McLachlan, Cake, Five For Fighting Sing For Kids And Charity

11/06/2002 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Jerry Armor

(11/6/02, 1 p.m. ET) -- For The Kids, featuring children's music by popular rock acts such as Sarah McLachlan, Cake, and Five For Fighting, arrived in stores Tuesday (November 5) from Nettwerk Records. Proceeds from the 16-track effort benefit VH1's Save The Music Foundation, which works toward restoring music education in public schools.

The collection features various covers and originals geared for tiny ears. McLachlan and Cake both do Muppets-linked songs--Kermit The Frog's tender "The Rainbow Connection" by the former and the wacky "Mahna Mahna" by the latter. Meanwhile, Five For Fighting frontman John Ondrasik offers his own composition, as does Toad The Wet Sprocket's Glen Philips and Semisonic's Dan Wilson.

Ondrasik tells LAUNCH that he has an affinity for writing for children, due in great part to being a father of a 2-and-a-half-year old and a 1-year old. "Probably it's closer to my mindset than my Five For Fighting records, frankly. My wife would tell you that. I tend to be pretty immature and goof around a lot. It's really fun for me 'cause a lot of my kind of more serious songwriting is just that--it's very serious, there's some kind of deep themes in some of my records. And it's a nice chance to just be kind of silly."

Ondrasik's contribution, titled "The Hoppity Song," also includes vocals from his son.

Others on the collection include Barenaked Ladies, Guster, Hootie & the Blowfish's Darius Rucker, Sixpence None The Richer, and Tom Waits.

-- Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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