Do your kids like your music?

[version sound]

When my daughter was younger, she liked The Sundays, Nico, Best Coast, even Give. Now she’s pretty much all about pop with zero interest in rock (except for the Maggie & Bianca CDs, if that even counts). It doesn’t bother me. I’m glad she loves music, and I don’t really care what music she loves. TBH, all the stuff she likes is good. It’s not stuff I would seek out on my own, but none of it is painful to have to hear over and over.

[kel]

My kids are into weird stuff.

Like, I exposed them to a variety of what I'd call honest music: roots rock, punk, organic good ol' rock and roll samplings from the past fifty years.

So... one is into trance/atmospheric/techno dj stuff. The other, urban ghetto pop. Both like Disney / Cartoon Network songs. And they're not little kids anymore.

We do have certain traditions and allowances that give me ability to think not all is lost.
Every 4th, X's "Fourth of July" is cranked while we look at fireworks.
Baylor football games are sometimes pre-gamed with "Why the Big Paws(Pause)" by Teenage Bottlerocket for the Sic 'ems...
Motorhead "Ace of Spades" is hummed when we play cards together.

Otherwise, I am naturally disappointed in both of them.

[version sound]

Kids are going to like what they like. Nearly 20 years ago now (!!!), I was working with a girl in her early 20s, and when asked about The Clash, she said that was her parents’ music. I remember that blew my mind (and made me feel old). My dad is pre-boomer by a couple of years and was never a big rock guy. He was mostly into blues and jazz, but he was always interested to hear my music, was generally supportive of my love for music, and would drive me to the more exotic music stores that were a highway trip away (my mom did NOT drive on the highway). I remember him playing Out of Step on the family stereo (he picked it up for me on a business trip). He would give me the side eye whenever a curse word came up, but he didn’t try to stop me from listening to it. My mom loved Elvis, but wasn’t really a big music person.

My daughter does also like reggae. There’s a restaurant that we go to fairly regularly, and they mostly play vintage Jamaican reggae, and she’s always liked it. She also likes some pop country, like early Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves. Rock and hip hop are pretty much big NOs, though.

[FlexMyHead]

I don't have kids, but I work with them. When music comes up I ask what bands they fuck with and many of them like "hyper pop", which to me could basically be pop-punk, but instead has digital beats is kinda like those emo-soundcloud rappers. They say they like it because it's often created by a young kids all by themselves in some bumfuck place, for example the below dude is 16 and lives in very rural North Carolina. Anyway that reasoning is one thing that attracted me to punk, the DIY aspect, so I dunno, maybe it is kinda punk to not like punk?

[SamDBL]

No. They actually have very little interest in any music besides what they dance (at dance class) to. Generic radio pop for the most part. They only seem to have the bandwidth for one song at a time. I bond with one of them over Queen, as she developed an appreciation of them after she saw the movie. She likes Michael Jackson a little too… which I can tolerate. That’s about it, though. We were painting their rooms this week and I made them listen to some playlist of obscure 60s British pop. They just made fun of it/me.

[SamDBL]

Oh, also, I was driving them to school once and playing Paul Westerberg at a very low volume hoping it would maybe subliminally get through. At almost the exact time I was thinking what an amazing singer he is, one of them blurts out ‘Wow. This person is pretty much the worst singer in the universe. Do people actually like him?’

[version sound]

Oh, also, I was driving them to school once and playing Paul Westerberg at a very low volume hoping it would maybe subliminally get through. At almost the exact time I was thinking what an amazing singer he is, one of them blurts out ‘Wow. This person is pretty much the worst singer in the universe. Do people actually like him?’

Sounds familiar. I try to find stuff (my stuff) I think the kid will like based on the stuff she’s listening to, and I always get the “if you like A, then you should like B” equation wrong somehow.

[kel]

Probably more of an old-fart pondering veer, but I was trying to explain to my kids how there's no such thing as "underground" music anymore, and how whippersnappers don't understand what "underground" even meant.

No matter how unpopular, limited-release, marginalized, etc. today's genre or band is... it's only a Google or Youtube link away. You can find a forum of like-minded individuals that also appreciate the same level of suck/awesomeness as you in a half-dozen clicks.

No one today has to: discover a 'zine, read about a band in it, seek it out at that weird seedy record store across town, spy a flyer for a live show at some non-standard, oddball venue.

Sure, there's artificially limited vinyl colors and limited pressing releases and such, but... the minute that wax hits someone's USB through an MP3 converter, bam, it's on Youtube. Or it's on Soundcloud, the band's website, some torrent, etc.

Personally, I dig the nostalgia of knowing that my underground was legitimately real, and made for a bond of discovery with the music and bands that isn't there today.

However, I also know not to old-person it and say that "music of today isn't what it used to be". Because whatever lyrics and evocative music resonate with kids going through their first breakups / questionings / rebellion / feelings / etc. are going to be just as powerful to youth today as they were to every generation has experienced when they were young and full of confusing new emotions that were explored and mirrored in the music.

