Saturday Deluxe / 11 August 2018
Bluetooth Ache
The fight to control the music in the holiday hire car
There’s nothing like being on holiday and having the whole family together in a rental car to bring to the fore ‘discussions’ about music. This happened to me recently as my eldest daughter (15) was grumpily decreeing that she didn’t want to listen to “old man’s music” and insisting that she ‘pairs’ mum’s phone (which had some of her favourite artists on it) via bluetooth to the vehicle’s audio system, so we can listen to her stuff. No way, Jose. I’m the driver, I’m in charge (and no one else can work out how to use the stereo anyway!).
This kind of music debate would not normally be an issue, since Grace would have her own phone and shove her earphones in, and be in her own world, but that phone was now lost, presumed stolen, in Naples, and she was ‘forced’ to listen to what I was playing.
I had very hastily cobbled together a Spotify playlist and ensured it was downloaded on my iPhone (to protect my roaming data) and I must admit, the selections were semi-random bringing together tracks from recent-ish albums I like (Beck, U2) with things like Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence!
It was really amusing to witness initial frosty distain (“ugh, skip this one”) turn into actual requests to hear certain tracks again! Here are my ‘findings’…
• EVERYONE loved Beck‘s ‘No Distractions’, from his most recent (and truly brilliant) album Colors. We got dangerously close to a group family singalong, the likes of which hadn’t been heard since my two daughters were very small and the days of ‘The Wheels On The Bus’, or ‘Ten Green Bottles’!
• I would have put money on Barry Gibb‘s excellent ‘Star Crossed Lovers’ (from his In The Now album) being dismissed as syrupy dross by my offspring, but no…. that too got the thumbs up! Evidence surely, that a good melody and lyric, written and performed by one of the all-time greats, casts a powerful spell and easily bridges generational divides.
• Joan As Police Woman‘s ‘Tell Me’ was an easy win, since I’ve played it a lot around the house and there’s something about the repetitiveness and simplicity of the chorus that connects easily with youngsters (also included on the playlist was ‘Valid Jagger’, from the same album, Damned Devotion).
• Crosby & Nash‘s Immigration Man was only partially accepted. My other daughter (Esme, 11) absolutely loved it, but Grace didn’t (although I suspect this was more a reaction to her sister liking it, so she ‘had’ to dislike it. I spent some time educating the kids about how this was a true story based on Graham Nash’s experiences (they pretended to be interested in this unwanted detail).
• David Bowie‘s ‘Dollar Days’ (from Blackstar) just didn’t work in the car. It’s a bit too subtle and it seemed to easily disappear into road noise and the blast of the air conditioning (“what’s this we’re listening to?”). I do really like the song, but even I was skipping it regularly after a while.
• I have become rather obsessed with Gabrielle Papillion‘s 2017 Keep The Fire album. It’s probably my most played album in the last year or so. It’s an AMAZING record. Anyway, I put Deep In The Earth on my playlist and it went down really well. The chorus in particular sounds great.
• Marina and the Diamonds ‘I’m A Ruin’ from FROOT is a brilliant pop song and it’s an established family favourite, after I belatedly discovered this album in 2016. I put this on to lull them into a false sense of security!
• No one, except me, liked Matthew Sweet‘s ‘Divine Intervention’. I found this annoying, because I love this song, but perhaps ‘Girlfriend’ would have been a better choice. Either way, I’m not sure the spiky, guitary production works that well in the car. Blind Melon‘s ‘Toes Across The Floor’ (from Soup) was also rejected too. Hmm. Can’t win ’em all.
• Neil Finn‘s Song Of The Lonely Mountain is amazing. A reminder (if any is needed) of how good a songwriter Neil is. Consider the fact that the dire Skyfall won Adele the Oscar for best song in 2013 and Song Of The Lonely Mountain wasn’t even nominated. Ridiculous. Anyway, this was a major success. A great one to pretend to bang an anvil to. My only error was to include the ‘extended version’ which has two minutes of instrumental noodling at the end, which no one wants to listen to whizzing down an Italian motorway.
• By far and away the thing I got a kick out of most, was that Grace and Esme both LOVED Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian‘s ‘Forbidden Colours’ from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. I had also included the first track on that soundtrack album, the instrumental Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (which is surely one of the best pieces of film music, ever) but the one they liked was Forbidden Colours, with the singing and counter melody. I’ve always thought that Sylvian being able to turn this into a ‘song’ was an achievement of the highest order, since it seemed perfect as an instrumental.
