A couple of weeks ago, my Dad heard the current Katy Perry song, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)", and he found it to be one of most prominent earworms he had heard in a long time. However, he liked the song, and it encouraged both him and Mum to listen to One of the Boys and Teenage Dream this past weekend in the evenings.
Mum and Dad's opinions of the album were exclusively positive: they really liked everything, from her vocals, to the sound of her songs, to her sense of humour. They also expressed an interest in listening to Katy Hudson to compare her modern works with her first record.
I have heard about children (including people my own age) being embarrassed about their parents listening to their music., and in some cases, the parents even like it, much to their kids' disgust. I, on the other hand, am not really bothered if my parents listen to any from my music collection and decide that they like it. After all, before I had my radio and any of my own albums all I had to listen to was my parents music, and there were plenty of songs and artists from their collection that I loved. It seems pointless to me to get defensive over it.
While my parents listening to my music is of no consequence to me, I will admit that the language used in music did concern me at one point: when I received Under My Skin by Avril Lavigne several years ago (it was among the first albums I received), I was deeply worried about what their reaction would be to her swearing in one of the songs. In the end, I was just being paranoid, as hearing swear words does not bother them, and besides, a few months after I received Under My Skin they bought an Eminem album for themselves!
I do not expect them to listen everything that I have in my collection: I doubt that they would like Fergie or Evanescence, but I have been surprised before. Perhaps I should introduce them to Hilary Duff, Sara Bareilles, or even Pink next.
What about you? Are you bothered by your parents listening to/liking your music, or is it a non-issue?
I think, for me anyway, it was an issue when I was 13/14 and discovering my "own" music that wasn't at all like Queens of The Stone Age/Foo Fighters/Muse/Metallica etc. that my brothers had gotten me into, the Irish trad. music my Dad listened to, or Elvis which is my Mam's favourite.
ReplyDeleteI remember being very annoyed, back when I first got into Gwen Stefani and Natasha Bedingfield back in 2004, and my mam kept commenting on how much she loved their music videos (What You waiting For and the Uk version of Unwritten to be exact) playing on the tv or their songs on the radio and even expressing an interest to attend a Gwen Stefani concert. All of this annoyed me as I quess I thought those artists were "mine" and I didn't want to share them.
Obviously I've moved on from that obsessive possesiveness but my music taste has evolved so much that I don't think my mam would even like half the bands I listen to now. But if she did it wouldn't be much of an issue (especially if it means playing those albums in the car :D)
Yes, I can certainly understand the "they're fine" phase. :)
ReplyDeleteI have been able to have some of my CDs played in the car, and also played a few months ago when we were assembling some furniture in the house! I don't think my parents have heard much of Gwen Stefani, though they could have done last year when my cousin wanted to perform "Hollaback Girl" with me when we were playing "SingStar" at her house! :D (Of course, this did not happen.)
Whoops, I meant "they're mine" in that last post! :/
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