Gift Idea: Jack White’s First Turntable for Kids
Are you a parent who wants to make sure your kids understand the glories of vinyl? Then Jack White wants to help. The Guardian takes a look.
Eyes fixed on the hypnotic spin of the LP’s colourful label, my five-year-old son seems lost in a reverie as the idyllic, wistful 1970s folk of Vashti Bunyan’s Diamond Day fills the room. Do you like it, I ask hopefully. He looks up. “No. It’s a silly song. And she’s got a silly voice.”
If you ever wanted confirmation that tastes can never be imposed on a younger generation, try playing them some music and asking their opinion. Fortunately, such reactions were anticipated by the creators of a new compilation of songs intended to entrance young children and their parents, which, if you wish, comes with its own bright yellow, child-friendly portable turntable.
“That always backfires, with music or anything,” says Ben Swank from Third Man records, the Nashville-based label and shop set up by the fiercely analogue Jack White of White Stripes fame. “With my daughter, I just put things there – and if she likes them, great.”
On first sight the joint venture – Third Man created the turntable, Seattle-basedLight in the Attic the album – could resemble the nightmarish vision of some slightly ageing, newly reproducing music industry hipsters. The record-player itself is styled to resemble a 60s Dansette , right down to the artfully retro graphics.
The accompanying album, This Record Belongs To, is available on vinyl, and most of its child-oriented songs are of the very tasteful and slightly obscure variety, from people such as Carole King, Nina Simone and Donovan. If that wasn’t enough, the man who picked the tracks, Zach Cowie, forms half of a vinyl-only DJ duo with actor Elijah Wood.
Continue reading. And if you want to buy one, it’s $95 USD. Go here.
My son is now 23, and into a lot of industrial and very heavy rock, but when he was growing up I made sure that he heard all the good classic rock music and also techno and alternative and things like that, that I liked. He heard the Who, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, but also the Crystal Method – who he still really likes, BTW. Now he finds some of the older stuff to be “too light” for his tastes, but he’s still young. I know my musical tastes changed a lot as I got older, like when I began to love the old swing and big band records that my parents grew up with. Unlike a lot of his peers, my son cannot stand hip-hop or rap. He absolutely hates it. I’m a bit more open-minded when it comes to that, but I don’t really like a lot of it either, especially the newer stuff, which I find boring as all hell, being a musician. I think this is a great idea. Something that parents can use to get their kids started into a love of good music, instead of the crap stuff their friends will all like when they get older. I still remember going to parties when I was a teenager, and all the guys wanted to hear Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper, and what did the girls who were the same age want to hear?? Donny Osmond. I rest my case.
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