Turns Out Your Kids Really Did Love That Music You Played

NPR ^ | September 06, 2013 | Nancy Shute

[nickcarraway]

Way back in the 1980s, were you the one playing "When Doves Cry" over and over? Well, don't be surprised if your kids wind up doing the same thing.

Young adults have strong positive memories of the music their parents loved when they were the same age, a study finds. That flies in the face of the cultural stereotype that children reject their parents' taste in music.

Participants in a study on musical memory didn't just say they remembered and loved the music that was popular in the early '80s, when their parents were young. They also loved the music of the '60s, which their grandparents may have been blasting while changing Mom's diapers. And the 20-year-olds of today liked the older songs as much as the new stuff they listen to with peers.

For real? "They would hear this music and say, 'Oh yeah, that's my parents' music,' with obvious fondness," says Carol Lynne Krumhansl, the psychology professor at Cornell University who led the study. The study was published online in the journal Psychological Science.

The scientists had been testing musical memory in an earlier study, and were surprised to find that college-age participants could identify older pop and rock songs just as quickly as the new stuff. Even more surprising, they liked the older stuff more. So the researchers decided to try to nail down what was happening, using clips from hits off Billboard lists from 1955 to 2009.

Top hits 1980-1984 from the study: can you name them? Playlist Transcript More than 60 student volunteers (average age 20) listened to short clips of the top two pop and rock songs for each year. The researchers quizzed them on which songs they recognized, how much they liked them and their emotional responses. They were also asked if they had memories associated with the songs and if those memories were from listening with parents, alone, or with others.

Earlier research has found that the music heard in late adolescence and early adulthood has the most impact and staying power through a person's life. So the researchers figured that today's 20-year-olds would be all about Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas. Not so.

"We didn't have any idea" that young adults had strong personal memories of the music of the early 1980s, Krumhansl told Shots. She and her colleague, Justin Adam Zupnick of the University of California, Santa Cruz, were even more surprised to see the second "reminiscence bump" in emotion and memory for top hits from 1965 to 1969.

Young people have strong memories of music they heard growing up, especially the stuff their parents listened to when they were 20. Young people have strong memories of music they heard growing up, especially the stuff their parents listened to when they were 20.

Carol Lynne Krumhansl The connection to parents' music isn't entirely surprising. Music plays a central role in child rearing, both in the songs children are taught at home and in school and in those heard more informally as part of the home environment. The songs parents choose to listen to reflect their taste, their values, their era.

Music is a powerful cue for retrieving strong personal memories — when you kissed that girl at summer camp; the blue polka-dot dress you wore to prom; how lonely you were freshman year.

And the human brain remembers music with extraordinary detail, unlike spoken words, in which people remember just the gist. After hearing less than a second of a song, people can "come up with the title and the artist," Krumhansl says. "They know the emotional content. They know the style."

The 1960s music may evoke strong memories in 20-somethings because of the quality, Krumhansl speculates. We are talking about The Beatles here. But the top pop songs of that era used in the study also included "The Ballad of the Green Berets," "To Sir with Love" and "Sugar Sugar," so maybe it's not just that.

Krumhansl thought the students might have memories of 60s music because it lives on as classic rock. But it turned out their memories came not from current listening, but from hearing it when they were younger.

Technology may also be a factor. The introduction of cassette tapes in the 1960s made music more ubiquitous, and the same tapes were played long after that decade ended. (Props to you parents still hanging on to those mixtapes.)

Next, Krumhansl wants to find out if other generations have the same experiences with emotional memory and music, and try to trace influences back through multiple generations. She's launching a Web-based survey that covers 100 years of pop hits, and welcomes public participation; check it out here.

And maybe play "Bette Davis Eyes" (No. 1 hit, 1981) while you do.

