Pop! goes the tot: Today's kids go for guitar hooks and global beats

In an upcoming episode of "The Backyardigans," the cartoon characters imagine themselves on a space odyssey. The rotund, colorful creatures sing funky, trippy songs that might bring a smile of recognition to parents' lips: They're an homage to legendary `70s band Parliament/Funkadelic.

In another episode, the Backyardigans are a bicycle gang who sing norteno. In a third, Tyrone, Austin and Pablo are young Tarzans who warble vaudeville opera numbers in the style of turn-of-the-century composers Gilbert and Sullivan.

"Both Tarzan and Gilbert and Sullivan musicals are these Victorian, artificial concepts," explains Evan Lurie, music writer for "Backyardigans," on Nick Jr. `That's how we do the show: We start with, `the characters are now in outer space,' and throw ideas around. Hopefully they fit together in some strange, funhouse mirror way."

If "The Backyardigans'" musical mystery tour sounds like a heady concept, it's because Lurie has massive cognoscenti cred: He and his brother John, the iconic indie actor, started the "fake jazz" group the Lounge Lizards in New York in the 1980s. But this isn't fake kids music: The eminently singable tunes lodge straight in preschoolers' hearts.

Roll over, Raffi. A new wave of kids music is moving into stores and on TV. Much of it is made, marketed, and consumed by a generation of musicheads raised on punk, funk, world beat, and hip-hop who are unwilling to feed their offspring the aural equivalent of fast food. Some is epicurean, niche music for status-conscious consumers looking to raise discriminating rugrats. Some are simply melodic tunes with modern beats that are finding their way into millions of homes thanks to forward-thinking TV programmers.

From Andre 3000 to Laurie Berkner to Wee Hairy Beasties to Dan Zanes, musicians are writing songs that postmodern parents can enjoy with their offspring. Perhaps these are new classics: songs about trains and spaghetti by punks, jazzbos, rappers and troubadours.

"My assumption is that every parent is like me and wants great music for their kid," says Kevin Salem, a veteran musician and producer who has started a kids' label, Little Monster. "I'm a person who bought very little and now buys lots of things. I'm psyched that the music industry thinks it's a huge market."

It feels good to make kids happy. It pays well too. Jack Johnson was a little-known surf guitarist until his soundtrack for the movie "Curious George" went No. 1 earlier this year. Kids music is a growing genre in a moribund industry.

A generation of musicians who have struggled for incomes and recognition has found unlikely salvation in the songs they write for their kids, or their friends' kids. Their ear for melody and taste for global rhythms have fostered a musical boom for which they feel both glee and guilt.

Jon Langford's pioneering recordings with the Mekons and Waco Brothers haven't made him a household name, but the erstwhile Brit is a cult hero in punk and Americana. This three-decade indie music veteran admits to being taken aback by the success of Wee Hairy Beasties, the band he formed this summer with singers Sally Timms and Kelly Hogan and members of Devil in a Woodpile. Their debut album, "Animal Crackers," has received raves from such publications as Entertainment Weekly, and they're sought after on the growing children's concert circuit.

"There seems to be a lot of money in it," says Langford. "But I wouldn't want to be the professional children's performer who's angry he didn't make it in adult music. I feel comfortable on the level it's worked, out of a social group of friends with kids."

Wee Hairy Beasties' genesis is typical. Langford has two sons, now 4 and 9. "Children's music started arriving at our house and to be honest, it gave me a mission," he says. `Certain DVDs and CDs deliberately were broken or thrown out the window of the van. They were pandering and patronizing, some adult's view of what kids are supposed to like, telling them how to make the world better. They don't fire kids' imagination."

So Langford began writing his own songs. The Beasties sing and pun about glow worms and karaoke squirrels. The music is folk, blues and bluegrass as reinvented by punks: i.e., nothing is sacred or sanctimonious.

The preponderance of kids' muzak also drove Salem into the studio. The former member of the `80s Boston band Dumptruck now lives in Woodstock with his 4-year-old daughter and record-executive wife, Kate Hyman. Little Monster just released its first CD/book, "All Together Now," a collection of Beatles songs sung by kids and such musicians as Marshall Crenshaw and Rachel Yamagata.

"I noticed kids movies were of a really consistent quality. Even the not-so-good ones are still sort of watchable and have an appeal to children and don't send me screaming out of the room," says Salem. "I thought the difference between music and movies was spectacular. I'm not a big fan of kids music where adults try to sing as though they were children looking at the world. I thought kids music could be something more than that."

Images of songs sending parents screaming out of rooms and CDs being tossed out car windows raise a thorny question: Is this music for kids or parents? Do you ban Barney from your home just because you find the purple dinosaur insipid? Can you make a kid surrounded by hip-hop and pop appreciate the sweet folk and rock of Elizabeth Mitchell just because she sings Velvet Underground and Bob Marley songs?