So there we have it. There is hope for the next generation. I know this was more than a fleeting ‘let’s humour dad’ situation, because when we got back home, Grace was asking me the details of some of these tracks and adding it to her own playlists! I should add that in the spirit of openness we did also listen to some of Grace’s favourite artists, some of which I quite enjoyed!
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Well, Paul, you seem to be having a little more luck with the youngsters than I am. We have three sixteen-year-old boys (triplets) and they are currently in the phase of only liking rap and edgy hip-hop. In their early years, they liked a lot of what I listened to (mostly early ’80s new wave and popular artists), and then we found common ground in some then-current groups like The Script and fun. Now, though, they won’t even consider listening to anything I even vaguely like.
So I play opera.
Granted, I work in the world of opera and actually do have to listen to some opera for my job, but it’s fun right now simply because I enjoy it and they hate it. Since Prince, Madonna, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and the like have all been met with scorn, Puccini and Donizetti it is.
I don’t normally comment and I have been hooked on this website now for about 3 years…. Well done Paul, this is a brilliant site!!
Despite not having tonnes of time to listen to music these days, I still love music and am always keen to listen to new stuff, but if I have a preference with my limited time, I always go back to something comfortable, someone or a band I have loved for years… I will listen to new music, but with new music being so accessible (and disposable) these days – if it doesn’t catch me straight away… I don’t tend to play it again (despite knowing some of my favourite albums not liking at first and taking 6, 7, or 8 plays before they hit their stride with me and I started to appreciate them)!! There must be loads of fantastic albums I have missed out on over the years, just because after 1 play I wasn’t feeling it!! This is sad, but “back in the day” when the choice was either vinyl or cassette, I only had enough money to buy one album every 2 to 4 weeks, so I always made sure I got my monies worth!!
Anyway, the reason I am posting is just to say I replicated your Playlist and played it in the car yesterday on my way to a footy match…. Bloody loved it!! Thank you… As I say, always after something new or different to challenge myself a bit…. Stand out track on first play (of the tracks I didn’t already know and enjoy) was definitely Gabrielle Papillon…. And will definitely be giving that album more air time!!
Thanks for all of the good work and long may it continue!!
Avid reader and fan, Matt (47 years young)
Thanks very much Matt! Paul (48 years young).
Smuggled my daughter into a Prince afterparty in 2007. She was 17. She still rated it second to Paramore.
Ugh. I don’t know how you guys do it. I’m almost 46 and I find listening exclusively to the music of my youth exhausting and dull. Even the Mount Rushmore of acts from my youth are fully spent. I find I’m quickly bored listening to what I regard as my all time favorite albums. I’ve heard those songs way too many times. Obviously, I’m on a website that celebrates expensive reissues of music that is long past its sell-by date, so I’m aware I’m in the minority here.
There are plenty of current acts that are well beyond the pap that is circulated in mainstream culture. It was like that when we were young and it is the same today. Now, as then, you have to hunt down the quality. And you also have to get over the desire to treat your nostalgia as validation. Yes, the era produced some good stuff, but why on earth would you want to condemn your children to experiencing music from your own era when they could live in and validate their own time? You might also find yourself not feeling quite so old and redundant if you spent a bit more time chasing down contemporary music that is equally meaningful. The subject matter is no more or less portentous than it was when we were the relevant demographic.
We don’t want to feel that what we experienced and love is redundant in the modern era. We don’t want to feel discarded by the march of progress. We want to feel our cultural contributions will last and that we will be remembered. But expecting a teenage girl from any era to appreciate the nuances of Tom Waits, including the era he created it in, is a tall order and there’s a lot of music on that list that would find boring and useless too. Arguing matters of taste is stupid. Qualifying or condemning the youth for validating or rejecting your music is classic old man stuff.
As interesting as i found reading your pov on this subject Michael, i still disagree with you.
I don’t think that still liking music i first listened to 30 years ago is necessarily a matter of nostalgia but can also mean that lots of these records are simply good and thus of artistic value not only to the people who had the luck of being born before those records were released.
If we agree that music from the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart etc. is of high musical quality and still a great experience for open-eared listeners of any age then it’s only a small step to regard the music written by the likes of Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Brian Wilson, Goffin/King or Dwight/Taupin (to name but a few) as timeless too.
I’m thinking that cultural education of my 9-year- old is part of the education i’m supposed to give him.
You have to show your children your musical tastes and hope that they’ll recognise great music when hearing it.
Their peer groups will expose them early enough to modern stuff i suppose, so try and give them a cultural compass for as long as they’ll let you do so.
