After a pretty long hiatus, we have started back with our Weekly Music Artist Challenge!

I am a little behind, so I’ll have to play catch up a little bit. We’ve already done Pink Floyd and The Who. This week, we are listening to, enjoying, and discussing Simon and Garfunkel / Paul Simon. More on that later.

So about three weeks ago, we decided to start up the Weekly Music Artist Challenge. But we just dove in with a random artist. My youngest had been enjoying Pink Floyd one day, so we made that the artist of that week. We had no rules or anything at that point for selection – we just picked at random. We listened to full albums and random songs.

For the next week, I made an official list, and created a nomination process. The list was just a list of rock artists – mostly classic rock, but some others bleeding into the rock of the nineties – that I admire and believe to the best examples of greatness in rock music. The list will not be permanent – I will add artists as I see fit, and maybe delete them if I don’t think they are relevant anymore. It will be organic.

You can see the list here: https://weeklychallenge.music.blog/weekly-music-artist-challenge-nominees/

For the first week of this challenge, I picked five artists at random. I put their names on pieces of paper and put them into a hat. One of my kids picked out of the hat, and that became our artist for the week. The remaining four will become the nominees for next week, with an additional artist picked at random.

Two weeks ago, my youngest daughter picked. She selected The Who, which was funny because had recently heard Baba O’Reilly in a movie, and she loved it. Then shortly after that, she saw a spider, so I played for her the song Boris The Spider, which she also loved. So it must have been serendipity.

So here’s how it broke down: We had five nominees – the nominees were Pearl Jam, REM, The Who, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon. My youngest daughter Lochlainn picked The Who, so the remaining artists stay in the pot for the next week, with one new artist added at random. At some point I will add the details for each week on a separate page as well.

So, for week three, we had the four remaining artists – Pearl Jam, REM, Bob Dylan, snd Simon and Garfunkel/Paul Simon. The additional artist picked at random ended up being The Eagles. My son Shea picked, and he picked Simon and Garfunkel/Paul Simon.

I combined the group Simon and Garfunkel with the solo artist Paul Simon because I felt that there was so much more to expand on by including Paul Simon’s solo career. I am a champion of separating the work of an artist as a solo entity verses his/her work in a group, because they are different. It’s not the same players, it’s not the same collaborations, and it’s not the same artistic effort. But, in this case, I believe it is good to expand Paul Simon’s solo work beyond Simon and Garfunkel as an extension of the group. They ended up listening to a lot more Paul Simon than Simon and Garfunkel, but that’s ok.

Now we are at week four. We had our four remaining nominees from last week – Pearl Jam, REM, Bob Dylan, and the Eagles, and the randomly selected addition ended up being Cream. This time it was my daughter Mollie’s chance to pick, and she picked the Eagles.

And now, we are up to date. I’ll have more to report about the Eagles and how this week has gone at the end of the week. Hopefully I can keep this weekly challenge going… and the blog as well!

This week’s artist was Deep Purple. It actually went a little over a week because we were too busy to sit down and talk about it.

The album that they had to listen to was Machine Head. They also listened to various other songs, and they listened to Burn.

I asked them what the song “Smoke On The Water” is about. We had discussed this already. They said that it was about a building that caught on fire, and the fire reflecting on the water. That’s where three visual for the title of the song came from. Not a bad recollection. I had given them more details than that (where exactly it happened, why it happened, etc), but they didn’t remember that.

I asked them to discuss the use and sound of the organ in the band. They said the organ was like a piano, and that not a lot of bands used an organ, so it made their sound unique.

I asked what they thought makes Deep Purple important to classic rock. They said because they use an organ. Granted, it was a bit of a tough question, so I guess I can be satisfied with that result.

This week’s Weekly Music Artist Challenge artist is R.E.M., and the required album is Out Of Time.

This week’s music artist challenge was The Allman Brothers Band. The required album was their self-titled album. Here are the questions I asked my kids and the discussion that we had.

