wave of kids indie rock -- call it "kindie rock" -- a genre that melds the sensibility of the singer-songwriter with themes aimed at kids under 10. (Listen to Zanes and others on Audiofile's kindie rock primer playlist.) Far from regarding it as a step down, Zanes sees his second musical career as a vast improvement over his Del Fuego days. "There is no comparison -- this is so much more fun on every level, even though being in a rock band was a great way to squander my youth," Zanes says now. "All the things that made playing in a rock band exciting -- musical freedom and a sense of adventure, and also this feeling of being part of a community and being connected to the audience -- these things are alive and well and better than they've ever been."

Lest anyone think music for little people isn't a big deal, a few facts: In early March, the top three slots on the Billboard album chart were taken by kids records -- Disney's "High School Musical Soundtrack" (which has since gone double platinum, selling more than 2 million copies, and last week was still at No. 2 on the chart); an album of sanitized, kid-sung pop and R&B covers called "Kidz Bop 9" (it has since sold almost half a million); and Jack Johnson's "Curious George" soundtrack. And according to Nielsen SoundScan, kids-music album sales are up 103 percent compared to the same period last year, with 5.5 million units sold as of the end of April.

Next page: The Ani DiFranco of the under-10 set