I'm a Bad Parent

I just noticed that I have severely hindered my son by not grounding him in a classic educational. He is nine.

I was driving him to school and had the iPod in the car. Now, my car, my tunes. Well, I'm enjoying my coffee, thinking about nothing in particular, and here the fruit of my loins ask, "dad, who is this? I like them."

It hit me like a fist. My son, at almost ten doesn't know who Iron Maiden is. I've clearly failed as a father to give my children the tools they need to survive in a world full of shit like Limp Bizkit and Lady Gaga. I've obviously done wrong by him and need to fix it immediately.

There is hope for the boy, though. He really likes a lot of the "cool stuff" on Guitar Hero, which means pretty much everything classic rock. So there is that. I can work with that. But I really need to get his harder rock education fundamentals befor he starts thinking Jay Z is welcome in my home.

Starting tonight he'll do no more homework unless it involves rock music. Tonight he's going to sit down after dinner and listen to Ozzy for three hours. I'm rewriting his math word problems. "Slash has three groupies after the show. Axl steals two of them. How many groupies are left for the roadie to get sloppy seconds from?"

There is still time to save my son. There is still time.

Oh God. Get over your tired generation and just let him enjoy Miley and Gaga.

Sad to say, but even if you start early, like with my older son, sometimes ... they just go bad. It started out innocently enough with that song about the three little pigs and a bad puppet show. Then, before I knew it, he was into the hard stuff - MC Hammer and Puff Daddy.

My problem may have been, tho, the mistaken notion that I should let him explore his own choices, let him live his life.

There is still time to save your son, tho. Don't let us down.

First 4 bolded words illustrate your failure as a father.
Last 3 bolded words prove there is still hope for your kid!

I think I've trained my boys pretty well. They actually like AC/DC and Ozzy more than I do (Guitar Hero influence, I believe), and they can both quickly identify and/or play the intro to Rush's YYZ.

Never!

The cool thing is that my son 'the guitar shredder' has pretty much come into this wisdom of his own accord, although he is a big Muse and Greenday fan as well.

Tired generation?

You mean the generation which enjoyed music that wasn't solely produced to sell "product lines" to a burgeoning tween and teen market...music which was actually written and performed by artists who had some skill at both and who were more than just corporate sock-puppets who could dance good and pout on cue?

Kids should know that music wasn't always a cynical, thinly-veiled attempt to suck their wallets dry.

Doesn't mean the "hollow and formulaic" approach hasn't been around at least as long as any band named in this thread.

Yeah, I fucking said it. Bite my crank.

I really doubt 30 years from now anyone will be showing up on That Metal Show and saying "I was inspired to pick up Autotuner after hearing Bad Romance. That shit was awesome."

Indeed. He can make his own choices in life after college. Untl then I should decide every aspect of his life. I've failed so far. I won't fail him from now on.

Yes. I know. I have forgotten the face of my fathers.

Cool. My son doesn't really seem to give a shit about guitars, but he loves hitting stuff. Maybe I'm raising a drummer. I know, I know, a drummer wasn't my first choice, but better that then a keyboardist.

What? I love the drummers the best!

Besides, you did know that Alex and Eddie's parents originally bought the drum set for Eddie and the guitar for Alex, right? But, because Eddie wouldn't leave Alex's guitar alone, Alex retaliated by banging on Eddie's drums.

And now, you know The Rest of The Story.

I saw some show about Van Halen (I dunno, maybe it was Behind the Music or something like that) and Alex was talking about how when they were teenagers he'd go out at night to party and try to get laid and Eddie would just practice for hours every night. Which might explain why Eddie Van Halen is a world class guitarist and Alex Van Halen is known primarily as Eddie's brother.

True. However, even "hollow and formulaic" can have it's appeal when it's performed by artists who can actually play instruments (AC/DC springs to mind). You never caught a concert in which those guys aped their performance to a prerecorded soundtrack.

Miley? Britney? Gaga? Boy bands? They're hardly better than Milli Vanilli, and yet, they're top sellers.

True. But, I'd probably get along much better with Alex than Eddie. If I learned anything from my marriage, it's that I don't get along well with Type A personalities. Give me a laid back partier and I'll be happy.

It's also pretty cool when the frontman can sing and sound good without a harmonizer or other electronic "help".

She's just getting an early jump on college. Every drunk college girl's favorite song is "Don't Stop Believing".

Compared to the newest herd of pretty corporate shills, I'd take someone sounding less than good in a live performance.

Brian Johnson seems to always bring a certain good cheer to the stage, but he can't hit the high notes like he used to. Neither can Steve Perry. I've never seen a concert in which Axl Rose sounded even remotely close to his studio performances. But give me a concert full of foibles over an exquisitely choreographed lip-synch show any day, and twice on Sunday.

Meh, you raise your kids on all kinds of music and they learn to pick for themselves.

Limp Bizkit is still around?

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I'm sure the previous generation, fans of Sinatra et al would make similar arguments against classic rock.

I'm very proud to say my daughter has no clue who Lady Gaga is and she has no time for Miley Cyrus and the other pop/teenage whore "pop" singers.

I used to see those ladies when I was a kid and watched the Chicago Pioneers roller derby game on TV. When the camera would follow the skaters you could see them sitting in the audience with their bobby soxer clothes on throwing popcorn into their mouths when they weren't shouting "Kill kill kill".

See, that's not necessarily good. She should know who these people are, at least, and know a couple of their songs. Most people her age will know these things. It just helps to have *something* in common with the people around you, and music is a big factor in socializing.

Doesn't mean she has to like that music, but being aware of it ain't a bad thing.

If you consider that tripe "music".

Whoa to you of earth and sea..........

My oldest's favorite band is Three Days Grace (damned scream music mostly) and my younger professes to like Lincoln Park (I know that's misspelled but I don't know how they do it and ain't looking it up) - and that almost entirely because they had the main song in the last Transformers movie.

BUT there are several old songs on Guitar Hero they love (noteably "Paint it Black" because it's on one of their other favorite games) and a while back I came across a video for Disturbed's remake of "Land of Confusion" and he (older) was impressed when I pointed out that it (the original) was from my day and not his.

I know it's one of his favorite songs now.


So - ya know - mixed bag. At least both of them despise all manner of "pop" and "hip hop" music, so there's that.

Go right to Zeppelin. Only way to save him.