what's wrong with liking "music your parents liked", anyway?

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So me and my friend Maria were hangin' on tha sk00lyard, talking music:

Her: "blah blah blah Elvis Costello blah blah"

Me: "blah blah Al Green blah blah blah"

...when this relatively young (looked about 30something) teacher comes up to me and says: "you like Al Green??"

Me: "Yes, Al's great!"

Him: "You shouldn't! You should like Eminem!"

Me (slightly freaked out): "I do! I like Eminem and Al Green!"

Him (noticing my friend's Rolling Stones CD): "and The Rolling Stones???

Her: "Yeah, they're my fave band."

Him: "but that stuff is music your parents liked!!

Her: *shrug*

I mean, on one hand the guy was obviously teasing us, but on the other he seemed genuinley upset- like we were betraying ourselves because we were listening to the music of another generation or something.

Funny thing is, I've gotten comments like this before, so it's not like he's a lone nuter or anything. So what exactly is wrong with liking old music, too? Isn't this whole "destroy the past" shtick kinda 1977? And what's the insistence on it being music "YOUR PARENTS listened to"? My parents are perfectly nice people, why am I not allowed to share their music taste?

Also, why are the people feeling dismayed over my old music geekdom always middle-aged themselves? All the people my age either 1) listen to loads of old shit themselves (which is the norm; we're not just talkin' music geeks here, either, the Nu Metal kids are always deep into Sabbath for instance) or 2) listen to only new music, but don't actually *mind* it if anyone else likes some 30 years old group or think that they're supposed to reprezent for their generation and destroy all the old stuff, either. I mean, ain't it kinda selfish to want to prevent Tha Kidz from enjoying stuff that you loved the first time around?

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 10:54 (twenty-two years ago)

grr, damn italics.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 10:58 (twenty-two years ago)

there's nothing wrong with liking it, but the biggest mistake is revivaling it ;)

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i think

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

It all depends on who your parents are and whom they liked.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

"the pop that kids listen to today is RUBBISH!! back in my day we listened to stuff which really annoyed the older generation"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

What's wrong with revivaling it?

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

revivals==nostalgia it's nice and alot of fun but its goddam boring to live serounded by revivalists, i think most musicions today are boring revivalists.
it's a 'luddits==amazingly hip' ideal wich is just revolting.
originality its what makes a progres, its the heart of what your gonna hear all over, 70 years later. i think thet revivals also == a musical stoppag and even laziness, it says that you'll have to wait longer for something as new && revolutionary as R&R, will take over this planet

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

not to mantion thet it's also incourages cultural blockage //i think

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 12:56 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah but the "it's gotta be new" idea is now extremely old?!

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

but i am sure thet the revival idea is much much much much older

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

*watches as huge truck drive AND herd of wildebeest charge serenely thru big hole in rex jr's logic*

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

by the way originality doesn't nesecerily mean quality and that you should like it. Throbbing Gristle was the most poinless noise imaginable but then we woudn't have nin,big black and yadayada if it wasn't for them.
my point in this post is->you don't have to like something just coz its original too

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

*watches as huge truck drive AND herd of wildebeest charge serenely thru big hole in rex jr's logic*
but isn't d4 an uspeakably boring band??

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

...but it's a given then that it's not wrong to like (some of) "the music your kids like"??

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:18 (twenty-two years ago)

HEY! i like the white stipes, the strokes i'm the biggest rock fan you'll find ;)

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:19 (twenty-two years ago)

mark s: what do you disagree here with and why?

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i am just dicking around w.you mainly

however revivals very often pick up on and explore aspects of the original which were overlooked

it's all good

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

btw, rex jr is not me, just as andy paltridge wasn't/isn't, but i wish i'd thought of both of them!

hilarious stuff! first-rate!

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a lot wrong with it if your parents were into Mantavoni and Liberace.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yea sure! take The Smiths for example, you'll have to be blind to miss their originality while in the same time revivaling glam
or The Fall for kroutrock/rockabilly revival, they're all included in the glorious list of Originals.

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

And I think it's a crime that so many young kids are NOT "revivaling" the older stuff, because otherwise they have no context for their own music. That doesn't mean they can't enjoy the new music without the old, but jeesh, at least be curious about where it came from.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

why jazzbo you have quite turned my position on this around with that refreshing opinion

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:34 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry that wz in response to yr mantovani crack

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, revive revivaling.

― Roger Fascist (Roger Fascist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents grew up in a period where there was such great music but apparently they didn't hear any of it. I was serious about the Liberace comment. My parents dragged me to see him when I was 10. I haven't yet recovered.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

R&R came from Blues hasn't it? rock is full of bluse context BUT yet R&R was O, it's not a blues revival is it?

and blablabla i have to stop posting ;)

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

No "Snobbery and Decay" by Act, i.e. greatest single EVAH made in human or other history, without the example of Liberace to precede/inspire it (or indeed Liberace to go on the cover of the 12").

