What sort of music did your parents listen to when you were a kid?

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
bandshell said:
Black Sabbath, Beefheart, Zappa, Neil Young, Devo, Hendrix, The Human League, AC/DC, Ry Cooder, Ted Nugent, Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, Bowie, Little Feat, The Rolling Stones, Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Gong, Hawkwind, Kate Bush, Motorhead, Springsteen, Elton John and a bunch of other stuff.
Click to expand...

My dad owns a collection of LPs covering pretty much what you've just listed above. Well, dunno if there was any AC/DC or Nugent, but certainly all the good early Sabbath, Zeppelin, F. Mac, Zappa, Jethro Tull, Cream, Hawkwind, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Floyd, Eno, Alice Cooper, Beach Boys, Roxy Music, Velvets, Canned Heat, plus loads of great old blues stuff...he also had a bunch of cool 7"s left over from when he ran a nightclub in Bristol ca. 1980, some decent soul, reggae, new wave and misc pop.

BUT, by the time I was around, the record player mainly just gathered dust and my parents were listening mostly to a load of crappy New Age gash, which they're still annoyingly fond of to this day.

I don't think my mum ever bought any music before she met my dad, which I just find weird, I mean it's not like she doesn't like music.

I must be in the minority of people who grew up in a white, broadly middle-class British family without any Beatles at all, I mean not even a copied best-of tape. I still don't really 'get' them to this day.
 
Last edited:
J

jorge

Well-known member
My parent were in their late 30s when they had me and I cant remember hearing any music around the house when I grew up really. My dad was a painter and he listened to stuff in his workshop while painting, old blues, jimmy cliff, toots, king tubby, jimi hendrix bob dylan, the rolling stones so I heard a bit of that and soon started listening to my own stuff on his nice hifi. He pretty much stopped listening to new music in about 1980 i think. Remember finding his record collection in the attic and loving all the artwork for the hendrix and floyd albums, I only really liked listening to axis bold as love though. My mum was into standard stuff from her youth, cat stevens, bob dylan, neil young, the beatles.
 
wise

wise

bare BARE BONES
Classical, Frank Zappa, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Simon & Garfunkel, Graceland, Jethro Tull, CSNY pretty much covers it

My brother played a lot of Motown & Blondie at a fairly young age so I got exposed to that as well.

This was mid seventies to mid eighties, then both my brother and I got into early electro and breakin...
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
My parents separated, so when I was living with my mom, I was still listening to rap, but I phased out of it temporarily once I hit puberty because it was the Jay-Z, Ja Rule era, and I couldn't be bothered, and so I lately discovered rock. So it was Linkin Park (easy enough crossover for a kid with my weird childhood), which led to a lot of american alternative radio rock, heavy metal, and whatever... I also had a huge fascination for Video Game OSTs and things like that. But when I eventually got into sort of gothy & new wave stuff like The Smiths, Depeche Mode & The Cure in my teens, my mom made fun of me and then revealed her tapes of said bands from before she had me. Basically she gave them up when she was going through the divorce because: "Y'know, I had enough problems, this would've sent me right into the straightjacket."

My dad struggled with the rock thing, still does to this day. He tolerates certain metal, but if it's not 'musicianship' based, he gets sniffy about it. He also took a while coming around to southern and west-coast rap because he's a New Yorker.

I never rejected their taste because it basically coincided with mine to a certain degree.
 
P

paolo

Mechanical phantoms
My parents have no clue about post-war 'black' music. They could probably identify some big soul tunes and some Bob Marley tracks but that's about it
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
There were hardly any records around the house until I started buying - my folks had about 30-40. The main one I remember being hammered was one of those Pickwick comps where they do shoddy cover versions - in this case of all the rock 'n' roll standards.

My dad doesn't really like music, though he made an exception for the Beatles - they own Help, Hard Day's Night, Pepper's and Abbey Road. Apart from that, the Alan Price album with Jarrow March on it and a bit of Mozart. Mum likes pre-weird jazz, especially Satchmo, a taste she inherited from her own mother, although she recently amazed me by buying Wailers' Burnin'. That's about it.

edit: brilliant thread idea. Gonna read the whole thing when I get back in.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"the Alan Price album with Jarrow March"
Click to expand...
I just listened to that. A bit different from the sound I associate with Alan Price - love his version of I Put A Spell On You.
It's a great idea for a thread yeah.
 
V

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
My Dad had never heard of The Velvet Underground when I mentioned them a few months ago which seemed so weird to me as he's a similar age to them.

My mum's friend went to see the Beatles during the whole Beatlemania phase and was videoed in a screaming-girls-running-down-a-corridor-to-be-near-the-beatles kind of shot for the news or a TV programme which was seen by her teachers who demoted her from being head girl cos it was viewed as so beyond the pale!
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
viktorvaughn said:
My Dad had never heard of The Velvet Underground when I mentioned them a few months ago which seemed so weird to me as he's a similar age to them.
Click to expand...

Which would make him the ideal age for NOT hearing of Velvet Underground. Pretty much no one beyond a very small, clued-up world heard of them before Reed started scoring solo hits.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Fairly sure my dad was into them when they were actually around, although I couldn't swear to it - will have to ask. I know they were very much a cult band at the time.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Lichen said:
Ditto save for the tense.

His first record, probably in the mid-early 60's: a box set of Wagner's Rings Cycle

Mad about choral music and opera.
Click to expand...

Think if mine absolutely had to listen to something he'd go for some Welsh choral music, preferably turned down quite low. But really he prefers silence, punctuated by the gentle clacking of snooker balls.
 
P

paolo

Mechanical phantoms
I know some folky types in their 20s and 30s who are into the same folk/psych/prog stuff that their hippy parents were into in the 60s and 70s.

Being into pretty much exactly the sort of music that your parents were into when they were your age is a bit weird imo
 
crofton

crofton

Well-known member
Radio 3

Stuff on tape: Flanders and Swann, Tom Lehrer, Burl Ives, Scots bagpipe music, gamelan.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Lichen said:
Ditto save for the tense.

His first record, probably in the mid-early 60's: a box set of Wagner's Rings Cycle

Mad about choral music and opera.
Click to expand...

My Dad's indifferent about opera, perhaps a little bizarrely as it would add extra sheen to his snobbery....
 
D

datwun

Well-known member
For me there was never any question of rebelling against my parents (and here I guess I mean my dad's, as he was much more into it) music, as it was all pretty good, back in the mid 00s when I was mostly into new indie and old rock, my dad enjoyed a lot of what I would play him, but just laughed that it was "all a rip off of the stuff I was listening to as a kid".

But then I've got worse behaved as I've grown up, and when I was younger it was always my dad trying to encourage me to have a drink or a smoke!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top