Which Decade Had the Best Music?

I cannot be the only mum out there that is shocked at some of the music that our children listen to today.  I fear that I am turning in to my mum.  I have stopped listening to Radio One and instead have Radio Two or Radio Four on all the time.  

This means that a lot of the songs pass me by, until that is I hear the boys singing them!  One of the things that we have done is to password protect the music channels as the video's for a lot of songs are shocking today.  They really do nothing to enhance the song and the fact that the ladies wear next to nothing is not something I want my boys to think is normal.  I want them to grow up with a healthy respect for woman and it seems that certain rappers do not have any respect and set a bad example.  

It just goes to show you that things and opinions change when you have children.

My boys dancing whilst watching Glee Live

My boys have experienced a wide range of music and both have clear ideas of which are their favourites.  They love Queen, Green Day, Bruno Mars, Snow Patrol, Glee, Suede, Madness, The Wanted and Eels.

You can see that they have their own likes, but they have also picked up on a lot of our favourites too. When I was growing up my parents had pretty eclectic music tastes.  They ranged from the predictable Beatles, The Eagles and the hits of their youth to thinks like Funk and classical.  They loved going to special music themed holidays with friends and family and I remember going with them to see The Platters.  Back then I used to feel there was a real "them and us" when it came to music and that it was seriously uncool to like the same music as your parents did.

I think this stemmed from the real sea change in music and musical attitudes in the late 50's and early 60's.  Music changed so much in those days that parents listened to one thing and children to another.  I really do not think this is the case today and this is confirmed by the conversation we had with the boys at the weekend.

We had a day trip on Sunday and the radio was playing away when a The Bicycle song by Queen came on and both the boys started to sing along to the music and picked up the words really easily.   I asked MadDad when it was released and being the music font of knowledge told me it was in the late 70’s.

When I told the boys that this music was as old as Uncle Christopher they were shocked, but even now it sounded contemporary in some ways and I think that it is now really hard top tell which decade a lot of the music is from.

Plus a lot of songs have been re recorded and covered by people and it is becoming even harder to define music by decades or generations.  I think that programmes like Glee have had a lot to do with this as they use music from all decades and have introduced it to a younger generation and some of my boys favorite CD's to listen to are Glee ones and we have been known to sing along loudly to them! 

When my Dad died in 2000, we played M People at his funeral as that was his favourite band.  In fact when I think of my dad I think of M People and Elvis.  Not two musical acts you would put together, but that is the beauty of music.  It doesn't define us and we are not defined by it.