I've definitely noticed a trend among my peers who are parents of playing "Disney Radio" or kid CDs in the car. I guess that's what the kids are into... but I don't know. When I was wee, I drove around listening to whatever radio my parents had on in the car, which has likely contributed to my love of soft rock and bad 80s music... but also made me musically aware of what was going on from a young age.

Now, not only are the grown-ups stagnating themselves musically, but they're not exposing their kids to the music of the era... leaving them wide open victims to marketing whores at Disney et al.

Pish posh to that, I say! Any child of mine will listen to KEXP, and will like it!

I just read my last comment and realized it sounds snarkier than intended. Any indie rocker parents reading out there who care to comment on the issue, instead of ignorant me? ;)

When I have kids, I'm making them listen to my music. Kids are too young to have a music taste, but with careful brainwashing I will make sure they grow up without ever having listened to some crappy Disney band

Kiku - I hope that they're still having Disney Cover Nights at the Crocodile at Christmas time when you turn 21. :-)

Last I knew "tween" was a dirty word. I'm not kidding.

I've always wanted NKOTB to make a comeback. So... they should come back... with a snazzy new single... like, NOW.

Char, are you thinking of "taint"? Sounds like another word for the same thing . . .

Man, you guys are going to get tired of my ranting about capitalism around here, but it's news like this that really bothers me. Can't kids just be kids, outside playing and stuff, without being bombarded with marketing? And you know that those singers are also commercial tools themselves, what with endorsements and their own lines of merch. It's ridiculous. Ok, I could keep going, but I feel a full blown rant brewing that would be too long for here.

and ps to Dana: I don't think your comment was snarky at all. It's the truth!

What are you talking about? Kids have disposable income that the market should exploit! Who doesn't want to be marketed to, really? I know I want products hocked at me left and right. So should kids! Who needs imagination when you have the Disney Channel!

Obviously, elle hates freedom.

To Levi (#7): I have been told they are two different words for the same thing. Gosh I hope my mother isn't reading this. ;)

If you're going to pander to your kids with "kids music" at least have the decency to make it interesting!

And I gave up on kids not being used as target markets in 2000 (Saltman's book is both eye opening and unintentionally deafeating).

Yes, I should have mentioned that some kid music is awesome.

Oddly, this dovetails nicely with a dillemma I face: My one year old neice obviously likes music -- to the point strangers comment on it -- and I wanna get her started off on the right foot. My brother and his wife are all about Baby Einstein and crap like that.

There's an album of Ramones songs redone by kids (probably done by Disney or someone like that). Now, do I get her this? It's a hell of a step up from Baby Einstein and "Dance Around the World," or whatever crap they usually play for her, but am I setting up The Ramones in a bad way? One day will she hear the original version of "Beat on the Brat" and think it's a silly kids song?

I'm still stuck on this: Did someone really name their kid Miley???

Sorry, I've been a lurker for years and finally felt compelled to add my own thoughts:

Much as snark and hipster indignation rule the day, you really gotta wait until you're parents. My own daughter loves Elvis Costello, for which I thank good breeding, but she would run off and join the cult of Laurie Berkner if I left the front door unlocked, too. So yes, let kids be kids, but doing so must also include letting them have some say in what they like (and trust me, they're NOT little pods waiting to be programmed, they do indeed have opinions. from birth) rather than forcing this supercool "my kid only listens to the ramones" aesthetic. If you do that, you're as bad as the Disney-pap marketers and you're denying your own children the opportunity to have their own musical awakening - who among us doesn't remember their first "Oh, crap, THIS is what music is supposed to be!" moment?

And if nothing else, allow me to save you the humiliation of trying to shush your child on a crowded bus when she keeps singing "One more widow, one less white ni**er".

Smarty -- first of all, HAHHAHAh for your closing comment. Brilliant!

Second of all, thanks for providing some insight from the other side. Since all I can provide is based on my experience as a child... I think it makes total sense to let kids listen to kid music (as if you could stop them, right?). Kids like movies/TV/music that sounds, well, juvenile to grown up ears, and that's how it should be.

My baby book lists "record player" as my favorite toy since, well, practically birth. I had all the kids records of the day... but my parents certainly didn't play them in the main part of our house, or the car -- that was their turf, and I listened to whatever they had on.

I feel like in some ways, by only exposing kids to childish music and films, we stunt them -- so they grow up to be adults with very immature tastes in culture and arts. Kinda explains the entire FOX network a bit, doesn't it?

Plus, I think if I had to drive around listening to Disney radio all the time, I'd lose my mind. :D

I know I'm coming in on this convo late, but as much as I want my kids (if I ever have one/some) to listen to KEXP, I kind of appreciate how my parents did it.

I used to bitch about having to listen to "their" music. They listened to mainstream 80s country and western (remember Dolly and Kenny's "Island's in the Stream?"--that was my childhood).

Anyway. I used to hate their music and wished I'd grown up with parents who listened to, at least, classic rock (not classic at the time). But then I realized, if they had, I might have hated it. Therefore, my parents let me discover music on my own, and allowed me to purchase it and listen to it in the car. Having to listen to their music opened the door for me to discover bands on my own. I consider the Who MY band, not my parents, or even the Beatles and Stones for that matter. My parents bought me Springsteen's "Born to Run" for my ninth birthday. They didn't know who the hell he was.

Music is personal, and it has to mean something. When you discover it on your own it makes it important to your life.

As much as I would want my kids to be KEXP freaks, I would hate for them to resent indie when they got older and end up being big ole Toby Keith fans.

OMG Cal, I think we have the same parents. ANNNND, we know what our next karaoke duet will be!

"And we rely on each other, ah ah!
From one lover to another, ah ah!"

Thanks, igDana. As far as kids and music, the only realistic option is to go in the middle. I remember sitting in the back of the Cutlass listening to my parents' oldies station for what seemed like several trips through hell (really just downtown Orlando in the eighties), but I wouldn't trade those memories or their effect on my adult ears for anything. And now I love being a guide for my daughter (you like Laurie Berkner's space ship song? Listen to one David Bowie did about outer space!) but being a tyrant about it just doesn't seem right.

Fox network viewers are raising Disney Channel children, when they're not raising Fox network children (shudder). And parents who let their kids dictate what they listen to in the car and home at all times are morons.