Generational Music

[rokroller]

jcindahouse wrote:" Since our kid is all that, and American to boot, I suspect she'll find all sorts of stuff to like that I missed the boat on (Pink Floyd comes to mind) and then graduate to who knows what. But I hope she'll be able to think back fondly to her parents singing along to David Bowie  inviting her to "take a chance on a couple of kooks hung up on romancin'."

My oldest child, my first daughter, started singing along to the entire "Wall" album by Pink Floyd one day when she was around 3 years old. Not just the songs, but even the shit like the little kid saying "look mommy, there's an airplane in the sky". Needless to say, I was quite amazed. She was born in December, 1980, and even though I would often play a couple of songs like Mother and Comfortably Numb, I couldn't figure out how she could possibly know the entire 2 album set. When I asked her (again, this is a 3 year old) how she learned this record, she told me that "mommy used to play it all the time while I was still in her belly". Totally freaks me out to this day, 26 years later.
Also, used to play Bowie's "Kooks" all the time for them just to let them know that "if the homework gets you down, we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown".

PS   took said daughter to see Roger Waters with me last year, just the 2 of us. It was quite a special night for me.

[jcindahouse]

I would also say that musical tastes evolve in an organic way that may or may not include music that your parents liked.

I grew up listening to mariachi music at home (and I'm not even Mexican!) In high school I got into Smiths, Clash, Depeche Mode (god help me!) and similar stuff. Out of college I went through a very severe Ella Fitzgerald phase and started listening to people long since dead.  I was the person who up until a few years ago would not know a Beatles tune if it bit me on the ass.

My husband in British and a fair bit older than me and we are surprised by the amount of music that we both like. I can now tell a Lennon/McCartney tune from a McCartney one and he listens to more Samba and Rock en EspaNol than would normally be healthy for a Brit.

Since our kid is all that, and American to boot, I suspect she'll find all sorts of stuff to like that I missed the boat on (Pink Floyd comes to mind) and then graduate to who knows what. But I hope she'll be able to think back fondly to her parents singing along to David Bowie  inviting her to "take a chance on a couple of kooks hung up on romancin'."

[PhillyGirl]

Whether it's undue influence, attempted brainwashing, sharing and bonding, or whatever, parents MUST play their children something other than the tidal wave of insipid children's music that's out there these days.  I mean, for god sake, anything is better than the woggles,  I mean, the wiggles (tee hee, Neeners), and their kind.  And then do whatever it takes to expose your older kids to something other than the bubblegum pop that they're supposed to like.  Brittany is a genius compared to some of that awful stuff you hear on those Satruday afternoon TV shows.  Ugh.

Actually, NON, S&G is a pretty good idea.  The reason for the popularity of the horrific kids' music is that the tunes are catchy and the words are easy.  Folk-ish music is similar and is a much better alternative.  Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, etc., all easy to sing along with, but also have some musical integrity.  I think the problem with later popular/rock music is the lack of a catchy tune and easy lyrics for little kids to get.  E.g., from my generation, early MJ is probably acessible, but Pearl Jam might have to wait until the kiddies are at least 8 or 10.

Hypothesis:  The explosion of insipid children's music is a result of the decline of (1) traditional cultural songs sung in the home, and (2) regular church attendance -- with all of those catchy and easy to sing hymns.  Discuss.

[Olewnick]

Now I have a kid of my own and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that she will probably view all the stuff I like as old farts music. 

But that's what's supposed to happen! Anything else is unhealthy.

[Soshin]

When I was growing up, my Mother subjected me to howling gales of opera on a regular basis that it made everyday of my life seem like the closing scenes of Godfather III – moving in slow-mo and extremely drawn out painful death.

Fat men with lungs the size of Sicily spewed songs in Italian that seemed really complex but when you read the English translation would amount to things like:

“I love you Henrietta, let’s get married!”.

“I can’t because I need to wash my hair and I have to pick up the cat from the vet”.

I thought my Mother had put me off opera for life but then I got invited to see a show at the Met a few years back, and despite having to dress like a penguin with a pool-cue up its arse, I actually really enjoyed the spectacle.  Now occasionally… very occasionally… I will put on opera music and listen to some Viking lady explain how to catch a fish.

