Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Singing Science Records - Children's Music From The Atomic Age
By bohus
Have you ever listened to educational kid's music? It's usually pretty rotten. No, wait... really rotten. It's often cloying and retreads covering the same old topics. Be nice to your friends, wash your hands, practice yer phonics... all that tired jazz. There's more to our great big world than simply the usual kid song tropes. How about jazzing up children's music with some real science?
In the late 50's, this set of six LP's hit the scene with clever songs about science. Really specific stuff too - gravity, jets, ultraviolet light. I'd heard of these records for years as they became a notorious kitsch rarity - They Might Be Giants even did a cover version of "Why Does The Sun Shine?". Fortunately Jef Poskanzer found his childhood copies of the records, and put them on the internet for us all to enjoy.
The music has a great pedigree. There's work here by the lyricist that wrote "Unchained Melody", one performer previously wrote "On Top of Spaghetti" (who knew that song was actually written by somebody!), 
and one of the albums features singing by Dorothy Collins - a wife of musician Raymond Scott!
The music & lyrics are clearly aimed at children, but the science content does show that kids can handle this kind of stuff. Kid's music doesn't always have to be simple and childish. Hey Barney and Teletubbies, go put on your lab coats - you're going to want to take some notes...
