AMG Review of See You on the Moon: Songs for Kids of All Ages

Bret Love
All Music Guide

It can be difficult for indie hipsters to age gracefully under any circumstances, but having kids has an unfortunate habit of sucking your coolness quotient drier than a sand-and-salt smoothie on a summer's day in the Sahara. Rocking out to the Wiggles or Barney is likely to get you mocked mercilessly by your childless friends and, even worse, isn't likely to enrich your children's musical taste. But this compilation from the Toronto-based Paper Bag label features over a dozen critically acclaimed artists whose terrific tunes won't do anything to damage your indie cred. Low's Alan Sparhawk leads things off with the unapologetically silly "Be Nice to People with Lice," a folk ditty lamenting follicle infestation, while Sufjan Stevens' "The Friendly Beasts" is a sweet strummer about the animals present at the birth of Jesus that adds on banjo, vibes, horns, and backing vocals with each passing verse. But not everyone here goes the acoustic route: Montag's "Kiddo 1" matches a children's chant and handclaps with a funky dance beat to create the hippest double-dutch song you've never heard, while Broken Social Scene uses guitar atmospherics to turn "Puff the Magic Dragon" into a trippy thing of otherworldly beauty. Truth is, you don't need to have offspring to appreciate the simple pleasures of a song like Mark Kozelek's melodically charming "Leo and Luna," but if you do, See You on the Moon may go a long way toward turning them into the coolest kids in school.