Kids listening to old music

My kids aren't stealing my Zeppelin and Beatles LP's yet.

But not my Panda Bear or Bon Iver or Kendrick Lamar LP's either. I think my music is still in that "icky Dad" phase, for them. Worst thing I can do is actually start listening to / enjoying the music they like.

 

I know my dad brainwashing me by playing music in the car as long as I can remember did the trick.

 

Kids also pickup great songs from Movies, TV shows or even commercials and explore from there....

 

the execs already have it figured out.

the execs simply push out more of what sold bazillions last time.

the problem with today's music is largely the fault of the huge mass audience that continues to buy it.

 

What do you play?

 

#oldpeoplelisteningtooldmusic

 

I know a lot of people ages 10--25. Not a single one of them likes any old music. They either barely can stand it when the old people put it on, or they don't stand it. They leave the room when it starts playing.

The myth that the music of 1964-76 is so great that today's young people just love it, is a myth, from my personal experience.

It doesn't count if your three year old, or six year old, likes it. Little kids like anything you like. Somewhere between ages 10-13, they start disliking all of your music, in my experience.

We can all name the one kid who is 17 and has Little Feat bootleg downloads, but that kid is considered a social outcast and a weirdo by his peers, if they know about his weird musical tastes.

 

I play tenor sax, but what he heard me spinning was the LP: Louis Prima-The Wildest! Featuring the great Sam Butera on sax. :-D

There is a great sounding CD version of the album mastered by our host! I have that one too.

 

yup, 1000 likes to this. Mirrors my own personal experience, and, from what I've seen, this forum is

wait for it

<GASP>

not the norm.


We're watching this funny new show on netflix, Shameless. William Macy plays this drunk father to a large family and one night he's playing some old Cream song, a great song. Suddenly he's interrupted by younger people who demand he stop playing that old crap and play some cool new stuff and they immediately put on, you guessed it, some unmelodic and generally designed to annoy the crap out of old people, RAP.

Hey I understand. Young people dont wanna hear their old mans music.

But seriously.... rap over Cream?

um, no, not in my house, ever.

but that's just me.

 

I wonder if some of this is because, perhaps, some people's ears respond better to music that is more...human, meaning not all digitally-produced and "perfected" with studio software. I like plenty of current music, but my ears find a lot of newer stuff more sterile somehow. Too "perfect" and lacking in dynamics and warmth.

Sorry to go OT, but I love this show. I recommend the original British version of the show as well. It at least used to be available on netflix. The English Frank is off the rails. Macy's yank Frank at least has some redeeming qualities; UK Frank is utterly unredeemable, but you still love him.

 

to put another wrinkle in this thread

another theory about all this. My eldest daughter grew up with me playing in bands and so she was immersed for years in music. I played rock and country but we listened to all kinds of things.

Several years ago she rejected it ALL. She told me, "your generations music is all based in blues. Blues are boring."

I got to thinking about this. The blues is a wide-ranging style and in my opinion, is also responsible for many, or even most, parts of rock and roll.

Rock and Roll Band 101 - lesson one - how to make your rock band "swing" - bass player follows the kick drum, guitar follows the snare.

Sure not all rock bands do this. Zeppelin often did not. But as a rule, it works, if you want that Boom Crack Boom Crack backbeat thing.

I listen to a lot of the music she likes. Electronica, Bjork, EDM, rap.

THERE'S NO SWING. Anywhere. Its totally linear.

Its quite odd and now I'm noticing it in a LOT of modern things. Many rap things are rhythmically linear (Altho many are not).

I know she is just one person and I dont think she represents an entire generation. I'm thinking as soon as she hears any kind of swing or shuffle, she thinks "this is old and I hate it".

 

Repay them with some Nick Cave.

 

When I tell my kids they should listen to some good old music instead of their hip/hop crap they tell me I'm close minded and not flexible. However when I point out that's not true because even though I"m in my 50's I listen to a lot of stuff (maybe majority) that came out before I was even born (delta and country blues, traditional jazz, etc) they tell me I'm weird. So you can't win with younger crowd no matter what cause facts don't seem to matter.

 

I can say from my experience as somebody actually in the age group that this is far from the case. Sure, it isn't nessecarily cool, but that's just because nobody really cares. And that's what it really comes down to, even the "cool kids" don't care at all about other kids' tastes in music. Or at least, that's not what makes you "cool". I never hear anybody at school going "Oh, you listen to that *insert old band here* crap? What a weirdo!" People just don't care if you listen to what's popular or not. So bottom line, music is music. Some kids like old music, some kids like new music, and some kids don't know that they like something because they don't know it exists.

