What 10 albums would you buy for a toddlers first introduction to music?

[SoloMumJustMuddlingThrough]

My 20 month old is obsessed with the cd player, for Christmas I would like to buy her a bunch of second hand CDs. At the moment she has a few audio books and some french nursery rhymes which we have on repeat. She knows how to change the cd, and skip to her favourite.

I would like to give her exposure to a range of music, jazz, rock, pop, classical. So I guess the question is what 10 CDs/albums would you start with? I love music but honestly cannot narrow it down (I don't have room int he flat for a huge cd collection, we are already being overrun with books!)

I would just play her the music I like myself - I enjoy a range of things from pretty much every genre, from folk and classical through jazz, pop and grunge to death metal! If she shows a particular liking for something, you could then buy her her own CD from the same artist/composer. I would encourage (so far as you can) eclectic tastes so that when she's older, she'll find she has musical tastes in common with lots of people which is a great way to make friends.

My DS loved Queen and Michael Jackson as a toddler.

ABBA, Cats the Musical, Paul Simon Graceland, Dire Straights Brothers in Arms, Whitney Houston I wanna Dance with Somebody.

complete hitch potch of stuff we were into from toddlers upwards.

DS's toddler favourites were The Ramones and The Who - especially Boris the Spider!

Yes, we had ABBA gold and early Beatles. Carols were a favourite at 2 onwards. Fleetwood Mac Rumours. Beach Boys - early era. Best loved classics (must have a tune) but we didn’t do jazz. DDs also liked the 60s girl group compilations (Carol King, Little Eva, Ronettes etc) plus quite a bit of Motown.

• ABBA Gold
• Beatles - White Album
• Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
• Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the moon (this was a great success when my DCs were little. I made it a whole sensory experience with coloured lights etc!)

Beetles, some folk like Kate Rusby, classical like carnival of the animals, young persons guide to the orchestra with good narrators. Some jazz. We like La Boume! , very energetic. Graceland, good rhythm. Bit of traditional Scottish dance music to have your own ceilidh. We're Christians, so had lots of Colin Buchanan or Fishy Music ones. Lots of fischy music are just good moral teaching, not actually Christian. Some quieter classical music for calmer times.

My children love ABBA. Also PP mentions lack of explicit lyrics though I did get 'Mama, what's a rifle?' (Fernando). 2yo likes Mamma Mia the best, 4yo likes Does your mother know? and Thank you for the music.

When DS1 was little I did think 'great - he doesn't know there's kid music and grown-up music, I can play him whatever I like!'. But then he went to nursery and learnt lots of children's songs and nursery rhymes and I did start to see the value in them, even some of the really irritating ones, as you could see him learning actions and concepts, and absolutely loving it. If you buy her children's music you can at least pick performers who are bearable to listen to, good at singing and with real musical instruments.

Mine loved the soundtrack to Brassed Off (so lots of lovely brass band standards), Tom Paxton and the Dubliners as well as the kids' CDs we had.
Only one of them still listens to folk music. The others are firmly rap, r'n'b etc.

Moo music moosical fun- personal favourites are dinosaurs and marmite, take me to the park and keepy uppy balloon

Times tables songs, I was too late introducing these to my DS and they instantly recognised it as educational and dismissed them.

Also Jo jingles cd, nursery rhymes and kids songs are actually really good for speech and language development. So few kids know these nowadays. Teaching reading really benefits from it.

Our nearly 2 year old did her first dance to Foo Fighters The Pretender 😅 She headbanged her way though her first Foo Fighters concert at 8 years old. She is now 19 and a big Foos, Kings of Leon, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam etc etc fan!

All 3 of my kids have just grown up with our music, isn't that what everyone has ever done since time began?

I have a Peppa Pig CD, which I'd love to offload..... 😂

Choose stuff you enjoy and buy them cheap/second hand. You can both work out what you want to listen to at the same time and the unsuccessful will be less expensive.

So long as you have music around they will work their way through different forms over the years. Like reading, they just need to see you enjoying it and be encouraged to enjoy it themselves.

Well this thread kept Hubby and I thoroughly occupied as dinner table discussion and, after much bartering and debate, we would suggest:

The Classic Chillout Album (currently less than £2 on Music Magpie)
The Planets by Gustav Holst
Greatest Hits Fleetwood Mac
Please, please me The Beetles
Greatest Hits Queen
Greatest Hits Clannad
any album by Ella Fitzgerald
Spice by Spice Girls
The best dance album in the world ever, part 2
The best 60’s album in the world ever, II

Ah someone else that remembers Boris the spider..
Creepy crawley,creepy crawley😁🤣

The pink Floyd album ..I made it a sensory delight with LSD.👍

The Pixies - Death To The Pixies
The Killers - Hot Fuss
New Order - Singles
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Björk - Selmasongs
Radiohead - OK Computer
Beatles - 1

Yes I am the dad from this article

https://theonion.com/cool-dad-raising-daughter-on-media-that-will-put-her-en-1819572981/

Don’t force it. Buy what you like. DD once surprised her Year 5 teacher by telling her that her favourite song was Insomnia by Faithless (DH loves a bit of epic 90s house).

But if you are Disney fans we have a Now Disney CD which is ace!!

Bob Marley and the wailers - Legend
U2 - Best of U2
Anything by The Pogues
Old English Nursery Rhymes (available on Amazon)
Elmore James - Dust my broom

DD loved all of these plus Peter & the Wolf and Carnival of the animals

Typo

A slightly different take on it but my two LOVED the Putamayo children's CDs with music from around the world. We still sing some of the favourites from them now - they are 16 and 19. 🤣 See if you can find any - they are brilliant.

There also used to be a brilliant double CD of children's classics called something like Hello Children Everywhere which had all the 50s/60s/70s songs on like Ernie (the Fastest Milkman in the West), Puff the Magic Dragon, Zambezi Sam, Donald Where's Your Troosers and a million other brilliant traditional songs. Highly recommend.

Small children really like songs. Actual songs. So sing in the car, sing in the kitchen, even if you can't hold a tune! (Children don't know that singing is embarrassing) Remind yourself of the half-forgotten ones from your own childhood, and you're good to go. Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, ABBA, plus Puff the magic dragon, wearing pink pyjamas, doh a deer type stuff. Music that isn't simply songs can come later?

My toddler loves to dance to The Sound of Music and The Nutcracker soundtracks.

Best of Queen
Best of Elton John
The Killers -Hot Fuss
Imagine Dragons Evolve (my kids liked these before I did, not sure how that happened)
Rihanna- Loud.
The Sing movie soundtrack.

Agree with pp about maybe some old Now That’s what I call music. I grew up with those and got to learn loads of artists that way.
Also KidsBopz is a series of albums with kids performing pop songs with appropriate lyrics.