Your Family Venn Diagram (any kind of family)
So…what gets to play on the kitchen bluetooth speaker. What gets turned off the second your other half walks in the front room? What can you only listen to on headphones lest the jokes descend (‘Kate Bush milk bath’) in my case. We’ve been mulling this over as a family for a week and here are the preliminary results:
Our cast:
Me
Son
Daughter
MrsM
Son: basically its jazz and only jazz. Big band, swing and above all Buddy Rich.
Son and me: Bebop.
Son, me and Mrs M: Blue Note fifties and sixties, LTJ Bukem and classic melodic jungle (no vocals).
Daughter and only Daughter: Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Rammstein.
Daughter and Mrs M: early Floyd, Ozrics, Gong, Clapton, Purple, Crimson, Sabbath – aka hippy proggy stuff, very early Bowie
Daughter and me: The Jam, Husker Du
Daughter, Mrs M and Me: Aphex Twin, Glass, Reich, Riley, Oasis, Beatles, Stones, Who, Doors, Dylan. Son will just about tolerate some Glass or Reich but would never choose to put it on.
Mrs M and only her: Vocal jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Holliday,Piaf etc)
Mrs M and me: acid house, Britpop, Smiths, New Order, Pogues, Bowie after sixties, Kraftwerk, reggae etc.
Me and only me: Kate Bush, Nancie Griffiths, Natalie Merchant etc etc.also The Clash and second rank punk/new wave such as The Sound
Now…the big reveal. What can survive anyone entering the room?
Sasha, Digweed, prog house – a Renaissance or Global Underground mix CD from the glory years….er that’s it. Fewer vocals the better.
We could get more granular but the basic lay of land is clear. Vocals are divisive. Son is the purist.
Over to you…
What an entertaining, thought-provoking read! Your family certainly cover a wide range of genres.
I’ll try and give it some thought but I expect to find that we all live in our little musical bubbles with little overlap, except for Mrs KFD and me.
Could I ask what ages your kids are? I wish I could draw a similar Venn diagram with me and the kids, but neither of them are really into music. Certainly not in a way I was at their age. The 11 year old son is mainly into gaming, goalkeeping, supporting Barnsley FC (but little interest in football beyond that) and on the rare occasions I hear him listening to music it’s either Queen, Sophie Ellis-Bextor (wonder where he gets that from?) or his mix, which throws in a few Little Richard songs, some of the rock songs featured in School of Rock and some really (and I mean REALLY) annoying songs from video games.
When I say my 15 year old daughter isn’t into music I’m not being fair, as she has music on often. It’s just that nothing sticks around, apart from Billie Eilish. She basically listens to whatever’s in the charts and once its chart time has passed she moves on to the next batch of songs, and she has no desire to own any music. However, she will occasionally surprise me, by being surprised herself when she hears what I’m listening to, providing it’s a young British rapper. In recent months I’ve had “what? you listen to Bugzy Malone?” and “what? you listen to AJ Tracey?”, so some decent stuff must occasionally penetrate the wall of mediocrity I usually hear coming from her Alexa. The cheeky sod did, however, turn the tables on me last week, when I showed her Barney’s awful dad dancing on an old TOTP, by telling me that all my music sounded the same!!
So our Venn diagram is:
Son: Queen and rubbish songs from video games
Son and me: Little Richard and a few random songs
Daughter: whatever auto tuned rubbish is in the charts
Daughter and me: Bugzy Malone and AJ Tracey, seemingly, and maybe a few more British rap/grime types (although she’s somehow claims to have never heard any of the best stuff and declines my offer to play it to her, as if I’m trying to trick her with some easy listening or something – Skepta, Jme, Little Simz, Verb T, Fliptrix, Coops, Lowkey, Kano, Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Giggs, Roots Manuva, etc)
All three of us: Sophie Ellis-Bextor (seriously, my kids must think she’s bigger than Madonna)
Me: loads of stuff that “all sounds the same”, apparently
Both in their late teens, with the core of their taste locked in for the last couple of years.
Son: Steven Wilson, Haken, Dream Theater, Riverside, Porcupine Tree,The Hu (he loves The Hu) Lunatic Soul, Elbow, Opeth, Plini, Queen
Son and me: As above + any other proggy/heavy stuff I throw in.
Daughter: something diva-ish she can sing along to (this seems to be its only purpose) + Fleetwood Mac, Pretenders, Amy Winehouse, Queen, Elbow, Kate Bush.
Daughter and me: As above + anything I think she’ll like (she asked me for something mellow and acoustic the other day, out came Nick Drake), she’s quite amenable to some of the weirder stuff I like.
Mrs: Anything on Smooth FM that she can sing along to in the car (she knows it’s mostly awful but she’s a teacher and reserves the right to switch off her brain), see also daughter’s stuff.
Mrs and Me: NOT Syd Barrett, King Crimson or any of that weird shit I listen to, no jazz, particularly the skronky kind, and nothing too heavy. She liked one of the Ben Watt album’s I had on the other night. Oh and something she can dance to and sing loudly.
