Just in case you've never heard of ZingZillas, they're a group of four monkeys (although I often wonder if, given the name, they're supposed to be gorillas?!) who live on a tropical island and love exploring all kinds of music. As the welcoming message on the CD case says : "Hey ZingZilla fans ! Nice of you to swing by. Here on ZingZilla Island, we're bananas about our Big Zings. From bhangra to bluegrass, opera to rock, harp to harmonica, there's always something exciting going on in the glade. So sit back and park your pineapples, or jump up and join in with these zinging sounds !". Well, I parked my pineapples and gathered round the Madhouse teeny testers to see what they'd make of it !
The girls have only seen ZingZillas on TV a few times so they weren't overly familiar with the characters and hadn't heard many of the songs before. The CD includes the theme tune to the show and all the Big Zing tunes from the CBeebies series so big fans will probably know most of them already.
They started off trying to dance along but couldn't really work out what actions they were supposedly to be doing (they're used to action songs or Hi 5 CDs which tell you exactly what the dance routine is !) so soon got bored of just randomly bopping about on the spot and wandered off to play something else. As the CD is very long compared to many kids' CDs (it features 26 songs), I thought they'd reached their boredom threshold but when I went to turn it off, Juliette squealed "Nooo I'm listening to that, leave it on please" !
I love the way the songs introduce such a wide variety of musical styles and instruments in a kid-friendly way. The unanimous favourite in our house is "Do You Didgeridoo ?" although "Bhangra Beat" and "I've Never Heard A Sound So Absurd" also go down well. Even the grown ups usually end up humming some of the tunes long after the CD has been turned off !
I would have liked a bit more information on the CD case - the words to the songs would be good to join in with the singing, and also some information about which type of music the song is an example of (the fold-out insert does tell you which guest is starring on the song and often what their instrument or musical style is, but it would have been so much easier to have it on the back of the case so I don't have to keep pulling it out to check every time the girls quiz me !). The songs give nice positive messages to kids about things like picking up litter and the CD is a lot more parent-friendly than some nursery rhyme-type CDs that can seriously start doing your head in after a while ! It's a fun, educational CD that opens up a whole world of musical styles to little tots.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £9.99
Other reviews you may be interested in :
Tunes 4 Toddler Tantrums CD
Babyboomboom's multi-lingual CDs
Loud Enough volume-limiting earphones
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