Kevin's Watch

...but now you find yourself liking it and going out and buying it?

When I was a kid I didn't want to listen to anything that my parents liked (with very few exceptions) and the reverse seemed to be true.

I had always told myself that I would never turn into the old fart that dislikes the majority of modern music because it is too noisy or musicianship is poor, etc., but I never thought in a million years that I would grow to dislike it because it became so bland and formulaic.

It's not that I dislike all music I hear now, but I just find it so bland and unvaried.

I think there was a time in the 80s too that I really stopped listening to popular music because everything seemed to be laid down on a few standard templates. It was probably around that time that I really started re-evaluating a lot of music I had written off, and started delving much deeper into the past.

Recently I have been listening to a few CDs with collections of music from the 40s and 50s, and love so many of those songs. I also have been building up a collection of older Jazz and vocal records over time, and it certainly falls within my parents' generation.

Weird how things change like that over time.

I never really hated what my parents listened to. Most of it was Elvis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino etc, so that wasn't bad at all. It took me a while to get into Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves though.

michaelm wrote:
I had always told myself that I would never turn into the old fart that dislikes the majority of modern music because it is too noisy or musicianship is poor, etc., but I never thought in a million years that I would grow to dislike it because it became so bland and formulaic.

It's not that I dislike all music I hear now, but I just find it so bland and unvaried.

I think there was a time in the 80s too that I really stopped listening to popular music because everything seemed to be laid down on a few standard templates. It was probably around that time that I really started re-evaluating a lot of music I had written off, and started delving much deeper into the past.

The same kind of thing happened to me both now and then. I haven't really been able to listen to a top 40 station for about 20 years. But in addition to delving into past music I found myself expanding outward and looking at music I hadn't even heard of, like industrial and world music.

Gordon Lightfoot. My mother listened to him all the time, and it drove me crazy.

Then, one day I was working at McDonalds singing "Carefree Highway" along with the radio.

My dad owned a cassette of songs from the 50s that he played all the time as it had a few songs on that he really liked. When I was a kid I used to think it drove me crazy, but I think the reality is that even at that time I appreciated how great some of those songs were.

Well, I bought this, because it's just not Christmas for me without it, too many childhood memories all tied into it.



Possibly that's it's own subcategory, tho.

My parents liked John Denver. I thought that was good when I was in 3rd grade. Luckily, I grew out of it quickly, leading to physical confrontations over music as a teenager. [My mom threw a bucket of water on my stereo for listening to Van Halen. It wasn't even the Roth years. Walkman + headphones became my favorite way to listen to music after that.]

My parents split in '76. Prior to that, they listened to a lot of John Denver, Cat Stevens, and similar stuff (I remember the soundtracks to Godspell and Hair getting a lot of play).

Post '76, my dad really got into music. He listened to everything from Neil Diamond to Tom Jones to Joni Mitchell to Joan Baez to ELO.

I didn't hate it, but I grew away from it.
then when I married Julie she reintroduced me to country music of the 50s-80s. so much so that I got into the alt country and older stuff a lot.

now I like it more than Julie or parents ever did. including genres they didn't like - such as blue grass.

can not stand the country pop/rock of today.

Country music is one of those things I thought I hated as a kid (but in general it's thought of as old people's music in the UK where I grew up, and it's not really very popular anyway). As I got older I started to appreciate older stuff like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams.

What really killed it for me though was the godawful country 'superstars' that came out of the 90s and to me made the genre much more formulaic than it already was. Now it's one of the very few genres that I have almost zero interest in. I would rather listen to a top 40 station than a country station.

However, I still think older country music is good.

michaelm - try the alt country stuff...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_country_musicians

if you want I can link some vids of my favorites.

I told myself that I decided early on that I wanted to rebel against my generation and the frivolity and superficiality I saw there, and -not- be like them.

Whether this was what was really happening, weeellllll...?

I mostly loved the old country stuff... Patsy Cline, Hank Williams Sr, Johnny Cash.
And some more generally popular singers.. Dean Martin, Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole.

Zarathustra wrote:...I thought that was good when I was in 3rd grade. Luckily, I grew out of it quickly, leading to physical confrontations over music as a teenager...

Any story that starts like that...

Though with the headphones... I had something like that going. I would just play my music really quietly (because it was the opposite of trying to get others' attention with loud music?) so much so that my dad would be in my room and not know I had it on.
Umm, yeah.

What really killed it for me though was the godawful country 'superstars' that came out of the 90s and to me made the genre much more formulaic than it already was. Now it's one of the very few genres that I have almost zero interest in. I would rather listen to a top 40 station than a country station.

However, I still think older country music is good.

Country music died when Billy Ray Cyrus came on the scene. Since then, with few exceptions, it's been one pretty boy or pretty girl after another, none of whom can actually sing.

My mother hated any music that wasn't gospel. I grew up listening to the music that my older siblings had loved, so everything from Blood, Sweat & Tears to Alice Cooper to Parliament, either on vinyl or 8-track.

dlbpharmd wrote:Country music died when Billy Ray Cyrus came on the scene. Since then, with few exceptions, it's been one pretty boy or pretty girl after another, none of whom can actually sing.

^^This

...and then the nails were well and truly driven into the casket when Garth Brooks came on the scene...

I really didn't like what I saw of country music around that time... yeah, I called all that "modern country".

I was totally thinking, somewhere deep down, "these people are just using unsubtle sexualization to make up for something."
(lack of talent? Lack of songwriting? Lack of emotional depth? I don't know.)

Not everyone will agree, (or even remember him) but I think, "OTOH, there was Alan Jackson."
Some of his songs seemed to go back to older Country roots.

My parents never really were into music. I know my father loved (and still loves) Scott McKenzie's San Francisco and my Ma had a Paul Anka album, but apart from that they listened to whatever was on, apart from German "umpta umpta Volksmusik".

One of my uncles was into Jimi Hendrix, the other into Johnny Cash. That's what coined me.

There's one kind of country music that sort of sets my teeth on edge and thats the 'Patsy Kline' sort of whining depressive stuff. God how could anyone listen to that - but stuff like 'The Devil Came Down to Georgia', The Hayseed Dixies and the faster Country stuff is a blast!

[Does anyone remember a song called 'No-Charge' where a kid asks his mom for payment after he weeds the garden or something and then she proceeds to heap a guilt trip on him of epic and life shattering proportions. Man that song is just plain WRONG! ]

My parents weren't all that into music. My dad used to load up the cassette player on Saturday morning and that was about it for music in the house. He liked 50's rock. Bill Haley and His Comets, that kind of thing. An outlier for him was he liked Jim Croce. I have ingrained in me a fondness for him from those Saturday mornings. Mom liked the crooners and Big Band music. She once told me she followed popular music until the British Invasion. She didn't really care for popular music post-Beatles arriving.

Since I wasn't really all than into music until college, we never really had any conflict.

Damelon wrote:My dad used to load up the cassette player on Saturday morning and that was about it for music in the house. He liked 50's rock. Bill Haley and His Comets, that kind of thing. An outlier for him was he liked Jim Croce. I have ingrained in me a fondness for him from those Saturday mornings.

I was kind of similar with my dad, only it was usually Sunday afternoons.

peter wrote:
[Does anyone remember a song called 'No-Charge' where a kid asks his mom for payment after he weeds the garden or something and then she proceeds to heap a guilt trip on him of epic and life shattering proportions. Man that song is just plain WRONG! ]

this song?

Yep - that's the one Sarge. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!



Wrong.