Alex
The year is 2004. Despite my father (age 44) primarily listening to a combination of Steve Winwood, Level 42, Steely Dan, and Steppenwolf pretty much exclusively, he keeps talking about Gwen Stefani. He plays Hollaback Girl on the stereo. He buys Love Angel Music Baby on the Rhapsody music store.
Anyway whatever this phenomenon is, I am going through it with myself and Dua Lipa
If you have a boomer parent that mostly/only listened to classic rock, do you remember a modern pop song or artist that the parent suddenly and inexplicably got into? I feel that this must be a widespread experience
The worst thing about only learning about music through SNL is that it has by far the worst sound of any live music show on television and has been that way for its entire run. Nobody’s monitors ever work. Singers I know are perfect live sound tuneless and dull
@alex unwritten by natasha bedingfield and thats not my name by the ting tings
@swirlz my parents got into that “say hey” song by Michael franti (I personally think it sucks)
@alex I remember a late-90s phase where my dad, who mostly listened to jazz & classical & 60s rock/folk/Motown, started coming home from the record store with random CDs like Boyz II Men and Faith Hill and Gin Blossoms
More recently, my stepmother-in-law was really into Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" which we found vaguely inappropriate (maybe because her own teenage daughter was still living with them)
@alex The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
@alex my parents did this with movies, they've always tended towards feel-good Oscar-bait-type and older movies, lo and behold when I was home for Thanksgiving last year they were excited to watch the latest installment of John fucking Wick
@alex my dad, a lifelong Springsteen fan, got really into Eminiem’s “Mosh” for a while
@alex my dad came home with a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion cd in 1999 or 2000 and while that wasn’t wildly out of musical character it definitely stuck in my memory
@alex Adele. My dad got her CD and now ever since she’s about his favorite artist. With Imagine Dragons following in her wake. On a tangential sidenote his classic rock predilections have rubbed off on me and now that’s legit unironically my fav and probably always will be.
@alex i only know one musician who’s been on and i asked her about this a while ago; she says that it’s almost like a joke to go on and just know you sound like hot ass
@alex and she’s a bass player. if the bass player says this, you know.
Related: I once tried to get my dad into The Hold Steady (when Boys In Girls In America) came out. He could not get into it. My mom likes Hurray for the Riff Raff and Hiss Golden Messenger a lot but only knows them when I commandeer the stereo when I visit. My dad is mostly exposed to new music via SNL which he watches religiously