Can see your point Alan, but personally I think these days it actually goes beyond ‘classic old man stuff’…
This generation of teenagers is being ripped off – and it’s a complete f*cking injustice perpetrated by glorified accountants.
On a seperate note, I can’t help but feel that kids who disregard art made in a different era are just a bit lazy and blinkered… I adored exploring and discovering the work of acts from earlier than the 90’s (when I was busy starting to build my own musical education). You’re missing out on 99% of the best stuff (and countless potential adventures) if you don’t.
I don’t think anything in Paul’s article suggested “old music” was being “forced” on his children. I also don’t think there’s anything about being in a position where you wind up having to hear your parents music is exactly abusive by any means. The first records I listened to were my mother’s, and I still have an appreciation of Motown, the Beatles, Elvis, and other acts because of it. And tastes that didn’t match those still grew from there. And when I reached the point that I started discovering some of my own favorite artists, she wound up loving (some of) them too.
I love music from twenty or thirty years before I was born just as much as I love music being released right now. I think Paul makes the perfect point that, regardless of record label and radio insistence that the only music today’s youth are willing to consider relevant has to be made within the last six weeks by people under 25 is yet one more Big Media Lie. It certainly wasn’t true of me or my friends when we were in our teens, and given the opportunity to experience a range of music, I don’t think it’s true of current youth either.
As far as “forcing” people in my car to listen to my songs, I actually have a decal on the bumper of my car that is the one overwhelming rule of riding with me: “Driver Picks the Music, Shotgun Shuts His Cakehole.” (Which comes from the TV show, Supernatural.)
My 10 year old de facto nephew really enjoyed Stefano Torossi & Sandro Brugnolini’s 1969 Library album ‘Musica Per Commenti Sonori’ that I was playing when he visited last summer, particularly the funky opening track ‘Sweet-Beat’
https://youtu.be/SYsPyLN7pfg
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Musica-Commenti-Sonori-Brugnolini-Torrossi/dp/B01JSAJ38W
Took my 9 year old daughter to see Pat Metheny last week. She loved the experience but missed any singing! Yesterday, she said she liked what she was hearing in the car – the Wild Beasts Boy King CD. Totally different reaction though when we switched to pop radio – absolute glee singing along to the Drew Barrymore song! Listening to her station has exposed me to many current songs that I do like. Always a pop music fan, now in my 40s. Also, a huge Sylvian fan – since my teens – will see what she thinks of him… Think I will get Dolby/ Sakamoto’s Fieldwork cued up also. We have a car trip coming up and you’ve got me thinking Paul. Great post.
Hello Paul, when you come in Italy, in the middle, you are always welcome !
Thank you :)
My 22 year old daughter accused me of being obsessed by Marina when I got into her first album and played it all the time but then she got into her with her second album and we both (in separate cities) went to see her on the Froot tour.
For the long-term music fan the family car journey is a whole new arena of conflict and compromise. The only advice I can offer is that the threat of playing Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ on a loop for 3.5 hours tends to keep the little bastards in line.
Kudos to your daughter for finding Sylvian palatable, Paul. Hope for the future and good genetic stock, evidently ;) The first time I played ‘Secrets of the Beehive’ to the woman who is now my wife, the response was: “Is he singing like that on purpose or is there something wrong with him?”
Remarkably we are still together 15 years later. But then, she’s usually in charge of playlists on long car journeys…
My wife had a similar comment when I made the mistake of trying to play Tom Waits’ “Alice” in the car once…
The girl I was seeing immediately before I met my wife had really slagged off Julia Fordham after a Top of the Pops performance in 1994, we split up that night pretty much as a direct result. One week later I met my wife of 23 years. No Julia Fordham – no wife.
The lovely Mrs. S. Couldn’t stand Secrets of the Beehive either, I think “Maria” was a bad start and “Let the Happiness In” was the nail in the coffin. But she did it in such a polite way she survived the early disappointment.
It just shows….. it’s one thing not to like your partners music but there are ways of avoiding conflict, of letting someone down gently and finding an accommodation without ripping them and their music to shreds.
If Mrs. S walks into the conservatory she says something like “Aaaah, you are listening to your Katy, would you like a cup of tea?” then she disappears to the Kitchen to listen to the latest Ann Cleeves on Audible for two hours and leaves me to it. Usually I don’t get to see the cup of tea….
Chris, my wife hates pretty much every act I love, been married 11 years nearly & music in the car has to be played with her in mind though I try to sneak in my own stuff every now & again . It’s called “Tactics”.