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Gingerly opining...

I like Throbbing Gristle...

What was definition I read of rock and roll recently...a party music of the '50s and '60s, liberally lifted from the blues...? Sounds halfway right to me...

and I like Glenn Miller, whom my parents listened to along w/the usual boomer stuff, the Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, all that stuff...some of which I still like, some of which does strike me as New Frontier relics...just as some of the stuff I grew up with, new wave and punk, strikes me as Reagan-Thatcher-era relics...I love the Byrds and Big Star and Tom Petty and Radiohead, to me there seems to be a progression of sorts there, creative musicians tinker with what they know, if there's a tabula rasa I'd love for someone to tell me where it exists.

I for one wouldn't trust any kid who didn't rebel at least a little, and being dismissive of what your parents like is a good thing...when you're 15...but if you're still doing it when you're 25, you've not gotten much of an education...the history of every art movement is the history of successive revivals, tastemakers pointing out things that had been missed...so rexjr, if you are indeed a real person--as that old guy Jerry Lee Lewis still says, "think about it."

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:51 (twenty-two years ago)

marcello i need weblinks to the music made in this other history, it will provide the extra material i need to pad out my book

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

"R&R came from Blues" oh right, i should mention R&B too (in context to rock)

I WANT TO ROCK AND ROLL!

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Jess Hill: i agree with yr point there, but i gess you havn't been reading much of my posts here. i like the 50's and 60's coz they were the one of the most unboring eras
most revivalist today in my opinion are copiests, are you fond of copiests?
i don't consider radiohead much of a revivalist they're O but not like Sonic Youth
i'm a kid but i learning the history like an obsessive junky, i'll never get bored by the Byrds and stooges or yes Can ever.
they're important!
inventing or reinventing (what you called a revealing revival) is all Classic Originality. any disagreenments?

i'm a real person btw and never post under a different nick

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been blessed with parents who have awesome taste in music, and have shared it with me. We've had a great trade-off of music exposing over the years: my dad got me on Fishbone, I got him on Primus; my mom got me on Tom Waits, I got her on Tori Amos.

...I got her on Tori Amos...mmmmmm

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

What's with all the sneering on this thread?

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:35 (twenty-two years ago)

with all thet i said on my last post, the artists who borrow less and manage to 'kickass' win

sorry for the multiple posting, im never able to finish a thout hehe

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

hi doomie.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

i just like 'new'er stuff better, its just thet alot of revivalists just don't even try to get their own groove, they think: if i'll sound like Led Zepplin i'll be the best but it's much more greater if someone sez: "i want to be as great as Led Zepplin" and thus as original

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

My Old Man(n)'s pretty cool. Played a lot of good blues/jazz/some rock in the house while I was growing up, so that by the time my school friends were all into the Doors and other assorted sixties regurgitating, I was all "Dudes, that's so middle school"

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

is it all bullshit my posts? anybody disagrees?

my hand is tierd can pos n mo

― curious rex, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

hi doomie.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

whats doomie?

― curious rex, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

hehehe!

we are all trying to guess who's who here!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:20 (twenty-two years ago)

tom- read all IP addresses and satisfy our curiosity plz.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:21 (twenty-two years ago)

why woun't anyone belive me thet i'm a newbie LOL
i don't post eva i don't even like forums hehe, but posted my opinionz out enyway of bordom hehe

― im not rex, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

take it back, doomie's a million times funnier and more interesting than this.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

"take it back, doomie's a million times funnier and more interesting than this. "

thank you

― rexy, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

not at all doomie.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

what's wrong with liking "music your parents liked", anyway?

Helen Reddy, REO Speedwagon and Julio Iglesias, that's what's wrong with it.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Why?

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

a clue below

― im not doomie, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

'Originality' as a hallmark of quality. Yes. But all this flags is the original treatment of some existing influence or influences, because no idea is just born autonomously. Any artist takes what was and makes something new. So revivals, per se, are nothing bad. Blind imitation, lacking in originality, may be deemed inferior. But reinvention, the spirit of which drives a 'revivalist' piece, is as original as the original was original, if it is good and true. And it may have deeper resonance, actually, than something so original that it no longer is recognisable. If you hear something that is in some way 'derivative', you are put in mind of that from which it derives. It gives you context, allows you to place what you hear, and gives a rounder aesthetic experience.

What a load of baloney!

― mick hall (mick hall), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"What a load of baloney!" was you talking about what i said?
maybe. i got a bit carried away there, i usually do thet ;)

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Highly dubious premise in original q. is 'seemed genuinely upset'

― dave q, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

mick hall: reading your whole comment gave me the impression thet you havn't read all my posts on this thread.
i made the same point you made here as well

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing wrong with liking music your parents like, but I have to acknowledge the only type of music I blatantly don't like is a lot of my mom's favorite folkie stuff. If I yell "fuck you" to a musician on the TV screen, James Taylor or Simon & Garfunkel are probably on it.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

nobody has yet made a comment on my posts i disagree with, so what is it? whats wrong in my posts?
i get it you all dig the revivaling and i don't, i never said anithing about influences, if motorhead takes punk and heavy metal and Invents thrash metal thats Purly genious and yeas Original to me
so whats wrong with what i wrote?

