Your Parents' Taste

[BlodwynPig]

Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Abba, Donna Summer's I Feel Love on 7" and Joe Fagin's Livin' Alright.

[itsfredtitmus]

ABBA*

[alan nagsworth]

That's a lovely post, Alan.

Thanks. :) I do try and return the favour, too. When I started getting more eclectic taste I used to play Deftones and The Mars Volta's first album a lot and my mum loved that stuff. I've also put on Real Estate and Big Star for my grandparents before and they thought they were great! One time I had them over for dinner and I played the album Runaway With Del Shannon which made them extremely happy. As they were leaving, my grandpa said there were tracks on that record he hadn't heard in some forty odd years. I got a bit misty eyed after they'd left. My nan and grandpa are like my favourite people in the world.

[itsfredtitmus]

adorable post

[checkoutgirl]

A couple of years later he took up bagpipes to my utter horror

The definition of the word "gentleman" is a man who can play the bagpipes but chooses not to.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Dr Rock wrote

Fats Domino (they bonded over both liking him - also my dad had a motorbike)

My parents, too.

My dad lost interest in anything but Don Williams as he got older

Uncanny. My Dad, too - although he's also a big Chet Atkins fan.

Between them, my Mum and Dad have given me a pretty good musical education. Dad was/is big on the guitar side of 50s-60s music - Duane Eddy, Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, The Shadows, Slim Whitman even. Mum was/is fond of Fats Waller, Humphrey Lyttleton, Sandy Nelson, more of the beat/jazz side of things, as well as being a big fan of the Beatles and the Stones. They also had some of the more rockin' classics between them - I first encountered Holst's Planets Suite via their record collection.

[wosl]

I was born to older parents (older at that time; these days they wouldn't be considered that, so much) whose tastes had developed pre-popular rock & roll (for context, my dad had been taken to see Glenn Miller's Air Force band when he was young during the war), and who were record-spinners and gig-goers more than TV watchers or radio listeners, so my exposure developed in a bit of an ass-backwards way in comparison to the way it did for friends with younger folks.  I started out being subjected to stuff like boogie-woogie, big band, post-bop and popular jazz vocal, passed through prog via the records of the older son of one of my dad's friends, and reached the shores of pop after an uncle lent my dad his copy of Sgt. Pepper, which my dad must've played a grand total of once, but which I devoured (to the point of getting my sister and her friend to help me do vocal arrangements of some 'Pepper songs on a little reel-to-reel).  So basically: Kenton to ELP/Pink Floyd to Beatles, glam rock and the pop charts (once I'd got my first radio-cassette recorder, an ITT with a fake wood finish!).

[Sebastian Cobb]

My Mum has always had fairly banal taste.

My Dad's music collection is interesting and the difference in whether or not I rate it can almost be split entirely by whether it's on Vinyl or CD.

His vinyl collection amounts to a fair bit of Reggae, Rock, Psych and Blues... all good.
His CD collection is more damning, I can only assume that once he adopted the format he joined Britannia and had them populate it for him, which meant it's full of overstocked pap that he was too idle to send back before the deadline and also I think a lot of soft rock my mum might have liked, bollocks like Simply Red, Chris Rea and Genesis; I think even Jimmy Fucking Nail makes an appearance. In fairness there are a few stand-outs: mainly The Art of Noise's Invisible Silence (i 'borrowed' this off him but he made me give it back) and The Thompson Twins' Here's to the Future Days (I later got this on vinyl for next to nothing).

[Billy]

I probably have some of the youngest parents on this thread, their teenage years spanned most of the 1980s. The first half of the decade was their fave - my Dad loved the two-tone/ska stuff and my Mum was a New Romantic and synthpop follower. Both think Stock/Aitken/Waterman are shit, but by then I was born so they had other priorities than taping the charts every week, although they still know a fair few 90s and early noughties stuff before it gets completely alien to them - the only song I know they both like, of all things, is By The Way by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Odd.

Two big 90s childhood memories are listening to the LP of Now That's What I Call Music 10 with Mum ('Rent' being a particular fave), and the greatest hits of The Specials with Dad, trying to explain to me what the lyrics of Rat Race meant.

