Award-winning family music artists and podcast makers Andrew & Polly are thrilled to announce that their sixth album, Ahhhhh!, is nominated for a 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best Children’s Album.

 

Kids and families nationwide know and love the music of Andrew & Polly from hearing their heartfelt, humorous hits on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live (“Grapes,” “Little Bitta You,” “Mom’s Name”), from their Parents’ Choice Gold Award®-winning podcast Ear Snacks, and from their songs and arrangements for Nickelodeon, Noggin, Netflix, and more. Three songs from Ahhhhh! have already hit #1 on the Kids Place Live chart.

 

Ahhhhh! celebrates the outrageous courage it takes to navigate the overwhelming feelings of childhood, parenting, and post-pandemic life. The album empowers kids to take on tough stuff by helping them think, feel, and sometimes even SHOUT their way through challenges in an ever-changing world.

 

“From the pandemic to politics to parenting three kids, it’s been like drinking from a firehose,” says Andrew Barkan, who navigates an additional set of challenges in life, work, and parenting as a blind person.

 

“Hasn’t everyone felt like that over the past few years? Just … Ahhhhh! It’s a lot!” adds Emmy-nominated songwriter Polly Hall. “Our songwriting suggests that we can look at small, everyday things to get at bigger, even global ideas.”

 

Like their songs and scores for children’s television, Andrew & Polly’s audacious arrangements on Ahhhhh! overflow with bumping beats, thick vocal harmonies, elegant cello, and joyful horns.

 

An all-star cast of family music artists lends their sparking creativity to this project, including GRAMMY-winners Alphabet Rockers and 2-time GRAMMY-winner Lucy Kalantari, folk singers Raye Zaragoza, Kristen Andreassen, and Keppie Coutts, hip-hop troubadours Fyütch and Mista Cookie Jar, and comedian Mike Phirman. GRAMMY-nominated recording engineer Chris Tabron (Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Mary J. Blige, The Strokes, Erykah Badu) mastered the album, with mixing by Polly Hall and art by Jeff Dickens.

 

Ahhhhh! is ambitious, inspiring, slightly surreal, and totally awesome, just like the real-life journeys families take through childhood and parenthood. Many songs showcase Andrew & Polly’s signature observational humor. “Danger Baby” is a Mission Impossible-esque ode to the transition from worrying over the safety of a precious baby to realizing just how dangerous that child can be! “The Scientific Method” brings huge smiles while simultaneously offering a catchy, beat-driven earworm to inspire a new generation of scientists.

 

Yet, the album is as full of tenderness and resilience as it is jokes and joy. Andrew & Polly cover The Linda Lindas’ anthemic “Growing Up” with a touching, indie-folk sensibility. When writing the eponymous “I’ve Got a Problem (Ahhhhh!),” the duo thought about the different kinds of problems that everyone might have. “There’s that awful feeling of being overwhelmed,” says Andrew Barkan. “There are big problems outside yourself, the hard, hard problems of the world right now. Then there are interior problems: self-doubt, worry about belonging, embarrassment.” Polly Hall notes, “Ahhhhh! is all about taking a moment to find your feelings, strategies for problem-solving, and encouraging kids and parents to reach deep and bring their experiences out to share.”

 

ABOUT ANDREW & POLLY:

Andrew & Polly (husband-and-wife Andrew Barkan and Polly Hall) are a GRAMMY®-nominated family music duo and production team from Santa Monica, California. Families nationwide know the independent artists from their seriously catchy, smart, and quirky hits on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live and their songs and arrangements for an array of other platforms (Nickelodeon, Noggin, Netflix, and more). Andrew & Polly’s podcast for kids, Ear Snacks, is “packed with earworms and made with heart” (The New York Times) and rated one of the best podcasts for kids by Common Sense Media. Andrew & Polly are honored to have received the prestigious Joe Raposo Children’s Music Award from the ASCAP Foundation and multiple Parents’ Choice Awards®.

 

In addition to their own releases, Andrew & Polly compose and produce music for television and film. Their production credits include songs for Noggin properties like Yoga Friends, arrangements and production for Netflix’s Spirit Rangers, the theme for Spin Master’s Monkey See, Monkey Poo, and songs for Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, and a bunch of commercials and films for grownups.

 

Andrew & Polly are fierce advocates for high quality and diverse media for children, early childhood music, and constructivist education. They have three children, one Emmy-nomination, and a lot of overdue library books.

 

Previous recordings by Andrew & Polly include Go for the Moon (2019), Ear Snacks: Songs from the Podcast (2016, Parents Choice Award®), Odds & Ends (2015, Parents’ Choice Award®), Up and At ‘Em! (2010, ASCAP Foundation Joe Raposo Children’s Music Award for the song “When You’re a Dog”), and a holiday EP, Other Days (2015).

 

Album Details: Ahhhhh!

Label: Records Palindrome Records

Available on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Tidal

For all ages, but especially for ages 4 – 10

Run Time: 37 minutes

SRP: $9.99 digital