The world of music sure has changed since we were kids. I vividly remember being about 10 years old listening to the radio station, patiently waiting for my favorite song at the time, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” to come on the radio so that I could capture it on a cassette tape for “on-demand” listening at home. I had countless cassette tapes, many of which were indexed only be a few words scribbled on an adhesive label, and each requiring my 20 pound handheld tape player for playback. I remember having to rewind and fast forward through practically the entire tape, just trying to locate my favorite track to play.
We now live in an era where any song we like can be tuned in truly on demand, placing musical control at our fingertips. It’s pretty great to be able to stream our favorite hits at any given moment, but it brings its own challenges when it comes to life with our little people.
I have become an on-demand DJ, and I’m not always the biggest fan of this role.
I’m driving in the car, really enjoying the music we are listening to, but hear competing shouts of “Play ‘My Shot’ from Hamilton” and “No! I want to hear ‘How Far I’ll Go’ from Moana!” Like I have nothing better to do in the car while I am driving than to navigate the music library to search for each kid’s favorites! There’s enough banter in the car as it is, and the musical demands can sometimes really put me over the edge. Sometimes, I offer to change the track when we get to a stoplight, but I usually just have to shut the kids down with reminders that it’s my job to be safe. My Mom gets so stressed with these demands that she flat out tells the kids that she doesn’t know how to turn the music on.
At home, we listen to a lot of music. No records, no cassette tapes, no CD players. Instead, we stream Apple Music and Pandora via Sonos, and our kids are hand-picking their favorite Ed Sheeran songs on demand. So, guess what? This DJ is on-call again in our home space. And this often lends itself to the kids listening to the same songs over, and over, and over. And confusion abounds when the kids hear a favorite on Pandora and don’t understand why they can’t replay it instantly. The Sonos-Alexa integration could offer a respite from non-stop DJ-ing, but I’m fairly certain this will only introduce the incessant playing of 20-second song fragments as the kids shout competing musical demands at the Cloud. Poor Alexa. I feel ya, girl.
Our kids are growing up in a musical space vastly different than that we experienced as children. It would have blown my mind to have this level of access and control at their age. They’ll never know that feeling of delayed gratification when your jam finally comes on Casey Cassem’s weekly top 40, or the euphoria of calling into the station and actually getting on the air with your request. I guess Bob Dylan was really on to something when he said, “Times. They are a changin.”
And I bet even HE didn’t see this coming!