[holyzombiejesus]

My mum liked folk, to the extent that she once went to see The Strawbs. She bought 10 year old me a Strawbs sweatshirt and made me wear it for own clothes day at school, the fucking bitch.

[thecuriousorange]

Bad. Buble bad.

[maett]

My mum used to do the ironing every Sunday to her Story of the Who tape (didn't get a record player until I was 13) at 10 I got a chant going of 'We want the Who' at a school disco, it was 1979, they didn't get played.

Mum also had a motown hits tape, dad had Rolling Stones and Neil Diamond tapes but he never listened to them.
Often envious of my mum's tales of gig going in the mid 60s, (though she calls them dances) where she should dance to the Who when they were the High Numbers. My dad's memories are of having a competition with his mates that entailed trying to throw peanuts into Keith Moon's open mouth as he drummed.

[Serge]

My dad was born in 1949, so was lucky enough to be a teenager during most of the '70s, so got to hear stuff like The Beatles, the Stones, The Kinks, The Byrds etc, fresh as it came out before they became the Heritage Rock Mainstays they often seem like now on rotating Mojo front covers. I'm not slagging it off, I love all of those bands, but imagine being 17 at the time that 'Revolver', 'Paint It Black', 'Blonde On Blonde' and 'Eight Miles High'  came out. During the '70s he liked some prog (Yes, Mike Oldfield) but mainly more straight ahead stuff like the Feelgoods (EDIT: Ha! Just went through into the other room, and he's sitting watching 'Oil City Confidential' for the nth time!), so no surprise that he loved the Pistols and The Clash. Having said that, he was always a massive Bowie fan, and loved 'Low', and also bought The Faust Tapes. After that, although there were odd things he liked, his tastes went a bit naff - Chris Rea? - but he really tends to listen to stuff from the '60s and '70s almost exclusively these days - his twin heroes being Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix.

My mum was a couple of years younger, and also grew up during that time, so had similar tastes, though in the '70s probably a bit more proggy - she loved Hawkwind. But she carried on loving new stuff - she was also into punk, but including stuff like the Dead Kennedys. She loved a lot of the stuff I would listen to in the '90s, and absolutely adored The Prodigy! She also got into The White Stripes in a big way. It's slightly disappointing to report that she also loved Robbie Williams, which is about as traditional in 'music mums like' as it gets, but otherwise, pretty good taste all round. I wish I'd had a chance to play her Parquet Courts or LCD Soundsystem, as she would have loved them. At her funeral, we played her two favourite  songs - as we were going in, Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street', and I have to admit to tearing up at that point. Then later, Robbie's 'Angels', which, even in that setting failed to raise any separate emotions.

[Emma Raducanu]

Only remember listening to Simon and Garfunkel and sting and the police in the car. Mainly the former and I still love then, every song tinged with nostalgia.

My parents definitely had loads of records but I never investigated them.

When I was heavily into sigur ros many years ago, I think I got my dad into them which was very strange.

[Chairman Bodog]

Aw man. Hawkwind are crazy good. My dad never dug the vertiginous psychedelia. His tastes are technically drawn, so he appreciates Yes and Spock's Beard and DreamTheater for their operatic productions, but his tastes won't chew over the more raw acid sounds.

[Chairman Bodog]

The first video documenting my infantdom showcases a patchy pinkface looking like a quickhatch with my jet mop, lodged in a spaghetti spangled high chair, with Wishbone Ash banging the room up.

[itsfredtitmus]

The idea of having a dad that likes Dream Theater is funny to me for some reason

[Chairman Bodog]

A UKIP voter to boot. He's a stamped hot cross between a bawdy peacenik and a loose Jeremy Clarkson. The vespertine papa smurf with 12 pints of Bass immigration talk to a 12 hour art rock record.

[manticore]

Prog rockers do tend towards the right in my experience.

[bgmnts]

I'm very into prog rock and i'm quite left wing.

[Jockice]

The thing about youngsters today is that their parents often had cool musical tastes and it's easy to find and listen to stuff with the internet and all that.. I have a friend the same age as me - early 50s - whose favourite band is The Clash. He has a 14-year-old daughter. Last time I saw her she was wearing a Clash t-shirt. I complimented her on it but later on thought "Hang on. That would be the equivalent of me wearing a Marmalade t-shirt at that age. Or a Dubliners one. I'd have been laughed out of the area."