― rex jr., Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

i have to agree with the sentiment that parents are more likely to dislike something their kids like rather than the opposite.

of course, both can grow.

i think the age sterotypes have some basis in truth. i just see older folks being more inclined to stick to the circles they know than venture out. they've found their likes and dislikes and so new stuff is catagorized and approached and avoided based on characteristics. younger folks are still taking it all in. they're more likely to to bludgeon themselves.

my parents tend to like the stuff i listen to as long as it's not inherently violent or lyrically offensive. they liked stereolab. they liked autechre ("amber" if you're curious). my dad heard me listening to lightning bolt and played the "cool" dad and said that it sounded neat but did make some sort of "john deer" comment i can't quite remember to repeat.

the violence and language issues point to the ever-growing circle of shock. elvis was shocking with his hips. the beatles and stones with their drugs and sex. now it's the violence of hardcore. the horror aspects inherited from ozzy and alice cooper and propagated on. our parent's were scared of pretend violence while their parents were scared of damnation.

what will we be scared of?

― msp, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

My Dad liked Ray Conniff, it was bad. There's something VERY wrong with liking it.

― matt riedl (veal), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

My dad liked jazz. I like jazz.

My mom likes Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra & classical music. I don't mind any of those.

My mom also likes Kenny Rogers. I do not like his music very much. Once my mom made me turn off a Gram Parsons CD when I tried to explain to her that I DO like country, just not "She Believes In Me."

I like lots and lots of music from when my parents were young (1940s through 1960s, basically) that my parents have not actually heard.

― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I like lots and lots of music from when my parents were young (1940s through 1960s, basically) that my parents have not actually heard.

Same for me, except add "grandparents" and "1920s through 1940s."

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

My mom's music is getting lamer by the second. In the old days, I could at least count on her for Beatles and Stones LPs. My dad as better taste, though even he is showing the effects of serious old-person narrow-mindedness disease. Personally, I'd rather ask my parents what's so wrong about liking *my* music?

― dleone (dleone), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Marcello: he's really not doomie, at least by ips. He's just rex, as far as I can tell, so lay off pls.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 21:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Ray Coniff's not that bad, big inspiration on Eno for starters.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 21:30 (twenty-two years ago)

It makes my dad so happy that I like a lot of the music he does (except the new Neil Young album, AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL) that he doesn't complain about listening to my music that he hates on long car drives sometimes. Therefore, it's a good thing. (My mom's music on the other hand....)

― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I for one wouldn't trust any kid who didn't rebel at least a little

What if you were too busy rebelling against your peers to bother with your parents? And what if your parents didn't really give you anything to, you know, rebel against? I can't really think of ANYTHING that i could've done that would've really pissed my parents off (well, I suppose robbing a bank or taking up heroin could've done the trick, but that's not "at least a little" really, is it?)

Highly dubious premise in original q. is 'seemed genuinely upset'

Yeah, I know, written down it pretty much seems like he was kidding, but it didn't feel that way somehow.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Thursday, 27 February 2003 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

you guys missed my point! why you keep puting words in my mouth all the time?

― rex jr., Thursday, 27 February 2003 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Most people aren't 'rebelling' against parents' taste - the wavelength of pop taste is way shorter than a generation - it's much more likely to be older siblings, or the kids who were older and cool and resented at school when you were young and ignored; what gets called rebellion against parents is a reaction to the entire environment I reckon.

Of course people like to freak their parents out too but music has only sometimes been the vector for this - also it's often/usually the ways of liking the music, i.e. liking emo will not faze parents; makeoutclub.com might.

(And a lot of the parent/sibling-baiting is imaginary anyway. I didn't play NWA to my Mum and say "HA HA LISTEN UP MUM ITS NWA" but imagining her reaction if she but knew may have given a frisson)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 27 February 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i think my parents are mostly freaked out that i like a lot of the same music as them.

― di smith (lucylurex), Thursday, 27 February 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

My partners teenage daughter seems to like pretty much the same bland, unchellenging, homogenised, mainstream pap as my parents - all three of them seem to think that most the stuff we listen to is at best "weird"....

I think I actually get most pleasure now out of freaking her out than I ever did out of freaking my parents out when I was a teenager.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Most of the parents I know have FAR FAR FAR better taste in music than their kids do.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 27 February 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

me and my folks have a bit of overlap in tastes. off the top of my head the beatles, prefab sprout, radiohead, and pulp come to my mind. among many others, i'm sure. but they ruin it by frequently playing lighthouse family records :-(

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 27 February 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

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