 

I have a theory about this from watching my 17 year old daughter's evolving choice of music.

When I was younger, the primary source for new music was the radio. Our DJ's curated the experience for us and suggested new music that we might like. Aside from a random "oldie" that might be thrown into the mix, if we listened to a current station we got nothing but current music. The reason why my generation is so stuck on radio is that it was our version of the Social Network (to quote Ellen Goldfarb).

My daughter's generation gets music from a variety of sources. Therefore, not only does she access a much more eclectic mix of styles and genres of new music, but she also has access to pretty well the entire history of recorded music (from You Tube). Her peers will learn a "new" song from a TV show or movie, but also from a commercial advert or a podcast or a jukebox show like The Voice and video games (as well as the radio). And, of course, she's a captive audience when I am driving and listening to music.

When she decided she liked Simon and Garfunkel, she copied my entire S&G collection from my iTunes to hers. I would estimate that she listens to 75% new music and 25% "oldies" of some kind.

Edit: also she and her friends share "playlists" so she gets that curated experience. I think, at this age, they are proud of not being in the mainstream so they share their oddball tastes. (Just one Dads theory).

 

My 8-year old has some oldies on her iPod Touch mixed in with her various kids's songs. My wife once played her "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," and my daughter fell in love with it. By watching that video on YouTube, it led her to discover "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" by Middle of the Road. She also has a Beatles playlist, and we have a video of her at 4 singing "Hello Goodbye."

My influence on her? Hearing her randomly singing "We are the robots! We are the robots!" when she was just 4. Within a year, she had picked up the chorus to "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses from hearing it one time in my car when Sirius was playing. She found the "sucker!" part particularly funny.

 

Bring back the generation gap....

 

Was born in 1954, so I was in H.S. in the "Woodstock Era" with all of the huge rock bands taking over everywhere. Me? I was into Sinatra, Dean Martin, Herb Alpert...just for starters. I was NOT well-received among peers. I hope these kids finding their tastes in music are far different than their classmates are having an easier time with it than I did. Hopefully, times and acceptance have changed.

 

...said most parents in 1964 when those long-haired weirdos from England were shouting "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!".

 

I do not believe that all young people don't like old music, as said by a lot of forum members above. I think everyone is different, so there are people who don't like music at all, people who like certain kind of genres and people who like a lot of genres.

I have 2 kids who like all kinds of music, and also some of the kids of my friends like a lot of both new and old music. I think it comes down to
A) do you like music or find it somehow important? And, if yes…
B) are you in an environment that gives you the opportunity to hear a lot of different music.

I was raised in a family where a lot of different music got played. My wife too. We've always played a lot of different music. And my kids both love music and like a lot of different genres and styles. For me this is normal, but probably I'm just enormously lucky with such a family.

 

Nothing makes you feel better than walking up to the front door after coming home from work and hearing my 13 year old son blasting Springsteen or The Who.

Every time we get into a fight I just smile and put on Independence Day from The River and he sits there listening to it and then turns and smiles to me.

"Now I don't know what it always was with us
We chose the words, and yeah, we drew the lines
There was just no way this house could hold the two of us
I guess that we were just too much of the same kind"

Makes the old man proud...

 

WGAF what kids are listening to........................my parents didn't care, and their parents before them didn't care.

Sincerely, a Jones Era Baby Boomer with a 30 year old and 26 year old.

 

A minority of people will listen to music for something that appeals to them; most people listen to music because it appeals to others, namely their friends and peer group. It is not good for children to be divorced from their peer group in a major way; that is something better for adulthood, if the circumstances foster it, when you have the maturity not to be depressed by it.

 

One more thought. Our musical "vocabulary" is created when we are young. Anything outside of that vocabulary we have to learn to appreciate. I grew up on Rock and Soul. It was easy to like the Ramones when I first heard them as it was only a different take on what I already knew. But it was only in my later twenties that I started to develop an appreciation for Sinatra as it wasn't part of my vocabulary.

My daughter grew up being force fed my music as that is what was played in the house when she was very young. Even the new music she listens to that I am unfamiliar with doesn't sound radically different from music that I listen to. Yes, it's modern and has a very different approach, but it's roots are similar to the 80's dance music I listened to or the goth stuff from the 80's or the punk/grunge stuff from the 90's (which was part of her vocabulary when she was very young).

When I was very young, the music in the house that I had access to was Soundtracks, Herb Alpert and Italian records - but we also had a Supremes hits disc, a Platters hits disc and Meet The Beatles. Not a big leap to cite that "vocabulary" in brand new music that I enjoy today. I think it is the same for my daughter.