Did your parental types have any comments about the music you listened to while growing up? I lived with my aunt in high school, and like most of my family she is very Catholic. I frequently heard "Get that tramp off the walls" in reference to my Madonna poster. Similar comments were made when I listened to her music. On the other hand, she loved the shit out of my Chris Isaak and Janet Jackson albums. Then when I went through my techno/house phase, many, many comments along the lines of "Is that record skipping?" were spoken anytime a house tune was played!

"Parental Type"? Well my Mom was never really into Death Industrial or Powernoise like I am...

Wonder why?

Novabreaker said:

"Parental type," because - like me - not everyone lived with their mom and dad.

Well, one day after school I came home to find my mom waiting for me in my room with all my Prince cd's and cd's with parental advisories gathered into a box. She demanded that I throw them away and that was one of the first times I stood up to her. It wasn't pretty. I basically told her she'd have to get rid of them herself and I'd just go out and buy them again anyway. A few years later, Prince was her favorite artist.
[Edited 2/15/05 7:34am]

I mostly listened to punk rock when I was a pre-teen/teenager (and before that I only listened to classical music) but my parents were pretty cool with it. I mean, I know they didn't particularly like it, but they never gave me crap about it. Only my dad yelling at me/us to "kill that stereo!" when the music wars my older sister and I would have would get too loud.

I got more shit from her than anyone else. This coming from a person who would compete with me in the morning getting ready for school with her Def Leppard blasted at full volume, while I would crank The Damned, Bad Brains or something like that just to annoy her.

Those "Parental Advisory" stickers were a problem for me because:

1. ALL of my music listening history is post-PMRC.
2. I love hip hop, which gets stickered the most of any genre.


So I really had to get drastic with hiding cassettes - destroyed a few cover/liners or altered them to mask the warning too.

We kids were down with Prince and the Mpls sound and mom liked it too. She and I went to see Jessie Johnson in concert. When he tossed out a pink teddy bear it was like going for the bouquet at a wedding reception! I practically snatched it out of my mom's hands. (I still have it too!) We also saw The Time together.
[Edited 2/15/05 8:34am]

My parents didn't need to worry about Prince. My favourite teenage albums were Appetite For Destruction (GNR) and then the likes of Sepultura's Arise. I still love both of those dearly. Violet the Organ Grinder had nothing on these in terms of parental fear!

..It's funny, My parents are probably directly responsible for my musical tastes...it was pretty wide open...they were big fans of Jazz and also Impressionist Classical music (Ravel, Debussy, etc.) but they were also into Sly Stone, Stevie, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, Henry Mancini, Rotary Connection, Aretha, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Soundtracks, etc...My Father was bringing home the Earth Wind and Fire, Santana, Buddy Miles and Brothers Johnson and the Stylistics, along with Miles, Wes Montgomery, Stan Getz, Aaron Copland, the Isleys, etc....(and then uncles and older cousins hipped me to Funkadelic, Led Zeppelin and Hendrix)...so with all that And the radio (this was late 60's to late 70's radio, with Funk, Progressive rock, Pop, and R&B) I was Really hearing everything...so, Prince is kinda like something they probably would've ended up bringing home eventually....Infact ,they were impressed with musicians like Prince, Todd Rundgren...they were so into music, they were never looking at an artist's appearance, and it didn't really matter what style of music it was,...it was more like, "could they play or not"...



...
[Edited 2/15/05 14:04pm]

Well, by my dad being in the industry and being a music artist, and my mom taught modeling and doing commercials, I was very little. My parents separted when I was around 7, so from then on it was my mom and myself. I was always into music but it was around that time that I REALLY got into music. All types. AM/Fm, didn't matter. My mother, even though she was very protective, she allowed me to develop my tastes in music. She likes a lot of different genres herself. I know that's where I got that from. I think the only group she had questions about when I was a kid was KISS. When I was 8, that's all I wanted to know about. I had KISS all over my walls. She never not let me listen to them or get into to them, but she did her research on them to make sure they weren't satanic or anything like that. Gene Simmons, who I have met a few times, was the main one she was concerned about, which is understandable.

blackguitaristz said:

Gene Simmons STILL scares me.

my dad didn't mind at all, since my musical tastes are pretty close to his.

