Music for an Almost Nine Year Old

Why not look for some of the "Standards" or big band music.
Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Etta James this is fun music that is not provocative even when they talk of love.

You might consider movie soundtracks (Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Jungle Book and Sleeping Beauty are my favorites) or show tunes. I grew up listening to "Fiddler on the Roof", "Cats," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Singin' in the Rain," "Oklahoma" and "Sound of Music." I didn't really get in to pop music until jr. high school.

I thought to protect my sons from today's racy songs. That ended the day my now-13 year started belting out the lyrics to my favorite tunes from high school and heard what likely made my mom cringe all those years ago. At that point, I figured if I didn't race out and do all the suggestive things I heard in my favorite tunes, my sons likely wouldn't either. Still, it was quite a shock! I laugh about it now, but I wasn't laughing then.

OH! You might also try going back to the old pop tunes from the 50s and pre-hippie 60s. As corny as it sounds, my 13 year old LOVES my "Surfin' Safari/Beach Boys" playlist on Pandora radio.

Good luck!

What about musicals? Not contemporary, necessarily, but were there any soundtracks you liked as a kid? Rogers and Hammerstein, old Disney movies, The Music Man (the very few adult references went sailing over my head at that time) Shirley Temple movies (the girls I nannied for LOVED those)...

What about early Beatles? Or a Fun Rock-type of sillysong cd? Would she be cool with The Andrews Sisters or some equally light older music?

At our home, we do listen to a lot of jazz, which my son is growing up with.
Another idea is to find artists and song that you do like and burn their more innocuous songs onto disc. My son is nearly four and loves "Something So Strong" by Crowded House. There are plenty of pop songs with relatively positive messages out there, just pick and choose. :)

are you open to christian songs.... Mathew West, Chris Tomblin, Mark Shultz. The Kids Bop cds are good dance music as well. Also think of soundtrack movie cds from tangled or something like that. Other artist is Selene Gomiz ( ? )

I have an 8 year old so I'm in the same boat you are with trying to find appropriate music. Right now her faves are Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez. Both, I feel, are fine for her to listen to. She also has several cds that are popular music redone for kids (Kidz Bop, etc), these cds always have the inappropriate content removed with more age appropriate lyrics. I've made her a couple of Disney soundtracks as well. Songs from her fave movies, like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, are always a hit. I think you can even find cds like this in stores if you don't want to make your own.

I love the line of CD's by Music for little people...they have A child's celebration of Rock n Rock, celebration of showtunes, broadway, soul, song, folk, dance music. It's not kiddie music, the orginal artist sing the songs, but they are all family friendly. I let me three year old listen to them too. I know you can find them on amazon and check your library to see if they have any if you want to listen to a few before you buy them.

When my daughter was that age, she was listening to my classic rock and show tunes collections.

My kids listen to whatever I listen to on the radio (sometimes talk radio, country or oldies stations), but don't always like it. As for their ipods and CD's in their rooms, they pretty much have their choice from dad's itunes account, where he has uploaded hundreds of his personal CD's. Dad is a bit of a music hound, lol.

They have anything from Bono and U2, to Colin Hay, to Crowded House, to Elvis, to Lennie Kravitz to Great Big Sea. They hear songs Dad plays in the car on the CD player and asks who it is, and then wants it uploaded onto their ipod.

My daughter has loved The Beatles since she was about 2 years old.

My 6 year old daughter LOVES Big Time Rush. I think their music is really cute.

Does your local public library have CDs you can borrow - that way you could introduce her to a variety of different types of music (jazz, classical, broadway, folk, etc) without having to "commit" to buying the discs - you never know what might strike her fancy (my 9 YO twins actually enjoy classical music, opera, Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and some broadway and rogers and hammerstein musicals and, maybe because they have each other, they don't seem at all bothered that they don't care for a lot of the music that their peers listen to (Hubby asked DD2 if she thought Justin Bieber was cute and she said no, but when he asked if she thought classical conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein was cute, she said yes ;-)).
and if you try introducing her to classical, see if any of your local radio stations broadcast "From the Top" - a wonderful show that features talented young classical musicians from all over the country that also incorporates quite a bit of good-natured humor so it doesn't seem at all "stuffy" http://www.fromthetop.org/

TobyMac
Stephen Curtis Chapman
Britt Nicole
Amy Grant
Butterflyfish
MercyMe
Casting Crowns
Chris Sligh
Francesca Battastelli
Natalie Grant
To name just a smattering.

Go to KLOVE and listen to their playlists. It's good, contemporary, upbeat clean, Christian music.

When my girls were that age, they loved Hanna Montanna (Miley Cirus). I know she's not as popular anymore, but she has some good music.

