Our Music, Their Music

Our kids are weird: they like our music.

Now we think this is great. Our generation produced some fantastic music, after all, even if you consider anomalies like The Partridge Family and the Monkees. But whenever I come into my kids' rooms and hear the Beatles or the Stones blasting away or find the youngest humming a Simon and Garfunkel melody, I can't help but feel that things are very different from the way they were when I was a teenager. At their age, I would have sooner gone to school in a tutu and hiking boots than voluntarily listen to the music of my parents' youth. And yet, both of my kids are crazy about the Stones and the Beatles. The youngest admires Paul Simon's lyrics and Art Garfunkel's fine, clear tenor. Both of them love reggae, acid rock, folk rock and Motown. In fact, I would say that they like over 85% of the music we liked in our teens and twenties. And I'll tell you something even something weirder: WE like THEIRS.

When I was growing up, my parents liked country music and songs from musicals such as 'Oklahoma!' and 'The Music Man.' They watched Lawrence Welk religiously and when they wanted to get really racy, played old-fashioned jazz like Bix Beiderbecke. My mother knew countless hymns and old ballads, which I loved, and everyone in my family was crazy about Gilbert & Sullivan and classical music. But as we kids grew into our teens, our musical tastes began to part company with those of our parents and suddenly there was 'our' music and 'their' music. They increasingly began to refer to our music as noise, and finally the gap between our musical tastes was ocean-wide. If I put on something for my mother to listen to, she invariably said that it was nothing but a racket, and when she put on what she wanted to listen to I was inclined to run out of the room gagging. Almost everyone my age says the same thing: that their parents never understood their music, that it sounded like nothing more to them than a lot of jarring noise. And that they, in turn, found their parents' music as exciting as bologna on white bread.

We are not alone, either. We have found that we are by no means the only people who share musical tastes with our children. My husband and I and the other parents we know who admit to this are no cooler or trendier than your average parents, but we are definitely closer to our children music-wise than our parents were to us.

Even when I don't want to like their stuff, I like it. They play it and I say, "Hey, what is that?" "Why? Do you like it?" they ask eagerly, and I am forced to hem and haw. In order to be a proper parent, I feel that I ought to say "No, it's a lot of awful noise, turn it off right this minute!" like my parents said to me, but damn it, I like it and there is nothing for it. When the kids played Rammstein for me for the first time, I got nervous. Here I was, listening to the music of scary-looking German skinheads. And God help me, I thought it was great. Weezer, Muse, Decibully, Say Hi to Your Mom, Modest Mouse -- I think they're all great. I even like the Japanese hip hop my kids are so crazy about (Orange Range) and Visual K stuff like Malice Mizer. And as my eldest keeps reminding me, I would never have listened to the Dixie Chicks if it hadn't been for her.

So what is going on? Has rock narrowed the generation gap just a tiny bit? I'd like to think that is what has happened. That our generation was at the vanguard of a music revolution. That music has changed dramatically, and that while rock is evolving and will continue to evolve, it will be played and appreciated for many generations to come. Or maybe that isn't it at all. Maybe it's just that we baby boomers are simply determined to hang onto our youth -- and 'our' music -- like grim death.