I have been carrying out a social experiment!

I have twin 7 year old boys, Nate and Max (yep, the names were deliberate), and they have reached a good age to start appreciating music.

With my mighty 13 speaker hard drive car stereo, I have been taking them on trips and breaking them into some of the music greats. I consciously avoided Prince at first, because I wanted to see if they would love the music, rather than love whatever Dad likes.

They have liked the chart stuff for a couple of years, but I have been treating them to solid blasts of classics in the last 12 months.

I started with the Beatles (they loved), then MJ (they loved), then the likes of James Brown, Bowie, etc, and then further out, the likes of Pink to the Stones.

When it came to Prince, I made up 1 giant play list on the drive in the car, containing 200 random tracks with no theme. The only thing I avoided was tracks with swearing, or over sexualisation, due to there age.

The most interesting thing is there choices of favourites. Initially, it was the kid friendly tracks like “Starfish & Coffee” and “Delirious”, but it’s now grown to a much wider spectrum.

They know what Prince looks and sounds like, but they have no concept of the history of eras, videos or images.

When I asked them what their favourite tracks were, they come from across the spectrum, not just the 80’s. I asked them to agree a top 10 and they have picked:

Max:

1. Gold
2. Guitar
3. The Max (no surprise)
4. Little Red Corvette
5. No More Candy 4 U
6. Thunder
7. My Computer
8. Turn Me Loose
9. Black Sweat
10. Girls and Boys

Nate:

1. Little Red Corvette
2. Guitar
3. The everlasting now
4. Sign o the Times
5. No More Candy 4 U
6. Girls and Boys
7. Same December
8. Gold
9. Black Sweat
10. Thunder

They had lots of debate agreeing the top ten, with arguments over leaving out songs like Kiss, The Continental, The Question of U, Partyman, The 1 U wanna C, 1999 and 4ever. However, they both agreed on the top 5 almost straight away.

No I don’t for one minute think that they have created a list of the ultimate top 10, nor would I have picked the same songs. But to their virgin ears, they are not swayed by the 80’ legacy, the Slave era, or the JW lean. They listen to the music plain and simple.

Yet despite this, only 5 songs out of 20 picks are from the 80s.

I put it to you folks that Prince is as good as he ever was, but too many of us view his life and music under the influence of age, memories, style preference and chart success.

The 80’s did not come out on top with either twin, so as a controlled experiment, the material cannot be superior as a body of work.

Discuss.

my 8 year loves

icnttpofm

black sweat

and LOVES laydown!!

My great grandson wanted to keep my MP3 player which is all Prince. He's 5.

SometimesIwonder said:

Cool kids you have! My 2 year old has been singing the 'na na na na na' bit of Gold for months now. Wee soul has good taste already! The older one always tells me to 'put on some Fonky guitar music' or the other favourite is Batdance! Ah from the mouths of babes ...

I'm sorry but the "na na na na na" you typed is quite clearly from Hey Jude.

This is too cute.

muirdo said:

I've said this time and time again, but if some of his 90s and post-millenium albums had dropped right after 1999 or Purple Rain, folks would be raving about them (Emanciaption, Gold, 3121, Lotusflow3r....even Rave Un2, which is just as good as D&P).