My own musical tastes came from my older Brothers (3 of them, all a good bit older than me).  Only one was still living at home when I was growing up but there was always good sounds coming out his room (and some funny smelling smoke but that’s for another thread).  Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Beatles, Pink Floyd could be heard behind his door as him and his friends jammed it shut to keep me out.  I’d lie on the floor kicking the door with all my might listening to “Comfortably Numb” shaking the rafters of the house.

Now I have a kid of my own and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that she will probably view all the stuff I like as old farts music.  My hope, and prayer, is that she somehow passes over the teenybopper Britney phase and moves straight into a Goth phase.  At least then I’ll be able to connect with her by playing her some of the amazingly large collection of really depressing songs I own.  If she likes only shiny happy pop then I am irreversibly fucked.

[NON]

It was weird when i got to college, and some of the kids i lived with my freshman year were all into Simon and Garfunkel, and somehow, as if by magic, i knew every SINGLE lyric of EVERY song. My mom played it a lot in the car growing up, and i never really had an opinion of it one way or another. And now it totally brings me back.

I'm all for programming your kids. Just do it right.

[jcpeace]

this is actually a book-worthy thread topic and it can be approached from so many different angles (sociocultural, political, generational etc.) that i don't even know where to begin, except to say that i don't think that this can be painted with one generalized brush stroke. different factors take primacy with each generation and even the role of youth culture has transformed over the years.

whereas the 60s represented, somewhat, a confluence of aesthetic and political upheavals that manifested itself in a rapidly evolving role of popular music, which reflected the politics of the time; today it seems that the role of pop music is more of a reactionary force: prepackaged, simplistic,  and heavily compartmentalized. designed to limit and control. in today's culture you will never see an artistic statement the magnitude of Sergeant pepper, for instance (not that i really love that album) because the landscape has changed. look at what is popular now and draw your own conclusions.
in short: different generations= different cultural landscapes=different set of rules.

(stops himself from holdling forth on theodore adorno's theory of the reification of culture--you should be grateful:D)

i think that alot of these intergenerational dynamics really have alot to do with how one engages their children. i have "arty" friends who have raised very culturally sophisticated children by subtly limiting their exposure to crap culture and providing them with an alternative in a non authoritarian way. and i have my sister and brother -in-law who can't even put on a 60s-70s album without being ridiculed by my two nieces. like anything else, i think that it takes alot of work to raise culturally savvy kids. that's why i'll never have children!!!

when i was young i'd roll my eyes every time my parents put on the sinatra albums.
30+ years later, i have dissected every phase of his career. for me, i think this was a product of studying musical form, history and production.

no easy answers..........................

[TheFang]

I can comment perfectly on this because, well, my Dad did this with me.

My Dad is what could affectionately be called a "dirty hippie", he is a gigantic Dead Head and tried to force that and all of the music he liked onto me. 

This worked in some ways and didn't in others. As I got older I got massively into The Doors (still am. Man can that Jim Morrison help a kid thru high school) and stole all his albums. I also got into Blind Faith, The Band, Hendrix, Traffic, Janis, Beach Boys, Sabbath etc. But it also backfired in that I hate The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Mamas and The Papas and all that kinda stuff. Bleck.
Through listening to older stuff I also grew a great love for music that I thought of "as that time", but was very, very different to him that he hated. Pink Floyd being the big one.  But I explored and "discovered" Bowie, T.Rex (who he keeps telling me he saw back when they were Tyrannosaurus Rex and played dirty hippie music), Lou Reed, VU, The Animals, Ike and Tina, Sex Pistols, Stooges etc. etc. etc.

But I was also very keen to the popular music too when I was young. The first album that was bought for me was Thriller. My parents eventually told me that the vcr was broken and got rid of it because I was watching MJ videos constantly. (Y'know how some 3 year olds wanna watch their Barney videos over and over again, I was watching the making of Thriller over and over again.)

And as for the afore mentioned Grateful Dead, well, I think of them with a fantastic nostalgia for my Dad and the times we spent together when I was younger and how he would sing along in the car or to me in general. And for that they will always have a very special place in my heart.

Also, now I'm getting him into music of the "now" too, so it can go both ways. I've gotten him into The Black Keys, White Stripes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and all other sorts of things.

So that's my long ramble. Pretty much I say, take a chance and share your music with your kids, it will give you a special bond with them in that you're showing them that you are actually a person and that you had a life and a history before they came along.

[bdlaw]

Oh, no problem.

But you know what I'm talking about.

[Olewnick]

As long as you don't knock Gerry and the Pacemakers.