Son and Daugther and Mrs and Me:
Probably a combination of the kids’ stuff, as there’s something for everyone.
Me and only me: All sorts of stuff that apparently can be quite annoying at times. Today I’ve listened to some classical, krautrock, prog rock and some singer songwriter stuff, and the day’s not over yet.
Me: Bloody dirges (apparently; of a folk/country/blues hue)
Mrs Path: Euphoria and complex geometric acoustica
The stepdter: 70s and 80s chart classics (she was born in 1994 but knows all the words. And anything scottish. (I’m the scot, she’s an english.)
The crossover: Niteworks! Bagpipe techno wins!!!
Bagpipe techno you say? This should be on heavy rotation in your kitchen surely…
Well, that’s, um, a bit, um, rudimentary……. This is more what I mean:
I see what you mean, but the Perplexer is an old skool hardcore classic.
And, like many such, very much of its day. I dare say you had to be there. It’s ok but only just.
Me: more or less everything except electric blues and prog.
Teenage daughters: more or less everything, with a focus on modern pop. They’re particularly devoted Taylor Swift fans, and quite right too. There’s nothing they like that I don’t, really, though there’s lots I like that they don’t. So their circle would be entirely inside mine, I suppose.
I’m constantly surprised and delighted by the music they know and love, though. I’ve never tried to be Music Dad and “educate” them in the ways of righteousness, but they’ve heard plenty of my stuff (we pretty much take turns on car journeys: journey A will be my choice, journey B theirs etc) and some of it has clearly gone in. They listen to Patti Smith, Fleetwood Mac, some Joni, tons of ABBA, and I’m pleased they found their way to it without me being Competitive Dad off the Fast Show about it. Younger daughter is a decent drummer for her age, and has found stuff through that. Elder tried guitar and piano for a bit, but wasn’t feeling it. It can be sad when they don’t want to know about things that made you happy at their age, but they’re their own people and I’ve no interest in producing dutiful clones who think I’m cool. Rejecting your parents’ stuff is a big part of being a teenager. I want them to be themselves.
Finally, my ex and I shared a taste in music. We had to: she hasn’t got one.
Me: anything except Prog.
Mrs F: anything 80s, Alison Moyet, Eddi Reader, Squeeze, Fabs, US ‘low-rock’ band Morphine (my doing, I’m afraid), Amy Winehouse.
Offspring the Elder: Billie Eilish, Emo, UK rap, Amy Winehouse.
Offspring the Younger: Juice WRLD, Toots & the Maytals, Specials, Dexys, The Dawn Chorus.
Overlap: Amy Winhouse’s version of Monkey Man.
exactly what I started off doing, until with 4 I realised that the shape doesn’t work to get all the 1:1 connections on (or I couldn’t anyway). Good job.
Springsteen and Van are also firmly in the dad only area here! Apart from the dustbowl sessions which mrs M likes. No Van gets any crossover action, not even Tupelo Honey (the track to play people who don’t like Van IMHO).
Yes much easier with 3. Was 5 minutes work, missed a lot of stuff out though!
Beastie Boys, Beatles, Zombies in the middle?
Do youse want a lodger??
Surprised you can read my writing!
Could be the Beach Boys. “Aww Mom you’re just jealous, it’s the Beachy Boys”
I took my daughter to see Brian Wilson when she was about 7, she had never heard of him, but was aware of The Beach Boys. So I told a little white lie, I told her we were going to see The Beach Boys. As Brian’s band included more original members (also Al Jardine and David Marks) than the one that actually calls itself “The Beach Boys” (Love only, plus Johnston) I felt justified in my deception. She loved the show.
In that middle part are therefore 3 acts we have seen live together, kind of (McCartney not The Beatles!)
(I don’t know if she likes The Beastie Boys)
After I’d posted that I had a horrible feeling you might have meant the Backstreet Boys.
Only her: Florence, The National, Lars Winnerbäck, Håkan Hellström, Adele, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Take That, Keane, Manics, Green Day, Tracy Chapman
Both: Stones, Floyd 73-79, Nirvana, Suede, REM, Oasis, Bowie, Marley, Radiohead, Smiths, Morrissey (less so now), Beatles, Pumpkins, Pixies, Robyn, Amason, Miriam Bryant, Aretha, Joy Division, Doors, Cure, Abba, Elton, Neil Young, Massive Attack, Dylan, Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys, Billie Eilish,
Xx, Nick Cave
Me only: Zappa, Santana, Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey, New Order, Donna Summer, Television, Floyd pre-73, Led Zep, Focus, Talking Heads (she only likes Psycho Killer), Grace Jones, dub reggae, Khurangbin, Roisin Murphy, Can, 10 cc, Steely Dan, Traffic, Soft Machine
I guess we are quite musically compatible. We can have good mutual concert experiences. When I did playlist for her that was based on what I know she likes, it hit me that I mostly like sad stuff, based on what I picked. She goes for more upbeat material. I kind of knew it was so but it’s still revealing and striking.
I hope this assembled, vital information is preserved for posterity in the archives.