Loading Your Child’s iPod With Music is a Tremendous Responsibility That Should be Taken Seriously

It's not even his first mp3 player, but now that he's 7-years-old his taste in music is beginning to move beyond "The wheels on the truck go round and round" and the music he listens to now will impact his taste in music for the rest of his life.

When I was a child his age I was living on Clark Air Base in the Philippines, and I still remember the music my dad listened to at the time.  Although I'm not a fan of "We Built This City", it's still a song I listen to every time it comes on because it makes me think back to the first place I heard it.  My dad was washing his Mercury Cougar in our driveway on Clark AB and had that blasting as we cleaned.

Over the next five years I'd say my dad had the biggest musical influence on me.  It was HIS record player.  They were HIS albums.  I remember the Beach Boys, Tommy James and even Michael Jackson's "Thriller".  He denied that it was his, but none of us bought it.  My dad would pull out his giant 80s headphones and let us listen to his music.

It wasn't until I was about 10-years-old that I really began to explore music on the radio, but even then my dad's tastes influenced me.  How could they not?  It was his car stereo.  I had to learn to drive and take his car without him in it before I was ever allowed to touch the radio.

My dad bought Slippery When Wet, 1984 and OU812.  If those names mean anything to you, you know how cool it was the first time I heard those albums.  Game-changing for me, honestly.  Look at my career, for God's sake.  I love music, and dad is to thank.  Or blame.  I could've done without the Best of Bread cassette tape.

My mom also had an influence, and I'll still listen through a Leslie Gore or the Oak Ridge Boys song just for old time's sake.  It's not quite the same, though.  My mom laid the basics of country music for me, but she wasn't exactly an outlaw.  Neither was her country.  It was pretty vanilla.  Love you, mom.  Just not your cassette tapes we listened to EVERYWHERE WE WENT FOR TWO STRAIGHT YEARS!

It's because of these basic music memories that I take my responsibility to fill my son's iPod with great music so seriously.  All-in-all, he got himself 194 songs.  Some are songs I took straight from his old mp3 player.  160 of the songs are songs I went and found among my 10,000-song catalog.  Here's just a sample of some of the music I added.  What do ya think?

Some will be disappointed that I didn't put any country music on his iPod other than Blake Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here".  That's only because he hangs out with me so much at the radio station, at remote broadcasts and at concerts that I figure he'll get his fill of country music along the way.

Jerry Reed is the only borderline-country artist I've got.  No, I'm going with George Clinton to George Ezra, from AC/DC to ZZ Top.  I've got to lay the foundation and introduce him to as much good music as possible before his friends and classmates get their claws into his ears and he starts talking about Eminem & Weezy.

I'm actually very conservative in what I'll allow.  There are very few curse words and even fewer drug or sex references.  I've gotta keep it clean.  I just hope he doesn't look back at this playlist in 20 years and say I "Leslie Gore'd" him.  That would break my heart if I was the Oak Ridge Boys parent and Erica was the Van Halen parent.