t’s 8:27am and I’m ushering a toddler and a school child into the car, a baby strapped to my chest just to keep things interesting. From the driver’s seat of our sultana-strewn Kia Carnival, I switch from my “Breakfast Chill” Spotify playlist to “School Drop Pump Up” and We Don’t Talk About Bruno from Disney’s Encanto soundtrack bursts forth.
“I think the biggest difference in the way parents and kids consume music these days, even compared to a decade ago, is how portable, customisable and accessible it is,” says Paul Field, a music industry giant. “We’re just starting with the music first [as opposed to creating a band], because this way we can use a carousel of different musicians, singers and styles. I feel that brings quite a bit of variety to the sound.”
“At the moment, we actually have more listeners in the US than here,” says the musician and comedian Matt Okine, one half of the kid’s entertainment duo Diver City; his partner is the musician and producer Kristy Lee Peters. He credits the all-important peer-recommendation algorithms on streaming platforms with this international success.