help choosing personalized children's music

January 23, 2012 9:40 AM

Looking for advice on personalized children's music (featuring the child's name).

There are tons of options available online of CDs of songs that feature a child's name. I am giving this as a gift to a 3-4 year old with massive physical disabilities but good cognitive skills- we think she will love music featuring her name. Her name is fairly common so most of the sites seem to offer songs featuring the name, but I am having trouble picking between all of these options (prices are all very similar).
I am looking for any experience/recommendations for a particular site to buy from.

Main preferences:
1. No god/Jesus/Christianity or any other religious content (many include prayers etc).
2. As un-annoying as possible for the parents and other family members.

posted by cushie to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Number 2 is going to be hard to meet, in my experience. If I wanted to do this I'd post a job request here for someone to record personalized versions of three or four public domain that you find least annoying. Choose an applicant you like based on their song samples and they record a basic version and send you the MP3s. Probably more expensive than a couple of CD plus S&H, but much less annoying. Plus you can do more personalizing than just tossing the kid's name in there.
posted by mikepop at 10:36 AM on January 23, 2012

Never bought a CD as you describe so I can't speak to the core question on the best service. BUT. If it's a fairly common name, don't forget to do an itunes search. There may be some pop band or indie band song that happens to use the name, that would still be kid-appropriate even if it's not "kid music".
posted by aimedwander at 11:33 AM on January 23, 2012

If you can give the child's name then people might be able to offer suggestions of decent songs you can use.
posted by Dragonness at 1:37 PM on January 23, 2012

Best answer: We were given two of these "personalized" CDs as gifts for our kids a few years back. They were pretty wretched. The song was normal, except there would be a pause, then our kids' name in a different tone (obviously not recorded at the same time).

For example, the song might say "Wake up ... Steven ... it's a brand new day! We hope you can come play with us, ... Steven."

I strongly suggest listening to samples before choosing anything.
posted by tacodave at 3:17 PM on January 23, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for all of these. It sounds like I should either approach a musician friend or post on Mefi jobs. Maybe there is a market for non-sucky personalized children's music....
Any further ideas are definitely welcome.
posted by cushie at 4:36 PM on January 23, 2012