You're supposed to rebel against your parents' taste at that age, aren't you? Strange.

[Norton Canes]

We had a couple of dozen LPs stacked in the hi-fi unit, all of which must have been bought by my dad - The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, ABBA, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds... the odd vaguely hip anomaly like Floyd's A Nice Pair... I don't ever remember anything new being bought, though.

Oh yeah, my dad must have hit some kind of mild mid-life crisis because in the 80's I can remember him coming home with 12" singles he'd bought from HMV on the way home from work - first it was the limited edition Two Tribes remixes, then acid house tracks.

Actually a few years ago when he was already in his 70's he did an evening course on miking up bands for live performances, so he's not such a square huh.

My mum had a  little box of some 7" vinyl she'd bought as a teenager, and that was it.

[Dr Rock]

The thing about youngsters today is that their parents often had cool musical tastes and it's easy to find and listen to stuff with the internet and all that.. I have a friend the same age as me - early 50s - whose favourite band is The Clash. He has a 14-year-old daughter. Last time I saw her she was wearing a Clash t-shirt. I complimented her on it but later on thought "Hang on. That would be the equivalent of me wearing a Marmalade Doors or Velvet Underground t-shirt at that age. Which would have been cool."

[thraxx]

My dad is an unapologetic vehement and proud racist.  Once when my sister was ill in hospital he refused to let a black doctor touch her and demanded a white doctor. I could fill a book with similar anecdotes.  A horrible man. A total embarrassment to be around, one of the reasons I'm not in contact with him anymore.

His favorite three musicians however: Steve Wonder, Michael Jackson and Nat King Cole. He had all their records and would never hear a word said against them.

[Jockice]

 I somehow don't think my folks were big VU or Doors fans. If they weren't dead I'd definitely ask them though.

[Dr Rock]

I somehow don't think my folks were big VU or Doors fans. If they weren't dead I'd definitely ask them though.

I meant a 14 year old wearing a t-shirt of a band from decades ago has always been a thing, and usually meant you were cool. I didn't realise you meant it was about you wearing whatever your parents were into. Marmalade were good anyway.

[buttgammon]

My mum and dad both acquired a big record collection, which still takes up the entire under-the-stairs cupboard in my mum's house and most of her wardrobe too. When they moved in together, they found that they had a lot of the same records, so there were plenty of duplicates too. My dad's all-time favourites were The Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Donna Summer, but he was more into rock music as a teenager. He also left a lot of Top of the Pops compilation albums with pictures of women in various costumes and uniforms on the front in his parents' house when he moved out, and I can't tell if it was because he was embarrassed about the covers or because he was embarrassed about the contents. He also left a few BBC sound effects albums there. My main musical memories of him are the mixtapes he played in the car when we went on holiday - I particularly recall hearing 'Come on Eileen' by Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Rio' by Duran Duran and 'I Love Your Smile' by Shanice on repeat on long car journeys.

My mum is particularly fond of disco, soul and funk music, and she's always played lots of Michael Jackson. I remember her playing lots of Jackson 5 and Chic when I was a child, but not so much these days. She is also a very big fan of Queen, and still wells up a bit if you mention Freddie Mercury. She's taken an interest in some of my music too, and when I was home earlier this year, she asked me to leave my CD of The Future Will Come by The Juan Maclean in her car, which was probably not the most conventional choice for a 56-year-old psychotherapist.

[Jockice]

I meant a 14 year old wearing a t-shirt of a band from decades ago has always been a thing, and usually meant you were cool. I didn't realise you meant it was about you wearing whatever your parents were into. Marmalade were good anyway.

I know you did. I was being facetious. Although I've always thought The Doors were shit anyway.

[itsfredtitmus]

A UKIP voter to boot. He's a stamped hot cross between a bawdy peacenik and a loose Jeremy Clarkson. The vespertine papa smurf with 12 pints of Bass immigration talk to a 12 hour art rock record.

Wish I knew what this meant

[itsfredtitmus]

Prog rockers do tend towards the right in my experience.

Dream Theater and Rush fans are always right wing no exceptions