Parents have their reasons, but sometimes they withhold cool music from us when we’re kids. Sometimes, it’s stuff we come to naturally later in life, which is great. Mostly, though, we listen to what our parents listen to when we’re young. Here’s a list of some of the popular artists I wasn’t allowed to listen to as a kid, and what I was listening to with my parents instead.
Videos by American Songwriter
Popular Artists I Wasn’t Allowed to Listen to As a Kid
The Smiths
According to my mom, she was big into The Smiths in the 1980s and remained a fan into my childhood. I remember she had all their CDs (many of which I stole later when I moved out for college). However, when I was young, she thought they were a little too dark for me to listen to. I can’t help but wonder if I would have been a cooler kid if she’d let me listen to The Smiths when I was 8 years old.
Blues Traveler
I also have a strangely clear memory of my mom not letting me listen to the Blues Traveler album Four. Long before Brat green would have everyone in a chokehold, Blues Traveler released their chartreuse masterpiece Four. Being around 6 years old, the color was intriguing, and I thought the cat was cool. However, my mother, apparently knowing something I didn’t, wouldn’t let me listen to it. This remains one of the great mysteries of my life, and, after explaining this to my mother, one of the great mysteries of her life as well, as she can’t for the life of her remember why she did this.
What I Was Actually Listening To
Poodle Hat by Weird Al
Poodle Hat came out in 2003 and sparked my love for Weird Al. From there, I discovered his back catalog, leading to songs like “Your Horoscope for Today” and “The Saga Begins.” This album, however, started it all for me. Songs like “eBay,” “A Complicated Song,” and “Genius in France” (styled after Frank Zappa, one of my father’s favorites) still live in my head rent free. However, “Angry White Boy Polka” is the one that led me to a bunch of new songs as well, and I still can’t listen to “Last Nite” by The Strokes without thinking of the Weird Al snippet.
“Crazy Serbian Butcher’s Dance” by Brave Combo
Admittedly, when I asked my father what we listened to together and he came back with this, it was a vague memory. However, something sparked and caught fire when I listened to it again. This song was on a tiny mp3 player my father gave me when I was young, loaded up with all his favorite songs. This is an insane polka melody from Brave Combo’s 1987 album Polkatharsis. Apparently, we went through a polka phase.
1950s Lounge Music
When I think about my mother’s lounge music phase, I think of the songs “Big Spender” and “L-O-V-E.” She had a compilation CD of 50s classics and would put it on in the car so much that I started asking for it when I was a kid, seeking out music that hadn’t been in style for 40 years. It’s a wonder I didn’t get beat up in school.
NPR
Finally, this isn’t quite music, but both of my parents often had NPR on in the car, and I got my fair share of news as a child. Again, it’s a wonder I wasn’t bullied more. One particular news story that my father and I stopped and listened to will always stick with me: a beached gray whale had to be blown up with dynamite in order to clear the carcass from the beach. I was maybe 10 when I heard Scott Simon deliver the news, which was really a retrospective of a story that had occurred 35 years earlier and which I just now learned 20 years on.
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