What albums did you listen to? The only album other than the required album that either kid listened to was Eat A Peach.

How did Duane Allman Die? This was a trivia question to see if they were paying attention to me. While we were listening to the album Eat A Peach, I told the story of how Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. I also told them about how rumor had it that he collided with peach truck, and as a tribute to Duane, the band named the next album Eat A Peach. This of course has been disputed and is universally accepted as false. My daughter not only answered correctly, but she recalled the story I told about the peach truck!

What is a jam band? What makes The Allman Brothers a jam band? So, I sort of screwed up on this one. I meant to talk about what a jam band was, but I didn’t get around to it by the time we had our discussion. So, I had to explain what a jam band was first. After they understood what a jam band was, they answered that The Allman Brothers were a jam band because their songs tended to run long. I guess I’ll take that…

Name something distinctive about the sound of The Allman Brothers Band. So, to start, I had to explain what distinctive meant. They first really couldn’t think of an answer, but after some careful prodding, they came up with the sound of their guitars.

What is your favorite Allman Brothers Band song? My son had no answer, but my daughter said “Melissa.”

I think my kids are slowly getting the hang of this. My son needs to get a little bit more on board. I think we are making headway.

This week’s artist will be Deep Purple, and their required album is Machine Head.

This week’s Music Artist Challenge was Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, and the mandatory album was Damn The Torpedoes.

My kids also listened to their self-titled album, Southern Accents, and Hard Promises.

I asked three questions about Tom Petty And The Hearbreakers to my kids.

First question: What did you think of Tom Petty And The Heartbreaker’s music, and in particular, their sound? My kids said that they thought the band was original, and had a different sound to them.

Second question: What was your favorite song? My son couldn’t pick one, but my daughter’s favorite song was “Refugee.”

Third question: What was your overall impression of the artist and their music? They said that they liked it, and that Tom Petty has a very distinctive voice that they liked.

I’m hoping that next week I can illicit some better comments. I’m going to have more questions, and some trivia that they will have to answer. I will be giving them some info about the artist as we go through the week that they will need to remember!

This week’s artist is The Allman Brothers Band.

I got tired of my kids listening to crappy modern pop music, so I wanted to help them discover all the music I love, from the many years that I’ve had to appreciate it. I grew up listening to classic rock – the Beatles, Yes, Rush, the Who, etc. I came of age (teens and early twenties) in the nineties, which served as a resurgence of that same kind of rock that came out of the sixties and seventies that I grew up listening to. Add in some other music styles that I dig (jazz, alt rock, singer/songwriter, indie), and I think I have a pretty eclectic style. So I wanted my kids to know that music and appreciate it. For without the great music that came before, there can’t be that crappy modern pop that is here today (whether I like it or not).

So I decided that I would assign a weekly challenge to my two oldest kids (Darby is 9 and Shea is 7). At the beginning of the week, I would assign an artist. By the end of the weekend, my kids would have to listen to at least two complete albums by that artist. On Sunday, we would discuss what they listened to, and what they liked and didn’t like. And hopefully, they would begin to develop an appreciation for the artists that I grew up listening to, and still love today.

Here are the rules:

1. The albums they choose must be studio albums. They cannot choose live albums, greatest hits, or compilation albums, unless I specifically approve it. I not only want them to gain an appreciation for the artist, but also for the time period in which the artist was recording. I think studio albums are the only way to do that.
2. I will choose one of the albums that they have to listen to. The other album(s) they must select on their own.
3. They must listen to the complete album, in its entirety, and in the order in which the songs were originally laid out (no shuffling). Albums used to be laid out with intricate detail, and it told the whole story of the album. I want my kids to understand that.

I have done this sparingly in the past, and only with my oldest. But I want to get back to doing it more regularly, and get my second oldest involved.

Stay tuned for updates on how the challenge is going, and the results.

This week’s artist is Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, and the mandatory album is Damn The Torpedoes.