Meet the newest kindie group to ever come out of the Great White North.
One of the biggest new names in family music to come out of last year was The Relative Minors, based out of Cambridge, Ontario. It was the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Matt and Kiersten Robertshaw in 2008, writing witty and creative kids songs and performing live throughout their locality. It would eventually evolve into The Relative Minors in its current form, described as "a six-piece, electric guitar, and piano-driven rock n' roll band", taking influence from many and various musical styles and other kids artists such as The Muppets, The Wiggles, and The Beatles.
Their first ever full-length album called "Play Music" was released in October of 2020. It is a showing of the capabilities of the group and the multi-genre approach to this album is peppered throughout this album. One song from the album called "Why Spy", a song about espionage with hints of Avril Lavine and Maroon 5 interspersed throughout the song. Another song called "Sandwich" celebrates the joy of play and creativity in a style that is similar to that of Laurie Berkner. Another one called "Walrus" gives us a Muppet Show vibe with a 90's alt-rock twist, and "F-U-N (Spells Fun)" happens to be the standout song in this album, as it is a tribute to Linkin Park-styled heavy rock and is very fun to listen to. The album has so many good songs that shatter the boundaries of children's and family music
Meanwhile, they have been putting out a slew of new singles in recent months. "King of Swing" tells us all about the great royals of Europe in the Middle Ages with a little touch of silly rock. "A Successful Career as a Dog", put out weeks before National Dog Day imagines a world where dogs can be eligible to get a job with some 90's rock flashbacks.'
The songs the make not only transcend the boundaries of kids music, it does do a very great job at exposing kids to different styles of music without watering or dumbing down on the little ones. No wonder it has received tremendous airplay on the likes of WEE Nation Radio, The Saturday Morning Cereal Bowl, Radio Active Kids, Kinderling Radio, and many others. I really recommend to hear their musical ingenuity for yourself. It will leave you dancing and rocking the whole day through.
