Music for toddlers and parents?

I'll second Sara Hickman, but also check out Trout Fishing in America. great music great writing. Start with the kids stuff and work your way up.

Woody

Rockaway Baby! has lullabies of major artists, NIN to Tool to the Stones. I am very fond of the Radiohead disc.

When my son was about 16 months old, I played Beethoven's 5th paino concerto for him, he loved it, loud.

What's wrong with Mahler and ZZ Top? I guess it depends, are you trying to "raise" kids or "lower" parents? Just a thought...........

Never did understand parents who give up the New York Times for Barney DVD's .........

My wife and I found these kids cds enjoyable for us as well:

Chic Street Man -- Lullablues
Lionel Jean Baptiste -- Ice Cream Songs
Joe Reilly -- Children of the Earth
Los Lobos with Lalo Guerrero -- Papa's Dream

Sweet Honey in the Rock has some great songs I used when I taught Kindergarten.

The dvd and album "Free to Be You and Me" by Marlo Thomas is also great with positive messages.

Lastly, a friend who's a Maurice Sendak fan (author/illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are) has his animated vhs "Really Rosie" with music by Carole King. I believe they just released the music on cd.

But some of the best music is anything that moves your toddler to ask you to dance around the living room with her.

A favorite thing for me and my now 2.5 yr. old son is to march around the coffee table in the upstairs living room listening to Donald Fagin's Morph the cat while we take turns banging on a drum... I used to be real careful and when he was a baby played only MozartBeetovanBrahmsShubertRavelDebussyETC but now anything goes. Even when I'm downstairs and have something cranked up really loud he'll come from his room in the other end of the house and cry to come in to see what daddy's doing/listening to. The volume doesn't seem to bother him at all... when I was a kid loud volume used to SCARE me...