[bdlaw]

Touche.  I had thought of including that.

And also mentioning some of the TRULY horrific stuff from the early 60's.

[Olewnick]

But the reality of it is, mainstream radio quality (at least in my opinion) became even more dramatically homogenized from around 1989 to present, with today's (again, mainstream) music being an all time low water mark.

I'd say that was the second great homogenization in mainstream pop music, the first having occurred right after Woodstock, when it was driven home to any marginally conscious, greedy fool that there was much money to made off of this rock music stuff. '89 was around when MTV recognized that there existed black music besides Michael Jackson (sic) and the promise of bands like Public Enemy, Erik B & Rahim, etc. quickly slid away in favor of the nonthreatening Will Smith's of the world.

[bdlaw]

Well, if the majority of mainstream pop music for the last 15 years didn't SUCK ASS, maybe I would've been listening to "my own generation's" music.

But the reality of it is, mainstream radio quality (at least in my opinion) became even more dramatically homogenized from around 1989 to present, with today's (again, mainstream) music being an all time low water mark.

Again, this is all my opinion. Frankly, I'm happy that I listened to the Stones, the Clash, etc., in high school and college rather than the crap that was on Z100 circa '90-'98.

Interestingly, this is kind of like the debates we used to have about the canon- what makes something a "classic"?  Who determines that?

[CeeDub]

no premise - just observation of a trend, covered elsewhere.  please, continue to dicuss

[Olewnick]

It's a boomer phenomenon, entirely market-driven. When I see a 15-year old today digging (say) the Stones doing "Ruby Tuesday", my first reaction is, "Yikes! That song's 40 years old. In 1969, if I was going around humming Al Jolson, that would've been kinda creepy."

(otoh, if I'd been grooving to Ellington's late 20s band....)

It just strikes me as unnatural for several generations of people to be enjoying the same pop music. But everything the boomers have grown up with has become the standard, unfortunately. Instead of weeding out the valuable (arguable, of course) from any given period, everything that came from commercial pop recordings from the 50s and 60s (at least) is considered worthwhile and will eventually appear as the theme song in an upcoming Jennifer Aniston movie.

Speaks to the dearth of ideas in contemporary culture. I see a kid walking down the street with a blue mohawk and think, "What, it's 1975?" I don't recall, in 1969, wearing zoot suits.

[Bobblehead]

My 10 and under kids have no "reliable" source for their own musical tastes. If I didn't play the Ramones, Led Zep, Stan Getz, Delta 5, the Mikado, etc., and keep WFMU on, they'd be explosed only to Britney Spears and the Nickelodeon tunes all day long. Nothing wrong with giving them some history, some perspective, and some choice. We take turns deciding what CD goes in the player while driving.

My folks played lots of different stuff--Edith Piaf, Johnny Cash, classical, Neil Diamond. I *hated* Neil Diamond. Oh, how I hated it. But now, decades later, I have a certain nostalgia for that crazy freak, even though he did once kill a drifter, just to see what it felt like. 

When I was a teen, I chose my own music, and it ranged from Beatles to Queen to Clash to Jodie Foster's Army. I don't think my folks' musical tastes had much influence on what I did as a teen. I think your premise is flawed. 

[Skadave]

You can try to influence you children's musical taste as much as you can but in the end they will listen to what THEY think is cool. I thought TMBG would be great for children so i bought my niece a few of their albums when she was 7, i don't think she listened to any of them once.
She now likes greenday and it took her father and me a whole thanksgiving weekend to get her to listen to the clash. You can't believe how stubborn kids can be when they think something is not cool.

The theory that if you fill your house with a particular music during your kid's childhood to make them eventually embrace it has it's flaws too. I know countless people can't stand a certain performer or genre because their mother listened to that when they were growing up.


EDIT:

I think it was with nu metal where i started to see a new generation of music fans below me. It was the first time i thought "what the hell are kids listening to these days?"

[CeeDub]

What's up with the trend of infecting the next generation with your own musical tastes?  Why would a 14 year old boy really be into JonBonJovi if his mother hadn't force-fed him from an early age?  Why are these ankle-biters singing Dan Zanes' tunes?

What's so bad about the next generation having their own genre?

Post here to share your thoughts, your tastes, your own experience growing up (if you have yet) and how you are (or would) handle this most controversial aspect of child-rearing in hipsterville.

Once some traction is gain (crossed fingers) I will delight you with my own experiences . . .

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