Doug B
Footballguy
When my wife drives the kids around, she usually has in on a contemporary Top 40 station. Lots of Maroon 5, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Megan Trainor, etc. And my kids -- 8-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter -- like these songs plenty, as much as other kids their age.
But when I drive the kids around, we listen to one of either (a) the local 1980s station, (b) the local classic rock station, or ( c) the local "oldies" station [1960s-80s Top 40]. They've been turned on to a lot of older music, enough to ask questions about artists' names and song titles so that they can check out more on YouTube.
Here are some interesting and surprising takes they have on old-school music that they get to approach without any burnout factor or negative peer pressure:
- My son thinks pre-Vital Signs Survivor is like Zeppelin or The Who. Kid loves "Eye of the Tiger" ... thinks it's a rocking, rousing, get-the-blood-pumping kind of song and he completely overlooks any cheese factor that might be present. Huge fan of "Burning Heart" from Rocky IV, as well.
- Son is also big in general on hard-driving 80s rock. Scorpions, Hagar, Van Halen, etc. But to his fresh ears, Loverboy and Toto are in this same class of groups, too -- "Turn Me Loose" and "Hold the Line" are big favorites.
- Son also like a lot of post-new-wave synth work. Examples would be Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok" and the Pet Shop Boys "Opportunities". Gets into Tears for Fears and Howard Jones, too. Loves "Take On Me", but every time it comes on ... he has to blurt out "Hit it, Mr. Butters ..."
- He likes to watch the Jimmy Fallon music spoofs online. Accordingly, he thinks of Bruce Springsteen as the "I Whip My Hair guy", and has kind of conflated The Doors with the Reading Rainbow theme song .
- Daughter is huge into The Beatles and Stones, and has been since she was a toddler. "Sympathy for the Devil" was the "Wooh Wooh! Song". She got this kids' book about the history of the Beatles in second grade, and then went and looked some more stuff on her own. It's unusual to run into a sixth-grader that can tell you all about the Abbey Road cover shoot, or the relationships of Eric Clapton and Billy Preston to the band.
- Building on the above, she also celebrates pretty much every Paul McCartney song she hears on the radio (Beatles tunes where Paul was on lead vox, Wings stuff, solo, duets, etc.). The interesting thing to me is that, from her perspective, there was no time when McCartney jumped the shark, so to speak. She can listen to "Say Say Say", and categorize that alongside "Coming Up", "Paperback Writer", "Silly Love Songs", etc. All go in the "Paul McCartney" bucket.
- Daughter likes synth-pop too, though she appreciates the earlier-80s new wave work more than my son does. She especially thinks The Flock of Seagulls were brilliant -- she was hooked young by the bird-song opening of the album version of "I Ran", as well as tracks like "Wishing (Photograph of You)". Duran Duran and Human League are also faves.
- Speaking of Duran Duran: I often tell her that they were the One Direction of their day ... that the same way her classmates were fawning over Harry and Liam, mine were fawning over Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes. She usually says back that Duran Duran's music is way better than 1D's and Five Seconds of Summer's, and that Duran Duran could actually play their own instruments.
- Last anecdote: my daughter grew to have an appreciation of Phil Collins' work after watching Tarzan and being into the soundtrack. That segued into me pointing out "The Tarzan guy" whenever a Collins' song came on the radio. Several years later, she loves most of his vocal work -- "ABACAB", "Misunderstanding", "Sussudio", "Invisible Touch", etc. ... all in the same bucket. She thinks of "In the Air Tonight" as a cool haunting tune, a huge diversion for Collins's musically, and proof of his versatility (true enough, I suppose).
Okay, okay, this has gotten into TL;DR territory. But I am thinking that there a lot of good stories out there about how your kids approach old-school music -- especially regarding how they get to listen to it fresh, without our generation's memory-laden baggage.
But when I drive the kids around, we listen to one of either (a) the local 1980s station, (b) the local classic rock station, or ( c) the local "oldies" station [1960s-80s Top 40]. They've been turned on to a lot of older music, enough to ask questions about artists' names and song titles so that they can check out more on YouTube.
Here are some interesting and surprising takes they have on old-school music that they get to approach without any burnout factor or negative peer pressure:
- My son thinks pre-Vital Signs Survivor is like Zeppelin or The Who. Kid loves "Eye of the Tiger" ... thinks it's a rocking, rousing, get-the-blood-pumping kind of song and he completely overlooks any cheese factor that might be present. Huge fan of "Burning Heart" from Rocky IV, as well.
- Son is also big in general on hard-driving 80s rock. Scorpions, Hagar, Van Halen, etc. But to his fresh ears, Loverboy and Toto are in this same class of groups, too -- "Turn Me Loose" and "Hold the Line" are big favorites.
- Son also like a lot of post-new-wave synth work. Examples would be Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok" and the Pet Shop Boys "Opportunities". Gets into Tears for Fears and Howard Jones, too. Loves "Take On Me", but every time it comes on ... he has to blurt out "Hit it, Mr. Butters ..."
- He likes to watch the Jimmy Fallon music spoofs online. Accordingly, he thinks of Bruce Springsteen as the "I Whip My Hair guy", and has kind of conflated The Doors with the Reading Rainbow theme song
.- Daughter is huge into The Beatles and Stones, and has been since she was a toddler. "Sympathy for the Devil" was the "Wooh Wooh! Song". She got this kids' book about the history of the Beatles in second grade, and then went and looked some more stuff on her own. It's unusual to run into a sixth-grader that can tell you all about the Abbey Road cover shoot, or the relationships of Eric Clapton and Billy Preston to the band.
- Building on the above, she also celebrates pretty much every Paul McCartney song she hears on the radio (Beatles tunes where Paul was on lead vox, Wings stuff, solo, duets, etc.). The interesting thing to me is that, from her perspective, there was no time when McCartney jumped the shark, so to speak. She can listen to "Say Say Say", and categorize that alongside "Coming Up", "Paperback Writer", "Silly Love Songs", etc. All go in the "Paul McCartney" bucket.
- Daughter likes synth-pop too, though she appreciates the earlier-80s new wave work more than my son does. She especially thinks The Flock of Seagulls were brilliant -- she was hooked young by the bird-song opening of the album version of "I Ran", as well as tracks like "Wishing (Photograph of You)". Duran Duran and Human League are also faves.
- Speaking of Duran Duran: I often tell her that they were the One Direction of their day ... that the same way her classmates were fawning over Harry and Liam, mine were fawning over Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes. She usually says back that Duran Duran's music is way better than 1D's and Five Seconds of Summer's, and that Duran Duran could actually play their own instruments.
- Last anecdote: my daughter grew to have an appreciation of Phil Collins' work after watching Tarzan and being into the soundtrack. That segued into me pointing out "The Tarzan guy" whenever a Collins' song came on the radio. Several years later, she loves most of his vocal work -- "ABACAB", "Misunderstanding", "Sussudio", "Invisible Touch", etc. ... all in the same bucket. She thinks of "In the Air Tonight" as a cool haunting tune, a huge diversion for Collins's musically, and proof of his versatility (true enough, I suppose).
Okay, okay, this has gotten into TL;DR territory. But I am thinking that there a lot of good stories out there about how your kids approach old-school music -- especially regarding how they get to listen to it fresh, without our generation's memory-laden baggage.
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Is "Tarzan Boy" OK?
but the bolded part is especially fun w/teenagers. The look of :mindblown: when they find out the greatest song ever invented in the last 3 minutes isn't original is great.
