Learning in the Sunshine State

A few months ago, I decided I needed some new music. Something that didn’t come from Radio Disney. Don’t get me wrong, I love Radio Disney. I love that Dennis can listen to popular music without all the trashy language. Radio Disney edits songs from groups like The Black Eyed Peas, All American Rejects, and Bowling for Soup, and makes them acceptable to parents of younger kids. They also play a lot of songs from their own stars. These are songs from shows on The Disney Channel, such as Hannah Montana, and from their movies, like High School Musical. Most of that stuff is what used to be called bubble gum music. It’s perfect for tweens. I actually like most of it.

However, after more than a year of listening to not much else, I was feeling the need for adult music. Okay, my generation’s music. Some might call it old folks music, but I just call it good rock & roll. I wanted a way to listen at home and in the car, so it needed to be portable. Neither of our cars have CD players, so I couldn’t just grab some CD’s and take them with me. The truth is, I wanted to listen to music 21st century style.

As it turns out, around the time I was pining for an iPod, Bill’s company was offering discounts from Apple. It’s just a small discount, but it was enough to convince him that we should do it. He rarely listens to music on his own, so he really did it for me. We got the 2G Nano. We don’t want video, so we really couldn’t justify the cost of a full fledged iPod. The Nano gave us more flexibility than the Shuffle, and 2G is more than enough music for our purposes.

Dennis and I are loving it. I pulled out some old CD’s and through the magic of iTunes, put some favorites on the iPod. We also find some great songs at the iTunes store. Not surprisingly, Dennis chose mostly Radio Disney songs for his playlist. We downloaded a few Weird Al Yankovic songs. Yep. Weird Al. Remember him? He’s back, and the tween crowd thinks he’s great. They’re kind of surprised to find out that their parents know who he is.

My playlist includes:

Stevie Ray Vaughn
The Outlaws
The Eagles
Bonnie Raitt
Billy Joel (from An Innocent Man)
Sting
Tom Petty
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Allman Brothers
The Traveling Wilburys

Like I said, good rock and roll. Dennis likes quite a few of my choices. Who said kids don’t like their parents’ music?