the beatles or the rolling stones

I often wonder what music translates to the older generation beyond the pulp of Radio 2. It's something that really bothers me, especially when I look at people on the tube and you can guess what kind of music they're listening to by looking at them. In most cases you'll almost always guess right. 

So I thought I'd try a little experiment. I approached my dad, who at the time was watching Camel and Zep music videos on Youtube and tore him away from the Wii (he's found his arch rivals to be Sarah and Elisa, fictional opponents on Wii Tennis) and asked his opinion on some of my current musical favourites. By no means is my dad a "hip dad", but this little experiment showed some interesting results. There was a lot of love for Metric, Passion Pit , Santigold and TV on the Radio and not so much for Pains, Silversun Pickups and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, all of whom he dubbed "try hards". He did also admit to liking that awful song by N Dubz, La Roux and Flo Rida, which sullies his opinion in my eyes a tad, but does illuminate the fact that the elder generation (sorry dad) shouldn't be presented with the soft serve music that the media expects them to lap up.

I guess a prime example of this is Adele, a super talented artist whose early live shows around London were incredible, and then sadly went on to produce an incredibly dull album, that wouldn't you guess it, Radio 2 loved. I played my dad the old, old myspace tracks and he LOVED it 1000% more than the god awful 'Chasing Pavements'.

Of course I realise there is theory and strategy behind who gets played where on the radio, and I know it's not easy to get new bands to a platform where they are unbiasedly exposed to an elder audience, besides children taking their parents aside as I did. However I still do wish radio stations would take a chance on maybe delivering an hour of what would be considered youth oriented content to direct to the 30+ crowd, maybe having awesome labels like Neon Gold, Chess Club, 4AD etc curate. It'd certainly be a way to foster a new connection not only between kids and their parents (from the preteens through to the college kids) but also would give newer artists and labels a connection with the seasoned listener. These guys don't go to many gigs or club nights and don't really get to hear new music until it's filtered down a long stream of musical atrocities and I think it's a real shame that they miss out. After all, if your parents are anything like mine, they shared their Smiths records with you, so why not try and share something with them that is as important to you, even if it is just an album crush that lasts a week?

I feel I should say, I didn't buy the Topshop dress mentioned below. Too many threats of mockery. 

I cave, I cave. 

Weekend dining, shopping, mania update coming soon.