Music can bridge generation gaps ...

Music can bridge generation gaps ...

From New Year's Eve to New Year's Eve to New Year's Eve ... the last few years have led me to believe that music does not need to be a chasm between generations, but can actually be a bridge ... I have had my son over for games and music the past three New Year's Eves and my daughter joined us this year. It is fun and playing the music is actually the point.

I read once where what we are into at 15, 35, and 50+ rarely varies from a pattern ... What we were into at 15 is our nostalgia music ... What we are into by the time we are 35 is what we have entrenched into us ... and what we listen to over 50 is the only stuff we will accept ... I do not remember where I read this and it is not an absolute, but it clearly makes sense ... EVERY era has its hits, misses, trends, fads, stars, one hit wonders, embarrassments, and guilty pleasures ... and each successive generation is convinced that the next one does not ... yet this pattern continues ...

Sifting back through time is easy; the KISW 80s show is good, because they have sifted through it to the good stuff and that is what is left, the good stuff, just not all the crap we had to listen to in between these songs when they were new. The same goes for my parents' generation and will go for my kids' generation.

Is there really any difference between pop music conceptually now and then? I don't think so. We had our Hannah Montana and it drove our parents nuts, too ...

My son got an MP3 player a while back and now so does my daughter ... kids, they just don't buy cd's any more ... anyways ... they both wanted to get some stuff on it and just maybe I had some stuff ... we have sorted through and sampled a variety of materials from my collection and both have found that there is some really cool stuff in there. Not many fourth graders had Led Zeppelin, Lacuna Coil, Alice in Chains, and Duran Duran (live, mind you) on their MP3 players. My daughter recently discovered some of the pop music I have like The Posies or Sting is really good too ... this is bonding over music, not fighting over it ...

The toughest part has been formats ... I have a large collection of old vinyl and cassettes ... and recently I got a new turntable ("Oh, they spin," Ringo observed) so I can play "In Through The Out Door" again in its original format ... and as Nicolas Cage oserved about records in "The Rock" ... "These sound better." But, I don't currently have a way to burn the albums onto a computer ... I know it can be done, but my old cassettes (I was once asked if I have access to a cassette player) also pretty much are stand alone items at this point ....

The kids have different tastes ... and they play their music for me and some of it is okay ... pop music is pop music after all ...