Family Vacation

Ah, the family vacation: we love 'em, we hate 'em, we video 'em, and we take 'em over and over again. Along with the iPhone charger, be sure to pack enough — and most especially, the right kind — of music; our hand-picked playlists are designed with the whole family in mind. We pull out of the driveway with the Go-Go's, whose tutu-sporting goofy charm inhabits every synth-slathered, new wave note of "Vacation." Superstar, icon, genius — no matter what you call him, well-traveled country legend Willie Nelson still can't wait to get "On the Road Again," with a snare drum shuffle underneath his comfy-as-old-shoes vocals. And Australia's favorite kid-friendly quartet, the Wiggles, lock into a breezy, bouncy, poppy groove that'll pacify the preschoolers without putting off the parents in "Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car."

In Next Steps, we fly to the moon, get our techno-kicks on America's Highway, and discover where a jazzy jam band and a country legend's roads cross.

In our Next Steps, we've topped off the tank with pop, country, techno, and funk to give you and your passengers more smiles per gallon. To kick off your vacation really old-school, you just can't beat the Chairman of the Board himself, Frank Sinatra, all big-band brass and swingin' pizazz on "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)." On the other hand, Depeche Mode splits the difference between Vegas and Ibiza on their technofied update of the Bobby Troup standard, "Route 66 (Beatmasters Mix)." And jam-friendly jazzbos (or are they jazz-friendly jam-heads?) Medeski, Martin & Wood get a little help from their friends — a kids' chorus — on their funky-fresh travelogue, "Let's Go Everywhere." (If the song sounds a little familiar, you might remember the tune — with different lyrics — as Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere," also featured here.)

In Deep Cuts, we'll hear one of pop-rock's founding mamas, cruise down to the Crescent City, and spend a little time in the Big Sky state.

As you know from your favorite family vacations, it's fun to discover far-away places, and that's exactly where our five-decades-deep Deep Cuts playlist goes. To 1962, for instance, when every ear glued to a transistor radio could do the mashed potato to the sounds of Connie Francis' sock-hop smash, "Vacation" (no relation to the Go-Go's hit). Three-time Parents' Choice Award winner Johnette Downing rolls back the musical clock even farther as she fronts front-liner Jimmy LaRocca and his Original Dixieland Jazz Band in a lazy drift down the Mississip toward New Orleans in "Rolling Down the River." And honeysuckle-throated folkie Eliza Gilkyson can turn a sleepy, snowy little Montana town into a must-see vacation destination in the unembellished elegance of her "Midnight In Missoula."

There's nothing better than a family vacation, that perfect intersection of drama and Dramamine that's become a nearly annual right of passage since Ford first put fake wood sides on its Country Squire. And whether you're loading up the SUV, mini-van, VW bus, or hybrid of your choice, you're going to want — no, make that need — a little traveling music that the whole family can agree upon. That's where we can help, with sonics that suit the surroundings when you've got a mob of tots, tweens, teens, and grown-ups all (theoretically, at least) headed for the same destination. From Simon & Garfunkel to SpongeBob SquarePants, from Madonna to Sinatra, we've got the tracks to help you make tracks without ever having to resort to the perennial parental vacation query: "Am I gonna have to turn this car around?"