The one concession I typically make is understanding that I am mostly alone in my enjoyment of Yoko Ono.
You’re not, CJ. ;-))
I’ve just played the Neil Finn song for the first time – fairly derivative, panoramic composition with big production (as befits the film it is used on) but not for me. Often less is more.
Got my 13-year old interested in Joy Division – and he’s freaking obsessed with them now. Taking him to his fist concert (Jack White) on the 21st! He loves Jack too – gonna make a day of it and try to get up front near the stage. There is hope for the next generation…
That was a great run down, very funny. I have two daughters that don’t mind what I play so I’ve tried to play things over the years I felt were historically significant while being, hopefully, in line with what I think they would like. It was cool to see a huge playlist my oldest made the other day on AM with many selections ones I know for a fact I exposed her too.
When our 3 children were small (early-mid 2o’s now) I used to put on Donovan’s “HMS Donovan”, skipping “The Walrus And The Carpenter” and the entirely out of place “Homesickness” (what WAS the man thinking!!)… and glorious silence prevailed. They all loved it. Highly recommended to anyone who want to keep ‘little ones’ happy on a long car journey :-)
I can highly recommend the Japanese 2CD reissue of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence…
Yes, I have that. And ‘Coda’.
PS – Paul, delete this if you want,last year I went to Naples, “shithole”, is the word which comes to mind but I did go to Sorrento after which was beautiful!
I’ve been to Naples quite a few times and really like it but the traffic and general chaos can wear you down. The authorities really need to properly pedestrianise some areas, like the Spanish Quarter where you have the constant buzzing of scooters whizzing in and out of tourists. Relaxing, it ain’t!
Yeah Paul, that’s right,
I have been to Naples too
and I guess you know that it is the second-biggest town
to be controlled by the italian Mafia…..
Too much graffiti & dirty streets!
I’ve managed to get my 2 ( 7 & 3 ) into the Stones & Depeche Mode but last week completely failed trying to educate them in the car on Duran Duran’s “All you need is now” , a brilliant album & it was lost on them. You just have to keep trying & hope some of it rubs off! They love Beyoncé though!
Kevin, keep trying, my kids LOVED All You Need Is Now. Dare I say DD’s best album ever? Not a bad song on it.
My kids got me into Sublime, Pink Floyd (!) and Beck. Yes, kids also listen to old stuff these days too!
Kauwgompie, I agree,it is a fantastic album & probably up there with “Rio” for greatness, My 2 love uptempo Blur too & unfortunately Radiohead is one that I will never win on! As Dad’s in cars though, we have to keep trying & steering their tastes in hopefully the right direction.
It’s funny about the “rule” that the driver selects the music. I have played that card often myself, but am sometimes on thin ice when I try to justify it …
Hi David M,
as the driver clearly is the most important person in the car (without her or him the others would get nowhere…fast) it’s also clear that she or he can choose the music she or he is most comfortable driving with (this doesn’t apply to taxis, cabs, Uber and other sorts of hired driving of course).
Try living in Germany where Helene Fischer (look her up) passes as popular music, selling by the bloody lorry-load, and it gets played to your kid in Kindergarden … . Still, I have had a bit of luck with my six-(nearly seven-)year-old: She likes Led Zeppelin (esp. the really heavy stuff) and The Undertones (‘My Perfect Cousin’). However, the dreaded 11-18 phase is yet to come, so we’ll see how long this good taste lasts.
I took my 14 year old son to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A last year, to try to point him in the direction of decent music (and away from Capital FM type stuff). It worked! However, for the next 2 months, all he would allow in the car was Pink Floyd. You CAN have too much of a good thing.
My 11 year daughter’s favourite song at the moment is a song by Paul Kelly the Australian singer songwriter. Its called Bradman. Its about the cricketer.
Paul Kelly is a huge talent but not that well known outside of Australia. His songs often remind me of Neil Finn. In fact they have toured and played together.
If you haven’t heard him do yourselves a huge favour and have a listen. Start with Bradman and then go straight to Before too Long and you will get the idea.
Finally, whenever I play Bradman my daughter gets up and dances. Those of you who know the song or now play it for the first time will understand immediately what an exraordinary feat that is!
Great post Paul – music choices in a confined situation like that can always be a bit of a minefield.
