I am still thrilled, moved, and downright delighted when a knock-out album comes my way. It's not hard to stay interested, because music written specifically for children isn't any one thing. It's a remarkably varied, evergreen genre, embracing just about every kind of music. It can be a single guitar, or a symphony orchestra.
Content is equally varied.
It might be nursery rhymes, sure, but that's a tiny part of it. Children's music includes lullabies, storytelling songs, activity songs and sing-alongs. Good children's music doesn't lecture, patronize or pander. A children's album is terrific when the artists are giving the most, when they're making music that reaches deep and resonates with humor, playfulness, soulfulness, or effervesces with the sheer joy of melody or language. Raye's beauty of a first family album, no celebrity vanity affair, is infused with a young dad's tenderness.