Today is my younger sister’s birthday (Happy Birthday Younger Misskirroyale!). She is off skiing and crashing parties at Sundance this weekend, and who knows what sort of music she may be listening to.
But I can tell you a lot about what sort of music she was listening to when she was younger. As you may recall, I’ve been slowly carting my old vinyl from our parents’ home to mine. And there I was faced with the harsh reality of her teenage purchasing interests and power. Granted, my taste was not fabulous, but I can take pride that my adolescent record collection did not include EVERY BARRY MANILOW RECORD. It has been pretty easy to sort out her albums from mine. Loverboy? That goes to my sister. Carpenters? Either my brother or sister. Led Zep: that’s mine. Rumors? Ha! I had traded that with her for Billy Squier.
As we’ve become older, we still enjoy music and buy quite a bit of it. I can count on my sis purchasing any re-release of an ’80s Top 40 collection. She enjoys Mr. Paltrow and band, finding his music relaxing. She has now started buying Opera.
My sister is a mere 18 months younger than me. We both took piano lessons, ballet lessons, and were dragged to our father’s choral concerts. We listened to the same crappy Top 40 radio in the ’70s. We love The Eagles. (Hotel California – hmmm, that’s hers.)
Do you have similar head-scratching moments when you wonder, based on musical interests, how you can be related to a sibling? Granted, I love my sister very much, but I will not listen to a Barry Manilow record!
To be fair, later, it was she who introduced me to Aztec Camera, a band that continues to be a favorite of mine (we were both in college and she kept a newspaper clipping photo of Roddy Frame taped to her dashboard). Also in college, she went to England for a semester and brought home a tape called Synth and Ska that a boy had made her. The Ska side was so good that it was swapped amongst so many of us that it became a classic. It’s how I got in to the whole Two-Tone stuff.
So the 80’s tends to continue be a good decade for us to share and discuss.
As I’ve related here before, it used to bug the hell out of me that my younger brother loved KISS. I tried my best to bully him out of it, but it never worked. Thinking about those days I recalled that he also liked Led Zeppelin more than I would like them for another half dozen years. My brother is 5 years younger than me, but he was always cooler, always more in the flow among his peers. I was kind of threatened by him. By the time he was in his late teens and I was in my early 20s we’d agreed on most of the important records.
All the kids in my family are adopted, so I use that to explain any and all differences among us. It’s actually quite useful.
My brother has about fifteen CD’s. All the Clash cd’s, some Joe Strummer solo stuff and a dead Moon cd I got him for xmas one year. I remember one time when I still lived at home and my stereo was in the spare room he had some people over and was telling them how much he loved music and he was a collector and stuff. I guess my mom overheard the whole thing and told him he could say what he wanted, but he’d better not play my records! I was a dick about that (but then I still have a bunch of those records so maybe it was good policy). But he loves the Clash and pretty much doesn’t listen to any other music.
My sister kind of follows in my dad’s footsteps. She loves show tunes. She has classical music cd’s. She also has some rock music, which is a weird collection, if you ask me. She’s got Neko Case and Adam Ant cd’s. But for every cd of something I like, she has three I can’t stand. I’ve always been the only one that buys way too much music, reads books about music and actually still goes to a show once in awhile. My mom always said that music was “my thing,” and she was surprised I never grew out of it.
My older brother (two years older) was and is a much more trad rock fan than me. Pre-1979, our tastes were pretty similar but I think the only shared passions were Zep and Stones. Then I got into punk and stuff and although he gave it a chance, I remember him walking into my room when I was blasting the first Clash album and he picked up the cover and said: “Isn’t this the kind of record you listen to once or twice and then it sits at the back of collection never getting played again?” Heh, proved him wrong.
After punk, I went off following little trails through the past to discover old, raw, primal musics, whether rock or folk or whatever. I got into some of the hip hop and dance stuff in the mid 80s which he didn’t. He stuck with his more serious, grown up rock while I stayed with my more juvenile stuff.
My little sister (five years younger) was into Manilow, Queen, and top 40. We didn’t really connect musically, and our youngest brother is not into music at all.
Ah, a Nature guy.
My brother is two years younger and he was never into music the way I was. So that’s the big difference right there.