Whenever I have a roadtrip with friends (all with varying tastes) we usually get everyone to nominate a certain number of tracks beforehand – sometimes based on a specific theme or set categories – and us the shuffle feature to make it into a bit of a game as well as a learning / listening experience. I always find it interesting to discover what other people like and if there’s a particular track you don’t care for you know there’s something you definitely will a few tracks away.
Wow, Paul
I do not listen to music in my car anymore with the 5 other family members; everyone has his own mobile device and earplugs, what is the point of putting very low volume on the car radio…
I am more concentrated on the road therefore
And when i am alone in my car, it’s party time, lol
Oh yes, the old age syndrome!
Remember when you were young and thought you were never going to be like your parents and then you grow old and become just like your parents!
“Everything was so much better in my day!”
I bet everyone who visits this site has an incredible record collection that should be passed on to their children when leave the planet. However how many have children who have no interest in their parents record collection?
“I bet everyone who visits this site has an incredible record collection”
Yeah, that’s right, I have about 20.000 CD’s, loads of boxsets and more than 3.000 vinyl records….
” …that should be passed on to their children when leave the planet.”…
yeah, that’s right too…… BUT….I do not have children…..
So, anyone??…….:-)
Is that you Dad?
I am in a similar position, if disaster strikes what to do with my collection.
I have basically put my discogs name and password into my will for my daughters. It was only a brief conversation with The Editor that pointed me in the direction of Discogs last Christmas. I had used it for reference before but not thought about cataloging. Basically because you know if a second hand shop owner comes around after I am gone it’ll be plenty of teeth sucking and “I’ll give you £25 to take it all off your hands and I am doing you a favour.”
All I hope is that they take the time to dismantle it properly and get what it is worth as a legacy and if Discogs helps them realize that value, all the better.
Great post Chris!
Since reading Paul’s article and the reactions to it
I began to think what will happen to the collection when I’m gone….
As it includes some valuable records like, for example,
the David Bowie V&A-exhibition version of “1.Outside” with number 003/500…..
My 15 year old hates my music and likes complete rubbish in my opinion, but isn’t that how it is supposed to be? As much as I think(know) I have great taste in music I think kids should dislike their parents music. I find it weird if children like all the music of their parents. I think they will eventually come round to appreciate my music when they get older.
Ha! Exactly my situation, even when going on a 10 minute ride to a restaurant or to the store. My 17 and 15 year old daughters and my wife will all generally complain unless I put on “80’s” type music (TFF, OMD, PF, Beat, etc.) or some type of classic rock with enough pop sensibilities (Beatles, Queen, ELO, Steve Miller, etc.). If somebody doesn’t like my selections I can either change it, or hear a lot of complaining for the rest of the trip. I generally give in cause it makes everything much easier. The older one is generally more lenient, however the young one appears to have some potential. I got her to listen to Supper’s Ready all the way through and the other day she was asking if there are any Van Halen songs she would know (this because her 10 year old cousin said it was his favorite band and that he generally preferred the Roth era to the Hagar and Cherone years!). I’m working to slowly expand their listening to all types of Rock/Pop/Funk/Punk/Electronic/Soul/Surf with maybe a little hair metal thrown in (at this point I believe my Jazz collection has exactly a zero percent chance of gaining acceptance). My wife is probably a lost cause at this point, but maybe if the kids come around they can work some magic on her . . .
I too see hope for the younger generation.
Just took my 15-year-old daughter to Jenny Lewis who is her absolute favorite. Of course, it’s hard to deny the Beatles. She digs hair metal and power ballads as well.
Cheers!
Good work! Next time Grace is acting-up or asking for too much pocket-money and poor Esme having to make do with much less, blast out a bit of Supergrass’ “Oh Grace, save your money for the children!”
For portable / car music I use my good old ipod classics no wifi / roaming / bluetootht issues just connect them with a mini jack (-:
In the 15 minutes it took the much maligned Mrs. S. to knock up a bacon baguette (for me) and a Sausage baguette (for my eldest daughter) I thought I would try a little experiment this morning. Previous experience shows that she hates my music (Kate Bush – Shit. Sylvian – Dirge etc).
I was listening to Return to Yesterday and SOS on Youtube so I asked her what she listened to. I suggested the old man’s version of being hip and suggested Drake / Stormzy (as the only two names I knew). She suggested I search for something called “In the Booth”. And I had to admit it……. I had never heard such a pile of utter talentless crap in my entire life. I nodded sagely as she told me who these people were, what they were like (“He says it like he’s horrible and he is actually a dick in real life”).
It was the most painful 15 minutes of my life and if I hadn’t got a bacon baguette to wash away the dirt I wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed today. Thank God she had to get ready for work.
