Artist: Various (Minimusica)
Album: Vol. 3, Els Animals
Age Range: 3 through 7
Description: There have been a lot of Spanish-language albums for kids released over the past few years. Most of them have a relatively plain and/or traditional sound. Even my favorite of these, Moona Luna’s fine album Piñata Party, is mostly a mix of pop and more traditional Mexican instrumentation (e.g., accordion) and melodies.
Minimusica's third album of indie rock for kids has a sound distinct from all these other Spanish-language albums. For one thing, it does have an eclectic indie-rock sound very familiar to fans of groups like Lunch Money, The Board of Education, and the The Pop Ups. (Heck, insert 3 indie-rock bands from the past 20 years, and that sentence might still work.) Another distinction is that it's not just a Spanish-language album, it's actually a Spanish album. Because there is little need to teach 6-year-old kids from Spain how to speak Spanish, this frees up the artists to sing about more the topic -- here, animals -- with a little more subtlety. I particularly liked the 2 tracks from Candela y los Supremos, but Dobie Pletina's "En la ciudad" is also lots of fun. Listen to the 25-minute album on YouTube here. Vol. 3 Els Animals isn't necessarily easy for the native-English speaker to understand, but it's still fun for the native-English speaker to bop to. Recommended.
Note: I received a digital copy of the album for possible review.
