Songs with the appropriate mush-factor and fun-factor?

June 23, 2008 9:18 AM

Please help me compile a set of music for my dad to use in his video projects.

My dad is sort of the unofficial videographer for his church, taping all kinds of things like kids' activities, church fairs, pageants, and private events for the members (such as their children's birthday parties, graduations, community sports events, awards ceremonies, etc). He also puts together a lot of montages and photo slideshows that are shown at church events, or given as gifts to people. He's always looking for music to use in these videos, and for his birthday I'd like to put together a library of mp3's.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on what to include. Appropriate categories would be:

- Upbeat (but very tame) "party" songs
- Inspirational/uplifting, yet not overtly religious, songs
- Sentimental/cute songs about kids, families, happy experiences, "life is good" themes, etc.

Obviously, the music should have a wide appeal and completely clean language and themes. Also, please don't be swayed too much that this is affiliated with a church -- I'm really not looking for any hymns or blatantly Christian music. (It's also a very laid-back, relatively young Episcopal congregation -- they aren't too buttoned up at all.) In case it helps, some examples of songs he's used in the past are "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs, "Shining Star" by Dan Zanes, "Upside Down" by Jack Johnson, "A Song For You" by Justin Roberts, some kind of choral spin on Pachelbel's "Canon in D," and "We Like to Party" by Vengaboys. So, you can see that his needs are pretty diverse!

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

posted by justonegirl to media & arts (2 comments total)

If he used 10000 Maniacs, he'd probably like the solo projects of Natalie Merchant (the lead singer from the Maniacs). In particular, Wonder and Kind and Generous.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:32 AM on June 23, 2008

Not to put a damper on your good intentions, but it is illegal to use unlicensed music recording for video productions, including church/wedding/event videos that are not for sale. It's a stupid rule, but a well established rule nonetheless. Churches and wedding videographers HAVE been cited by "the man" for otherwise innocent skirting of these licensing rules.

http://mpa.org/copyright_resource_center/church_musician
posted by melorama at 12:03 PM on June 23, 2008