[bgill]

We had a great radio station that played 60s, 70s and a few 80s. One day, one of my 8th grade students stomped in and slammed his books down and hollered, “They cut off 1300!!!!!!” I slammed mine down and hollered back, “I knowwwwww! How could they?!?!?” There was no other channel to listen to so I brought out my Eagles and Journey CDs which the kids would listen to when on the way home from after school stuff.

[TurboZamboni]

Democrat Senate Foreign Relations Committee theme song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XokJjEzcWo4

[aruanan]

I am SO glad I got mine thoroughly grounded in a lot of good music before they started to succumb to their trash-listening peers at school. Now I’ve had the 18-year-old play some of his favorite music for me and it’s not the crap the others are listening to but imaginative and lovely. And he also listens to my music as well and plays it for his friends.

[vpintheak]

WOW! Christian churches need to hear this and have it beat over their heads! Get rid of this modern “worship” music and get back to traditional biblical hymns and psalms!

[cripplecreek]

Les Claypool almost ended up in Metallica. He auditioned and fortunately they said no because he needed to go do his own thing and he went on to form Primus.

[cripplecreek]

Anthony Weiner theme song.

Radiohead - Creep

[cripplecreek]

Music is one of those things that can take you back....Way back into the sands of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlRXQEA0yj0

[Zeneta]

Awesome !!

Send her this:

Ian Anderson with Lucia Micarelli

Kashmir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL-k_295sNc

[Zeneta]

Bam ba lam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R044sleOW6I

Rock steady

Whoa

Bam Ba Lam

[Zeneta]

Creep is an awesome song.

Don’t put Weiner on that.

[cripplecreek]

There’s always Wigglestick for Weiner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BomiqCDLcoE

[Zeneta]

Root Boy Slim - “Boogie till you puke”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roC_JLOcnxE

[cripplecreek]

LOL 11 million people live love and kill in NY.

[Zeneta]

LOL 11 million people live love and kill in NY.

____________________________________________________

and then came the money and POP.

But a classic none the less:

The whole world has seemed to “Dance this mess around”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN8hV4AyNss

[not2be4gotten.com]

My 20 something kids love “The Who”.

They can sing the album Quadrophenia word for word, every song.

Of course I played that album every night when they were infants.

I took them to several Who concerts in their teens.

Kinda brings tears to my eyes, as I think about it.

[Liberty Valance]

bttt

[Zeneta]

As I drove my Daughter to her $12,000 per year Christian private school from 6 to 9 years old. I would play a variety of music.

Deep music and fun stuff all the same, mostly side B.

Later in her life I found it predictable as I couldn’t get her to listen to what I thought was good music.

Out of the blue, she asked “have you ever heard Blue Oyster Cult?”

WOW !!

While I never played it for her, it happen to be one of my favorite bands growing up. She loves the WHO and while I never paid much attention to them myself, I like that she is reintroducing me to some classics.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— Greatest song by any Eagle during their solo careers. Still spot on 30 years later. ——

One of my favs. Stands the test of time. Catchy as hell. Great lyrics too.

[Fast Moving Angel]

Thanks for posting (I’d never seen that before!) ... still laughing :-)

[WVKayaker]

My second son is a high school/college music teacher now, and performs in a Jazz combo. He also is conductor of a small orchestra in Northern Virginia. He even has some videos on YouTube, including a couple of trumpet instructionals.

While attending Greensboro College on full scholarship for trumpet, he worked summers accompanying and traveling with the Okaysions (I'm a Girl Watcher)in their later years. He spent five years there, full time, and got his teaching degree. He grew up musically in the church and still plays quite often in his local church, as well as leading the music programs there.

I have four children who grew up on the music of the 60's and 70's. they all still listen to it today. My grandchildren have also become familiar with it, as a result. With my musician son, one of my favorites he played was a Louis Armstrong classic, "What a wonderful world". I wish I had a video of that one, where he even does a good job imitating Louie with that raspy voice!

Our kids do absorb everything in our lives. How they us it is another thing!