MVM-Save the Men!

I think I’m failing my boys.

Well,  musically speaking anyway. I’ve been noticing lately that they seem to be drawn only to club beats from the likes of Katy Perry, LMFAO and Taio Cruz.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this kind of music. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine from time to time. But a steady diet of these kind of songs give me nightmares of two beautiful young brothers with three top buttons open to reveal  gold chains and chest hair, fist pumping their way across a club they aren’t allowed into legally, in order to grind with girls who’s fathers would kill them if they knew what their skirts looked like.

I can’t have that. Not on my watch.

I will raise men like those I either admired from afar or crushed on close by throughout my life. The men who shaped my musical tastes of today. The men who can make a party mix as skillfully as they mix a tape (shut up about my age) that will melt a young girls’ heart. They will be men who can quote cheesy Chicago or Buffet songs and still feel the music of artists like Bono, Bob, and Eddie in their soul-where it should be. I will raise men who  have musical depth; Men of Eclectic Music, like my nephew who sent me this text just the other day:  “Download this song, It’s the perfect fusion of clogs and a rhyming dictionary.”

That guy. That’s who I want my boys to grow up and be.

Not, The Situation.

From this day forward, my car dial will no longer auto- tune to t 92.3 Now and Z100. Instead, I will feed my children directly from my iPod, which is full of music brought to me by some of my favorite men.

Eddie Vedder: Breathe. You know, because someday he’ll be deep and angsty and all the things young girls love-strumming a guitar on his dorm-room bed, luring in chicks who think they can “fix” him.  Can’t you see it already?

Swoon

Reel Big Fish-Hungry Like a Wolf– There was a guy in high school who was other-level smart and so counterculture cool that he was a hipster before hipsters were lame. He wore dark rimmed glasses in 1992 (before they were chicly ironic) and liked Ska. He may have even been in a ska band.  No one else knew what the hell Ska was, (I’m still not sure I totally do.) but you can bet I went home and figured it out once I heard Dave talk about it. Anything I could do to be more like that guy who seemed to have a confidence that was missing from everyone else I knew in high school. If Ska means you are sure of yourself then Ska it will be. Besides, can’t you just picture this cool guy fronting a ska band:

Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris-Hallelujah cover: Because I need The Middle One (who has near perfect pitch but is embarrassed to sing out loud) to know that you can be strong and masculine and cool and still sing like an angel. Also, no matter how big Mr. Timberlake gets he’s never too big to listen to his mama and that lesson is priceless.

Billy Joel, She’s Always a Woman: I mean, I mentioned the perfect love song mix right?

Brandi Carlile, Turpentine: Because Real Men not only appreciate strong lyrics, they have plenty of chicks who sing them in their collections. Also, see “The Story” for the aforementioned perfect love song mix. (Equal subsitutes:anything that Indigo Girls do or  Anna Nalick, Breathe.)