Some others outside of my family have said in passing that my musical tastes lean toward the " white " side cause I used to listen to Kiss, Van Halen and the sorts when I was younger ( I am Black for sake of statement ) but they Never confronted me on it. Like just about everyone here, my tastes can vary from The Smiths, RUN-DMC, The Beastie Boys, Parliment/Funkadelic, Cameo to Ludacris, Franz Ferdinand, Outkast and Erykah Badu. The only complaint I've gotten from my mom was to turn the noise down, so I just got headphones.

My mom thinks Prince is her favorite artist too now (copy cat )

My dad thinks I'm weird except for when Im listening to an "oldies, but goodies" song

My mother pretty much thought Prince was the devil. She made me take my Prince posters off the wall, and I'd put my favorite one on the back of my bedroom door. Since a hook was there I could put my robe on it and sort of hide it...or so I thought. She eventually let me know that she knew it was on the door and made me take it off. Off the bedroom walls, off the door, etc.

This cycle happened over, and over, and over, and over again until I didn't care anymore.


By the time I got to be old enough to get my own car I put all my Prince posters in my trunk. Eventually, of course, I grew out of wanting posters and never really bought any more posters, or tore out any that were in magazines.

Thing is, it was only Prince that she made me take down, my other posters of other artists didn't bother her. To this day, she still has a problem with Prince, although she knows nothing about his recent...transformation since the '80s, and I haven't told her. But it would be interesting to find out what her reaction would be.

Growing up I liked all the music my mother played, Stevie Wonder, the Staple Singers, and a boatload of gospel albums.

She likes some secular music nowadays, but would never buy it.

`
[Edited 2/15/05 17:02pm]

My mum and dad are really square.

In 1985 (I was 15) They asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I had already got Purple Rain a few months before, so I thought I give this Prince guy another go, so I asked for 1999.

My Birthday arrived, and there we all are, in my mum and dads house in suburbia London in the conservative mid eighties. My Nan is round, as is my aunt, my brother and my neighbours.

As I'm the 15 year old Birthday boy, they let me play my new album at full volume at this very square party/gathering.

4 tracks in (Lets Pretend We're Married), My Nan says "You think I'm old, but some of this modern dance music is quite good!"

It this point Prince shouts "I sincerly wanna fuck that taste out of your mouth". The needle scratched. The room fell silent.

I was sent to my room without my new album.

From here on in, I was a fan!

SquirrelMeat said:

SquirrelMeat said:

whoaaa....that sounds hilarious and f'd up at the same time

My mom would argue sometime saying "I am the one who bought him his first record player!" while my mom would say, "I am the one who taught him all them oldies he know!"

Really I dont know who gave my the turntable I think it was my mom, but my dad bought me a real lil' kids record player.

My mom on the other hand played all her 45's and other records to death and I grew up LOVING them so I really have 2 giv credit 2 my mom since most of the stuff I know is through her.

My mom likes most of my music but she cant get in2 Breakbeats and Pop much.

I think I made my parents musically soulful proud

Funny, I've been listening to Prince since I was 12 (and all the associates), and my mom and dad never said anything about it. I remember going on trips in the car and playing Prince for everyone to hear -- even the nasty stuff. They didn't seem to mind. They were actually pretty conservative in their beliefs, but I guess as long as I was doing alright in school and showed that I had good character, they didn't care about the other stuff. But then again, I never really did anything to rebel against them (besides running away from home a few times). They let me be me, for the most part.

I stayed with my grandmother every weekend, every holiday vacation, and all summer long between every school year. She was my second mother and very over protective. She bought me records every weekend so I would have something to entertain myself.

She was with me, when she bought my first Prince album, "Dirty Mind". Even for that time, "Dirty Mind" had a sticker on the plastic that read "This album may be unsuitable for young listeners". I put my thumb over the sticker and showed her what I wanted. She looked at the cover and saw the word "Prince" in big white letters. She said "Oh look, baby, it's Freddy Prinze". She bought the album for me with no problem.

She lived directly behind a shopping center that had a record store in it so she would give me money and I would walk to the record store every weekend. I kept all my records at my grandmother's house because I didn't want my siblings getting mad at me and tearing them up when we would fight. One afternoon, I had gone skating. My mother had visited my grandmother while I was gone and was thumbing through my records because she wanted me to make her a tape. She liked the song "Controversy" so she looked at the back of the album to see what else was on the album. When I got back from the skating rink, my mother and my grandmother were sitting on the couch with the album on the couch next to them. They were mad as hell. My mother was furious from just reading the song titles. "Jack U Off" really pissed her off. My grandmother didn't know what it meant, so my mother whispered in her ear. Then my grandmother was furious.