We love the old 40's/50's tunes, or basically music from the early early 70's & bellow) & I agree with the Christian music, BUT we really try to only put the songs on there that aren't too "religious"/ Churchy, because while we are strong active Christians, we have different beliefs then what they tend to sing about. We found a station called K love I think? It's positive alternative music, a lot of the music is on the reg radio but it's not filthy & a lot of it has morals to it & well it's Positive. LoL It doesn't seem to get Too sermony if you know what I mean. But I still weed through that & write down the songs we like & I feel the kids can listen to.

I have mix Cd's I made for my kids. We have all kinds of songs on there from Broadway, to Disney, to hip hop, Christian music, country, to music from different parts of the world, Classical piano music (Usually when they start fighting & I start to get irritated, LoL) All kinds of music on them.

We tend to listen to allot of Country, Lone star & Brad Paisley tend to be more family oriented singers, but still have to weed some stuff out. We love the older country too like The Judd's, Reba, Johnnie cash, Shania twain & The Dixie chicks older stuff, etc.. My FIL LOVES Blue Grass.. There's a lot of very family oriented artists & the kids love the Banjo & the fiddle & everything, they can't keep still when Pop pop turns it on. I personally can't listen to but a half hour of it at a time cause it's not my style but if it keeps the kids happy on the 2 hour round trip drive to errand running & school twice a week then whatever. LoL

I really try to introduce the kids to a huge vary of music, because I don't want them to only like one style of music, hence the Mixed Cd's....

My 9 year olds cousin got her into Taylor Swift, & Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, but I won't let her listen to all the songs. Miley/Hannah songs tend to have a more positive message for kids, BUT I do not like who Miley Cyrus is, she's NOT a good role model IMO, so I won't let her watch any of her shows, music videos, wear the clothes etc.. Strictly listen to a few of her songs, that's it. So she doesn't even really know who Miley/Hannah even is.

Most of the time we get our music off the radio. (Except for the classical, blue grass & the music around the world) We write down songs we like & form what I can hear are OK, then I get home look up the lyrics to everyone written down, if It's not a good one we don't listen to it or down load it for the mix Cd's. As long as it's not singing about or mentions sex, drugs, drinking, partying, sneaking out (like one of Taylor swifts songs) then I'm fine with innocent love songs,dance songs, etc. I'm not sure what your style of music of otherwise I'd give you a bunch of songs we feel are OK & let you pick through.. I hope you guys find some stuff worth listening to soon! We are HUGE music lovers & it's a challenge so I feel ya! ")

Updated

We love the old 40's/50's tunes, or basically music from the early early 70's & bellow) & I agree with the Christian music, BUT we really try to only put the songs on there that aren't too "religious"/ Churchy, because while we are strong active Christians, we have different beliefs then what they tend to sing about. We found a station called K love I think? It's positive alternative music, a lot of the music is on the reg radio but it's not filthy & a lot of it has morals to it & well it's Positive. LoL It doesn't seem to get Too sermony if you know what I mean. But I still weed through that & write down the songs we like & I feel the kids can listen to.

I have mix Cd's I made for my kids. We have all kinds of songs on there from Broadway, to Disney, to hip hop, Christian music, country, to music from different parts of the world, Classical piano music (Usually when they start fighting & I start to get irritated, LoL) All kinds of music on them.

We tend to listen to allot of Country, Lone star & Brad Paisley tend to be more family oriented singers, but still have to weed some stuff out. We love the older country too like The Judd's, Reba, Johnnie cash, Shania twain & The Dixie chicks older stuff, etc.. My FIL LOVES Blue Grass.. There's a lot of very family oriented artists & the kids love the Banjo & the fiddle & everything, they can't keep still when Pop pop turns it on. I personally can't listen to but a half hour of it at a time cause it's not my style but if it keeps the kids happy on the 2 hour round trip drive to errand running & school twice a week then whatever. LoL

I really try to introduce the kids to a huge vary of music, because I don't want them to only like one style of music, hence the Mixed Cd's....

My 9 year olds cousin got her into Taylor Swift, & Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, but I won't let her listen to all the songs. Miley/Hannah songs tend to have a more positive message for kids, BUT I do not like who Miley Cyrus is, she's NOT a good role model IMO, so I won't let her watch any of her shows, music videos, wear the clothes etc.. Strictly listen to a few of her songs, that's it. So she doesn't even really know who Miley/Hannah even is.

Most of the time we get our music off the radio. (Except for the classical, blue grass & the music around the world) We write down songs we like & form what I can hear are OK, then I get home look up the lyrics to everyone written down, if It's not a good one we don't listen to it or down load it for the mix Cd's. As long as it's not singing about or mentions sex, drugs, drinking, partying, sneaking out (like one of Taylor swifts songs) then I'm fine with innocent love songs,dance songs, etc. I'm not sure what your style of music of otherwise I'd give you a bunch of songs we feel are OK & let you pick through.. I hope you guys find some stuff worth listening to soon! We are HUGE music lovers & it's a challenge so I feel ya! ")