My daughter's preferences in music currently include Green Day, Linkin Park, Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, Three Days Grace and other groups, whose names escape me. With the exception of some of Green Day's oeuvre, these are not exactly my cup of musical tea. But then, that's how the parent-child natural order is supposed to work.
Nevertheless, I'm happy to support her in her pop-cultural likes and pursuits, up to a point (see concert discussion below).
Evidently, the main local rock station that the kids her age listen to "really sucks." It rarely or never plays the above named groups or even much of that genre of music (whatever that is).
(Continued below)
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A few days ago I decided to sample some of the one-hundred stations that are programmed into my Internet radio device under the "Alternative" category. I didn't tell my daughter that I was trying to find something for her, but I knew she was in the next room and could hear, assuming she didn't have her iPod earbuds in or wasn't too wrapped up in a Skype conversation with her boyfriend.
On radio, the "Alternative" label seems to cover such a multitude of sins -- styles, artists, periods -- as to be almost meaningless. In my traipse through the category I caught snatches of everything from Hootenanny-era folk songs to German death-metal blitzkriegs to Gray's-Anatomy, whispery-female-on-acoustic-guitar type music.
Whenever I landed on a station that sounded, to my ears, like something my daughter would approve, I lingered awhile. It must have taken about 28 such samplings before I finally got a reaction. As I played yet another ambiguously noisy stream, this one from a station in Jacksonville, Florida, my daughter burst into the room to ask (perhaps with a tinge of worry) why I was listening to such good music for a change. Bingo!
The station calls itself x102.9 -- actual call letters, WXXJ. On a web page aimed at potential advertisers it describes itself as "Jacksonville's New Rock Alternative station ...Targeting Generations X and Y (Adults 18 - 44 years old)." That must say something about either their targeting or my 13-year-old daughter, but I'm not sure what.
My daughter says about 40% of the songs on x102.9 are by artists she knows and likes, and the rest of the programming generally matches her tastes and introduces her to new artists to like. She listens to the station on her laptop while Facebooking or doing homework. (Here's the stream.)
x102.9 is part of the Cox media empire and I'm guessing that it is not unique; there are probably clones of it, programming-wise, all around the country. But it is the first one like it I stumbled across, and it is now my daughter's regular station -- at least until she "outgrows" that 18-44 demographic!
Finding this station and bringing it to my daughter's attention had an unintended (read unwanted) consequence, namely, that I might be forced to attend a Three Days Grace concert next month. Via the x102.9 web site, my daughter learned that the group's current tour will be bringing it to Raleigh, and she is dying to go.
Her mother, though, insists the only way she can go to her first real rock concert is if accompanied (not just dropped off) by a responsible adult. And since none of her friends' parents have stepped forward, that leaves one of her parents to bite the bullet and go . My daughter's choice would be me, and not because I'm the hipper one for turning her on to a cool radio station. She knows I will probably stand off and observe from a distance, whereas her mother will stay much too close and (horror of horrors!) might even start dancing. We'll just have to see who draws the short straw.
UPDATE 5/6/2010: The more I listen to the first background song on the band's web site ("The Good Life"), the more it grows on me. Of course I run the risk of liking it so much that I completely kill this group's coolness for my daughter. I'll have to be careful!
Oh, and I should also start referring to them as "3DG." That's the cool way, apparently.
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