When "1999" came out, it was released on a Tuesday. I didn't go to my grandmother's house until the weekend so I had to wait to pick it up. On Wednesday, one of my friends had bought the album and was talking about it. I asked him if it had anything nasty on it because my grandmother was raising hell about Prince. He said that Prince used the word "fuck". I asked him if there were any dirty song titles. He said no. Friday afternoon, when I picked it up, my grandmother was with me for this purchase, I be damned if the number "one" on "1999" was in the shape of a dick. As I had done with "Dirty Mind" before, I just simply put my thumb over the dick and showed it to her and made my purchase.

Also, during the "Controversy" era, my mother's boyfriend died of a heart attack. She went through a "religious phase" that lasted about a year and drug us into church every time the church doors opened. One evening, my mother, my grandmother, and myself were sitting around watching a Bob Hope Christmas Special on television. Andy Williams was singing a Christmas song with Bob Hope and my grandmother just loved the "pretty Christmas music". She knew I was constantly taping music off the radio and records so she said, "Baby, why don't you tape some of the pretty Christmas music?" I said "I wouldn't be caught dead listening to some mess like that!" My mother said "No, he would rather listen to the devil's music like that Prince prancing around and slinging his hair and that long haired Rick James with hair down damn near to his ass!" We had a knock down drag out argument between the three of us that night.

Other than Prince and Rick James, my grandmother was cool with everything else. I was so heavy into music at that time, I would pick up a Memphis station that faded in and out and would pick up 12 Inches from the record store that Jackson radio stations never played. People used to really trip out when they would hear a 70 year old woman talking about the 13 minute long 12 Inch of The Gap Band's "You Dropped A Bomb On Me". They would say "Go head on grandma!"

SquirrelMeat said:

The more I read yall posts, the more I realize it's a damn miracle I got into the music I did because my parents really had no influence/help on my choices.

My mom knew about Prince way before I did because she was a career counselor in his high school . She was always clipping articles about him and telling me stories -- because for her, he was the star hometown boy. She was one of his first fans, I think.

And then during my Rolling Stones phase: "I can't believe you listen to the same music that we did when we were kids!" Over and over.

I used to torture my mom with CHEAP TRICK. She LOATHED CHEAP TRICK and complained constantly about them. Especially when I would force her to watch the Live At Budokan concert while she was trying to take a nap on the couch.

My dad admired Prince but always made fun of his R&B sound, going "oooh ooooh" in a high pitched voice.

When I got into the Smiths, my dad said, "You really shouldn't listen to that depressing music."
[Edited 2/16/05 14:45pm]

heartbeatocean said:

Um, I think we have the same parents. Just substitute Cheap Trick with Led Zeppelin (my mom doesn't loathe them at all though) and there you have it. I've made my mom watch the Zeppelin DVD while she was trying to relax on the couch. And the Prince and Smiths comments? Sounds familiar.

minneapolisgenius said:

I've never said it before, but I've often wondered if you were my musical twin.

heartbeatocean said:

Very interesting indeed.

Now you've got me wondering.

minneapolisgenius said:

Definately because my dad was a musician (guitar and bass) ang great singer and so is my mom (piano, clarinet and violin) and myself (guitar, bass, keys and drums) music was always a HUGE part of my life. I started playing at a young age, and u just end up developing a sharp ear. So, even though I listened to everything, be it ABBA or Alice Cooper, my thing also was if the performance was good. If they looked cool, played great, etc. When Prince first came out with "Soft and Wet", man, I was very young. I thought P was a white girl who was the lead singer of a band called Prince! It wasn't untill a year later that my older girl cousin who was nuts about P, did I realize that Prince wasn't a band per se, but a guy doing a solo thing. Because of all of the stuff I had and listened to ; Parliament-Funkadelic, KISS, Hendrix, Donna Summer, Bowie, Zeppelin, etc, Prince was a combo of all of those things to a degree. So I was very hip to what he was doing, image and style wise.

blackguitaristz said:

You've met Gene? oooooh I HAVE to orgnote you about that!!!!!

how cool!

...as for me growing up with my Mum she was into heaps of different music so it was all good - she let me go see Kiss for the first time and came with me to see Prince in 1992 and loved a lot of the same music like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard etc that I grew up with