Rising kid-rock star Laurie Berkner uses the food analogy: As the parent of a 2-year-old, she believes in expanding her daughter's palette. "One of Lucy's favorite foods is sushi," she says. "The same thing with music: At least giving them a chance to hear it really opens up their musical world, and the creative world too."

And yet as a songwriter, Berkner has learned there are musical tricks, such as repetition, that small kids love and even need but that can drive parents nuts. "It's great to give your kid sushi but she also has to eat mac and cheese. There are building blocks. And learning simpler songs that she can really quickly sing on her own and other people will know and sing with her, that's just all part of finding music in yourself later on."

Berkner began writing kids songs before she had a baby. She was a struggling New York songwriter with a new day job_music teacher for a preschool movement class. "I needed really simple, direct, movement-oriented songs with images they responded to and music I didn't get sick of," she says.

So she began writing them. She released records on her own label, then Viacom got in on the act. Once her videos became a regular feature on Noggin, the commercial-free preschool channel, her sales and performance fees increased tenfold. Ask a toddler and they probably know a Berkner song: "Victor Vito," "I'm Gonna Catch You," "Under a Shady Tree."

"She likes to keep it very real," says Brown Johnson, executive vice president and executive creative director for Nickelodeon Preschool and general manager of Noggin. "She's amazing at looking at the camera and making kids feel like she's sitting right next to them."

Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Noggin are major proponents of programming that pushes the envelope of kids music; after all, they're part of Viacom, the company that owns MTV and VH1. They've made Berkner a star and also feature new schoolhouse rockers like Dan Zanes and Milkshake on such shows as "Jack's Big Music Show" on Noggin. Two Nick Jr. features fuse imaginary animation and progressive tunes: "The Backyardigans" are mini-musicals with global rhythms. Each episode of "The Wonder Pets" is an opera, with music and lyrics written by acclaimed veterans of such Broadway shows as "Rent" and "Avenue Q."

"Everyone who's worked on Nick Jr. shows really cares deeply about offering kids more than just the plinky-plong expected preschool music," says Johnson. "We really try to make it authentic and great."

The Nick networks aren't the only ones reimagining kids tunes. The experimental, fun-driven mix of genres Andre 3000 crafts for the new Cartoon Network show "Class of 3000" isn't that different from his work on Idlewild, the last OutKast CD.

Even Disney is looking far afield for music programming. The alternative New York band They Might Be Giants was the first signing of the label Disney Sound. The wacky duo hired a bunch of young animators to bring their off-kilter alphabet songs to life. Catching clips from "Here Come the ABCs" on the Disney channel is kind of like suddenly hearing the Decemberists on top 40 radio. But kids get it.

Making kids music has been invigorating for a band that has been around more than two decades, says TMBG member John Flansburgh: "From a creative point of view, it's actually a fantastic field to be in."

And kids music can be very fulfilling economically. It's an island of stability and growth in an industry that's been rocked to its core. Kids records aren't hit-driven. They have long shelf lives. Parents tend to buy not just one, but multiple copies as gifts. And they tend to buy the CDs - not illegally download them. Kids music will make an artist rich and famous faster than just about any other genre. Just ask The Wiggles.

That group is Australia's top cultural export, earning $39 million last year. So the world of kids entertainment shook last month when lead singer and songwriter Greg Page announced he was leaving the group for health reasons. It was undoubtedly a dark day at Disney, which runs "The Wiggles" TV show. But parents sick of "Henry the Octopus" breathed a collective sigh of relief. So did the growing cadre of musicians eager to challenge the notion that kids music has to be repetitive, pandering, and vapid.

"It's an interesting time," says Johnson. "I don't know what's going to happen." It's as hard to tell what makes a great kids song as it is what makes a great song for grown-ups. "In some ways the challenges are exactly the same," Flansburgh says.

Kids music is not adult music dumbed down (although Langford notes that if he wrote an album about poo, it would probably be a bestseller). There's a dubious trend of remaking established songs for kids, from the Kidz Bop albums, where kids sing commercial hits, to CDs that turn Cure songs into lullabies. Salem admits that kids don't need Beatles songs predigested for them; he's just trying to help them discover the classics. Future Little Monster albums will feature original tunes by Medeski, Martin and Wood and Morgan Taylor. "The great thing about kids music is you can tell when it works, you feel a little bit of a smile somewhere inside you," says Salem.

Some of the best children's CDs are Putumayo's compilations of different ethnic genres. These feature songs that weren't necessarily made for kids, but young and old respond to the original melodies and rhythms. "The Backyardigans" succeeds similarly with the realization that kids love beats and songs.

"I just think kids music needs a certain shimmer in it," Lurie says, "and that's all it needs."