He gave me a Pixies album for xmas one year, which was my intro to them, and I am grateful for that, as it would sad to contemplate never having listened to Frank Black.
As we’ve gotten older, it’s clear nature has the upper hand. If you met me and my siblings you’d be surprised to find out that we’re related.
I’ll let you know the next time I’m in RI. And if you’re looking for a good show tonight, Camper Van Beethoven at the Middle East. I miss that place.
I’m guessing most siblings have shared at least one good album.
Not sure that’s true of me and my brother. I guess we both like Stevie Wonder, though, come to think of it.
I have five brothers and sisters. I’m no longer sure who’s tastes are closest to mine. My reputation is of having willfully obscure musical tastes but that is untrue (I suspect a lot of you have been accused of the same). Someone recently proposed that we put an ipod on shuffle and then try to guess whose it is by the songs that come up. That would be fairly easy: Brother #1-Prog and Classic rock; Brother #2 – Bad music from all genre’s and the songs will contain at least one goofy element; Brother #3 – Not sure how to classify his tastes. In the mix is Bob Marley, Big Head Todd, the Sundays (these aren’t’ necessarily favorites but they are perennials); Sister #1 – The exact opposite of my musical tastes, even to the point of songs on a particular album (I gave her a tape of John Hiatt’s Bring the Family and she glossed the beautiful Lipstick Sunset, and zeroed in on the treacley Have a Little Faith In Me); and Sister #2 – Probably a lot of over lap with LMKR’s taste but with more cloying, overly clever stuff sprinkled in there.
Overlap with most of the siblings includes the Clash, Exile on Main Street, and Hepcat.
I hate when people tell me I only like music if no one’s heard it before. My favorite band is The Rolling Stones. That’s like me and 35 million other people’s favorite band! I like old Aerosmith and I have an AC/DC album or two. I have Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young albums, I like Bowie and Steely Dan. But just because I say I think The Replacements were one of the greatest bands ever and I still buy albums by new bands that don’t get played, I’m just trying to be antagonistic. It’s not my fault those bands don’t release new music every Tuesday!
My grandfather was a musicologist so I think that unusual musical tastes that border on the obsessive are permitted (but not always listened to) in my family. My grandfather wrote some articles exploring numerology in Bach’s music so I guess there’s a pretty wide musical acceptance zone in the Royale extended family.
It’s been my friends and housemates who have been obtuse. I can still recall one housemate saying, “Why do you care who produced it? Who cares what label it’s on?” I knew we would never be close and I’ve lost touch with her.
HIgh five. See, this is why you, me and Funoka and one other guy (I think Trigmigigmo) need to form the Right Minded Music Caucus. I think Charleston WV is centrally located so we could meet there once a quarter to discuss how most other people just don’t “get it”.
I’m an only child. This is just one more instance where I have no one else to blame.
aloha
LD
I like it. We may be out of our minds, but we’re Right Minded!
It may have the benefit of attracting Glenn Beck fans, only for them to find out that the politics of Mick and Keith kicking Brian out of the Stones is as political as it’s gonna get.
My older brother liked fusion. A lot. He had all the Chicago albums, and I know this because they helpfully apply numbers to each release. Lots of Spirogyra, Earth Wind and Fire, and it’s ilk was played, and that damned Chuck Mangione song was inescapable. But we mostly agree on jazz recorded before I was born and he did give me They Might Be Giants’ Flood as a Christmas present 15 years or so ago.
I’m really enjoying being the old fart who gets to say, “that’s not music, it’s some guy rhythmically yelling over someone ELSE’s music” to my girlfriend’s 14-yr old boy.
I’m 9-11 years younger than my brother & sister. My sister was a big Beatles fan back in the day & had almost every album up to Revolver. Listening to them, as well as what was on the radio those days were the foundation of my musical taste. My interest in the Kinks started via my brother’s hand me down copy of Everyone’s In Show Biz, which he bought after he saw them perform in the Boston Music Hall. Among his few other albums that I remember were the Association’s Greatest Hits, the 1st Frigid Pink album & that Lord Such album which had the Union-Jack decked Rolls Royce on the cover.
These days my sister is mostly into Diane Krall-Rod Stewart smooth jazz-pop, while my brother still likes classic rock/pop. In fact, he’s been borrowing CDs from my collection lately to download to his iPod.