I know our parents probably felt the same about Boy George and Spandau back in the day but there was nothing to this shi-ite. A 20-something person, dressed like a mugger talking about whatever comes into their tiny mind over some kind of beat.
I am sure some psychologist could come up with some bull about credibility and they talk about what they know and find some kind of musicality in it but it felt like being thrown into downtown Basra and being asked to survive – an unsettling experience. But my 22 year old, educated, well travelled, motivated and hard working daughter was loving it.
It’s not my world any more. I tried and failed to find the link….. and then….daylight… as she was getting ready and putting her make up on I could hear UB40 on her spotify playlist and I thought there is hope. I heard a melody.
Chris…you are not wrong…there are studies out there comparing current music to older music, and scientifically, current music is proven to be crappier for a few reasons… One, it seems every song now has 6-10 writers credited (why??)…Two, they seem to use the same stable of writers, so to call these songs formulaic is an understatement…and the reason why they use these same writers is because nowadays, signing new acts is riskier, and these labels are desperate to make their money on slimmer odds, so they take fewer chances, so it has to sound familiar to listeners and radio station programmers, then they brainwash an unsuspecting public by pumping these songs everywhere whether they want to hear these songs or not… Enough people cave in and buy/stream/download them, while discerning music fans like you and me never give in…they prey on people who just give in…me, I refused to ever say ‘I hate current music’…there IS good new music out there if you know what to look for…as for what’s popular?? At least in the US?? I’m sorry, but i cannot stand most of it!! I’m not really a hip-hop guy, the rare thing I may like but that’s it…and i hate mainstream country…alt-country/Americana is great tho…the only good new stuff is on the fringe or from the UK and other foreign nations…I’ll gladly check out the UK charts but US Billboard just stinks…
@Chris & Larry:
You sound just like our parents ;-))
Spotify playlist please!
seconded!
Dad have you got any drill rap…
Yeah, here is my black and decker I recorded when fixing the shelves last week. Enjoy…..
Very interresting experience! Concerning Mr Lawrence, I wouldn’t have bet on it either, but come to think of it… At the time and for twenty years, it seemed like some new-age/electro/ambiant stuff that people were not used to. But if you slip it in a playlist of pop songs from today, people who don’t know the song wouldn’t believe the song is that old. The 80’s inspired bands and synth sounds we hear today are quite similar, actually. (Plus the song is really really great. I’m with you with the fact that Sylvian turning the Sakamoto theme into a song is pure genius)
OK, you’re helping to build up your kids’ music knowledge. How about having a listen to some of her choices then? Go on, you never know you might be surprised…
I did do that, as noted at the end.
Here’s one for your next playlist;-
Dua Lipa – New Rules [Initial Talk 80s Rules Remix)
haha yes I love this remix. the production makes me thing of Sandra’s Maria Magdalena.
Really?!?!? Huge Sandra fan & i dig Dua Lipa too…one of the very few current acts i actually really like…
My boy was ‘subjected’ to a myriad of various types of music when he was growing up (my tastes are very eclectic although a lot of it is ‘rock’ based!) and he still likes a bit of everything but at 28 now leans mainly toward EDM, Hip-Hop, R&B – the influence of his peers! You can lead a horse to water…
So out of curiosity – what did the kids get you listening to then Paul?
David Byrne’s excellent book ‘How music works’ suggests that music is less written from the heart than written for a place – gothic cathedral, small theatre, C19 salon, stadium, club etc all require different things from music and great music will not always readily transpose from one to the other. Hadn’t thought about this in relation to spotify lists for the car, but Paul’s thoughts have certainly made me do so.
Very lucky with my 14 year-old daughter I think. She seems smitten with old pop, anything from the Beatles to Blondie and the Buzzcocks and especially Kate Bush. She even designed a cover for a fictional magazine at school called ‘Vintage Teen’! She buys old vinyl LPs and explores every crease on the cover and word on the labels (as well as playing them of course). She also insists on watching all the old Top of The Pops episodes on BBC4 to see what comes up, just like we all did every Thursday evening. It’s all very endearing to behold.
Oh and Beck’s Colors – absolute blinder of an album.
Everything from B to B!
John Mayer’s New Light, and Smells Like Teen Spirir appear to be the only songs that has united my family on our US road trip.
Old man music, indeed…..!
Ahh… the advent of technology. Long gone are the days when you could simply eject someone’s woeful mixtape from the player, wind down the window, and launch into a field somewhere along the A1.