Yes. That's a doozy of a run-on sentence to go with my sentimentality.


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNMhl7YuKEY[/youtube]

[SamDBL]

No rap leanings yet, though. Which I’m very grateful for.

[scannest]

My son (16 next week) is really into his music, but exactly who or what that is I can't say with any certainty. All of his listening is done on headphones. I'd say most of what he loves is rap, the weirder the better.

When he was little (kindergarten, first grade) I would drive him to and from school and we'd listen to Little Steven's Underground Garage. I loved when he would tell me one day that 'Lola' was his favorite song. A week later it would be 'Let the Dominoes Fall'. But that stopped when we moved to NYC and started to taking the subway to school.

I made a decision very early on not to push my tastes on him and for the most part I'm happy with that decision. What he did get from me is sense of how important this stuff is and to listen critically. So when he tells me his favorite record is Because the Internet (Childish Gambino), or that he loves Igor (Tyler the Creator) even though it isn't "really rap at all" and that most of his friends don't like it, I know he's given it some real thought. And that's fine by me.

[jaybird]

I have a 17 year-old... he likes some stuff I dig, Ramones, Bowie, Queen... but he relates to music more more in terms of specific songs, as opposed to getting strongly into a specific band or artist... i chalk it up to the way most kids are exposed/consume/listen to music now... just as free-floating pieces out there in the digital realm, as opposed to the context of an album or CD. He also listens to lots of video-game music online... he shows me some of it on youtube, and it's all kids his age or younger remixing and recording hours upon hours of like old NES 8-bit midi riffs and such. Weird shit.

I did overhear him talking with his cousins when we were on vacation last year, saying that the only music he actually hates is mumble rap, so that made me a little proud.

[JGJR]

Every 4th, X's "Fourth of July" is cranked while we look at fireworks.
Baylor football games are sometimes pre-gamed with "Why the Big Paws(Pause)" by Teenage Bottlerocket for the Sic 'ems...
Motorhead "Ace of Spades" is hummed when we play cards together.

I love all of that. I play "4th of July" every year, too, usually X's version but sometimes both theirs and Dave Alvin's original. My son is 8 and enjoys songs by Superchunk, Sleater-Kinney, Dinosaur Jr, The Clash, etc. but his playlist (mostly derived from songs he's heard in YouTube videos or TV shows) is mostly modern pop-punk/emo type stuff that I don't really know along with pop stuff like "Old Town Road."

I also strongly believe in not forcing your own tastes/interests on kids, but playing stuff for them is OK, of course. I'd rather he grows up and develops critical thinking skills and the ability to come to his own conclusions based on that.

[gregpolard]

Almost not at all.

[lewdd]

My stepdaughter is almost 30. She has a pretty wide range of musical interests. Probably not a fan of punk rock or hardcore, but she does like the pop punk stuff of Rancid, DKM, Offspring, Green Day, Blink, Goldfinger, etc. and Flogging Molly. Other than that she likes classic rock, country, some limited blues, but also modern pop, hip hop, and rap.

[xxxMidgexxx]

I invented music

[lewdd]

I invented music

You are like our version of Casey Kasem or Dick Clark.

[version sound]

Almost not at all.

You were the one guy I was sure was going to say yes. Do you force them to wear those hardcore tees?

[jaybird]

Almost not at all.

You were the one guy I was sure was going to say yes. Do you force them to wear those hardcore tees?

[scannest]

I invented music

You are like our version of Dick Clark.

You got that half right.

[gregpolard]

Almost not at all.

You were the one guy I was sure was going to say yes. Do you force them to wear those hardcore tees?

My oldest wears a lot of my old shirts that I...grew out of due to the pandemic. Even though he's 15 he doesn't really care about what he wears so a t shirt is a t shirt.

My youngest has gotten a couple random shirts here and there when I'd see them on deep discount, or friends would hook it up.

[version sound]

Almost not at all.

You were the one guy I was sure was going to say yes. Do you force them to wear those hardcore tees?

My oldest wears a lot of my old shirts that I...grew out of due to the pandemic. Even though he's 15 he doesn't really care about what he wears so a t shirt is a t shirt.

My youngest has gotten a couple random shirts here and there when I'd see them on deep discount, or friends would hook it up.

I guess sometimes you really don’t want to know how the sausage is made

[Marc M]

Two out of three yes. They are going to PRB with my wife and me in Sept. My youngest is 17 and to this day has never told me the name of one artist he likes, even though I know he listens to music sometimes.

[JGJR]

Kacey Musgraves

I could've sworn there was a thread a few years back where scannest said he liked her, too, but anyway I am VERY late to the party, but her 2018 album Golden Hour and the new single "Star Crossed" are both phenomenal.

[the mean]

My kids would rather listen to their own music, but one of them (she's 10) really likes to go to shows with me. She's been going since she was 7 and has seen lots of rad bands. Right now it's outdoor shows for her only because she is not old enough to be vaxxed. Although, the way things are going I may keep her away from those as well.