Another first world problem – but this one IS music related. The shops are busy pushing an album for Father’s Day which in a wild display of imagination is called How it Works: The Dad: The Album. With a wittily ironic fake Ladybird book cover.
What irks me is the content: Foreigner, Meat Loaf, Journey, Rainbow, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, Jefferson Airplane… its all the 1970s/80s soft rock classics. I think the newest song is Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus (2000).
It’s all ok, and pretty good value if by some amazing chance you want some of these songs and don’t have them.
BUT, and you knew there was a but, the average father in the UK is 33, meaning he was born in 1983 and came of musical age in 1996. Post Nirvana, Post Grunge, post post-grunge, post Acid house.
So shouldn’t The Dad album be called the Grandad album?
And more to the point, what tracks SHOULD the album have for fathers for whom the most significant era is 1990 to 2005? Oasis obviously. And Blur. What else?
(and yes I have teenagers, but lots of my contemporaries have grandkids so I’m not being ageist).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Works-Album-Various-Artists/dp/B01ERZIL6I
HMV are pushing some special vinyl in the run up to Father’s Day. It’s a bit more up-to-date in the main http://www.hmv.com/music/hmv-vinyl-week-full-line-up-of-exclusive-titles-revealed
So too Tesco https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/03/jam-fans-tour-tescos-in-search-of-rare-pink-vinyl
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.
I’m still speechless at the claim that Deep Purple and ZZ Top are “soft rock”. Compared to what? Napalm Death?
Not a Dad album… Dad vinly!
My dad doesn’t play his vinly anymore, mainly cos I have his record player. And I have my beady eye on his and mum’s record collection too (thankfully no Beady Eye).
My dad doesn’t use his record player any more, mainly because I have his vinly.
We should get together!
Finally! I lured her with the vinly!!
(Maybe that should be Finylla?)
You got a copy of Lalya?
No, but I could do you some Albert Alyer.
“And more to the point, what tracks SHOULD the album have for fathers for whom the most significant era is 1990 to 2005? Oasis obviously. And Blur………” Blur/Oasis!? Kids music, innit?
Does that make my preferences the Greatgrandfathers album? And Johnny? Well, he is clearly dead, gratefully or otherwise.
I think it’s some of the tesco extras in the uk that had / have the pink vinyl.
Thought about looking for the jam album but for me not for my Dad. Not sure about the Dad album but you can’t beat a bit of journey though.
Yebbut, it’s aimed at the average father (that 33 year old) – it’s something for him to buy for his father, who’s exactly the right age to have sold all his vinyl in a pathetic, hopeless attempt to “grow up” sometime around the birth of the sprog, a rash action he’s regretted bitterly and quietly to himself all these years, and now the sprog in question is paying him back by giving this cheap pile of old lowest-common-denominator Clarkson-friendly tosh. Kids, eh? Ungrateful bastards.
I suspect that if it came to something for themselves, most of the younger father’s would bexpect after rap or dance, not Dad Indie.
Be after
what does bexpect mean?
It’s a form of bribe given to those campaigning for Brexit that is contingent on that being the outcome of the referendum.
Michael Gove’s bexpect is a cabinet post under Boris, Nigel Farage’s is a lifetime subscription to The Spectator and membership of several swish Gentlemen’ s Clubs, that sort of thing.
“The perfect gift for Fathers Day”.
This album, adorned with the Ladybird Book cover, is no doubt the same as was issued last year with the Haynes Manual cover. And the year before with another “humorous retro cover”, and probably released at 6 monthly intervals under various titles including “Top Gear: The Album”, “The Greatest Driving Songs”, “Rock!”, and “A Collection of Predictable Rock Tracks That You’ve Probably Already Got, And Are Likely To Be Sequenced In The Same Order”
Using 1993 as a kicking off point, the “predictable/not much thought given” compilation compiler would focus on Britpop and include all the big hitters (Oasis, Blur & Pulp, plus Supergrass and Radiohead’s “Creep”. Maybe a bit of Cast (probably “Walk Away”), The Las “There She Goes”, maybe Stone Roses “Fools Gold” and Robbie Williams would be in there somewhere.
The heaviest track would probably be “This Is A Call” or “Monkey Wrench” from The Foo Fighters.
And to show an element of variety (‘cos its not all Dad Rock), probably including Chemical Brothers “Block Rockin’ Beats” and a definite appearance of “Born Slippy” from Underworld.
That sounds horrible.
Perfect.
That would be…
http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o615/JohnDetail/image_zps5koo7ol5.jpeg
That’ll do part of the job – mix that with one of the plethora of “Best Anthems Ever..” albums knocking around at the same time.
Between 1996 and 1999, I reckon there were about 200 of these albums (with subtle differences to the title) containing about 80% duplicate tracks.
The “Dad Rocks” album of the Britpop era?
Ooh, yes. I think that is the answer. Trainspotting and The Best Album in the World Ever! Volume 1/2/3 (I kid you not there were sequels to the BAITWE). And actually they were rather good. In parts. If you like that sort of thing.
