Traditionally, parents have been driven to their wits end by the selection of baby/child-geared music available. If the inane songs don't get you, the cry of "again, again" from any child will have you unwittingly whistling the Thomas the Tank Engine theme in your sleep.
Wired Magazine have run a blog entry addressing the inane nature of these songs, being so bold as to hypothesise that "children's music causes mental disorders in adults".
I can imagine this genre being akin to a very slow Chinese water torture... it'll break you in the end. The blog entry espouses the benefits of new musical outlets like Geekdad as an anti-thesis to this genre.
They Might Be Giants, among other acts, seem to be getting in the act of making children's music that parents can actually dig. They started off slow, with an album in 2002 called "No! No! No!" but have now whole-heartedly embraced the genre with two recent CDs - "Here come the ABCs" and "Here come the 123s".
Saint Etienne have also touched on the genre with the "Up The Wooden Hill" ep (including songs like "Let's Build a Zoo"), and promise to release an entire album of children's songs soon.
In the dearth of baby gifts we've been receiving, these two TMBG albums magically appeared like magical beacons of mental acuity in the night. Decent music, as any adult will know, gets better the more "again again" you give it.
It's a savvy ploy, get the kids onto your music at an early age, and then sell them your back catalogue at an older age once you've established "brand". I can just see Emily and I rockin' out to "Particle Man" or "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" when she is 8 or 9.
That thought alone should save me from (even more) mental disorders.