As I think I said at the time, I’m not sure what The Best Album In The World Ever would actually be but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have anything by Embrace on it.
Best Anthems Ever Volume 3 contains Embrace – Come Back To What You Know
(Disc 1, Track 2)
I know this because I checked the CD on the shelf … and yes, it was a Fathers Day gift many years ago (as was Volume 1 and 2).
Lager. Lager. Lager. Shouting.
That’s a Dads manifesto if ever I heard one.
You’re right, RD, it only does part of the job. But I’m also getting him the book and DVD and a big bag of brooon for the whole experience.
(I may even mess up his toilet when I visit. I usually do..)
Remember to steal his telly on the way out.
Great comments RIgid. Nothing worse than a lazy compiler.
But what about a compiler who had a serious go at the Eccentric Great Uncle Album and the Eccentric Great Auntie Album? That could be fun.
Eccentric Auntie Album:
Knitting From Knitting Leaves Knitting
Cool For Cats
The Eccentric Uncle one should include something like this
Or why not surf style? Very groovy stuff.
I think you are the man to do it! 🙂
‘Ang on.
The average father is 33 when? On becoming a father? If so, shouldn’t we be adding 16-18 years to that, since the concept of “dad rock”, like “dad dancing” is about the embarrassment it causes to their teenage offspring? That’d make our target market about 50, so the hair-metal content on the album seems about right.
Yes, that did strike me as an odd statistic. If not a slightly made-up-load-of-old-toot one. Is it not a fact that if you have ever sired a child or children, you remain a Dad for the rest of your life and beyond?
My Dad is 73. He’s still my Dad. If I gave him an album of music by Rainbow, Foreigner and the like he would suspect me of having a Brasso relapse.
Orchestra Baobab, however…
Brasso Relapse; weren’t they the band that was formed by some of the survivors after the acrimonious, not to mention murderous, break-up of the mighty Nutmeg Comedown?
Aye, and the drummer later formed the ill-fated fusion supergroup The Strepsil Backwash.
Yup, 33 at time child born, about 30 for age when first child born. Women about 3 years younger on both. Official stats from ONS.
I was 40 – so was my mother – so we kind of skip generations, and that CD just feels old and dated to me (who is mostly listening to Bob Dylan’s 1970s albums this month so what must if feel like to a 35 year old?)
Agreed. Such albums should be targeted at the Dad-age where your spawn are old enough to snatch up a copy in Tesco or click “Buy” on Amazon and use their own money for the transaction.
On that basis the illustration on the front of “How It Works: The Dad Album” is completely inappropriate. It should rather depict eye-rolling teenage son -yet again- removing the spyware from Dad’s PC after another iffy download from a porn site.
The best album for dads of any age would be a 3 CD set of:
Fragile
Tarkus
Trick of the Tail
An “up” for Wheaty, please…..
Speaking of Tarkus
http://teamrock.com/news/2016-05-27/elp-anthology-and-first-3-albums-to-be-reissued
but seems to be just a reissue of the set that appeared a few years ago?
If my children bought any of those for me, the little sods would be off to the workhouse toot sweet.
Making them listen to one of them would be punishment enough.
Trick of the Tail? Johnny come lately post Gabriel stuff? Wrongity wrong
Can I substitute Tarkus for Moving Waves please?
Or Welcome back my friends
I’m going to become a dad next week, just in time for Fathers Day. I’d like vinyl reissues of Wish, Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers and the self titled album by The Cure to complete the set…
Well, I hope Mrs Colin has the good sense to “release” Colin Jr straight into the vinly section of Sainsburys* so he/she can hit the ground shoppin’… (*or is that Sainsbyru?)
PS. good luck bud 🙂
Cheers!
Your dadhood is imminent? Congratulations! Also, you won’t have the time or energy to listen to a whole album for at least the next year, so you might as well forget about those records 🙂
I’m hoping the small person enjoys listening to music so I have the excuse to do it more often! My dad used to play me Who’s Last repeatedly pretty much as soon as I was born.
Dub reggae is worth an interest in. Brilliant at getting infants to sleep, when rocked to the, um, riddim.
Excellent! King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown it is then!
Plus, Mozart to give him brains.
On fathers day when the lycra clad cycling chaps are strapping their £2k bikes back onto their BMW x 5’s listen for the sound of “I Want To Know What Love Is” a gift from Sebastian who’s at home with mummy preparing super food lunch for Daddys Special day. It’s a demographic thing, strangely most of the people here are not part of it…………..
I’d be chuffed if the kids get me anything, even if it goes straight into the bin.
Fathers day? – My eldest boy Tom got me a card & a bottle of gin (gave them to me early as he wont be with me).
If the ‘dad rock’ albums aren’t bad enough, I have just seen an advert for a Father’s Day cash-in called The Jazz Album. We are told that it contains ‘all your favourite jazz artists’…as Robbie Williams arrives on screen.
Christ alive, that deserves a Jazzbo and an ankle tag.