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Teenagers and old music

edited September 2018 in Not Sports Related
Just for fun, I thought I'd post this. For the last two and a half years, every week I have played a song to my tutor group (each one released before they were born) and asked each of them to give it a mark out of ten, from which I calculate the average score and place the song in its rank order. The pupils were in Year 8 when we started and are now about to start Year 11. The results have interested me as they have become harsher with their marking as they have got older and have been particularly unreceptive to rock music, favouring upbeat pop music. Results are skewed by the fact that they are probably influenced somewhat by the videos. Also, it's not a fair comparison as I sometimes play the best-known song by a singer/group and sometimes play a lesser-known track - I have to throw in popular hits some weeks to keep their interest! Incidentally, the track at number one was the very first song I played.

The idea was to introduce the pupils to genres and artistes they had never heard before and hopefully spark an interest in the music.

MUSIC FRIDAY – Top 100

1 A-Ha Take on Me 8.88

2 Tracy Chapman Fast Car 8.72

3 Queen Don’t Stop me Now 8.67

4 KC and the Sunshine Band Give It Up 8.32

5 Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell Ain’t No Mountain High Enough 8.31

6 Sam Cooke A Change is Gonna Come 8.21

7 George Michael Careless Whisper 8.09

8 Earth, Wind and Fire September 8.08

9 Chuck Berry Johnny B Goode 7.91

10 Michael Jackson Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough 7.90

11 Cyndi Lauper Girls Just Wanna Have Fun 7.88

12 ELO Mr Blue Sky 7.80

13 Minnie Riperton Loving You 7.64

14 Nat King Cole When I Fall in Love With You 7.52

15 Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World 7.48

16 The B52s Loveshack 7.27

17 Stevie Wonder Superstition 7.17

18 Simple Minds Don’t You Forget about Me 7.16

19 Debussy Clair de Lune 7.11

20 Audrey Hepburn Moon River 7.07

21 Johnny Cash Hurt 7.00

22 Erasure A Little Respect 6.99

23 Gene Kelly Good Morning 6.97
James Brown It's a Man's World 6.97
25 Boney M Sunny 6.96

26 The Beatles Hello Goodbye 6.85
Rainbow Since You’ve Been Gone 6.85
The Shirelles Will you Still Love me Tomorrow? 6.85

29 The Gypsy Kings Bamboleo 6.84

30 James Sit Down 6.83

31 Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons I Love you Baby 6.81

32 Deacon Blue Real Gone Kid 6.78

33 The Monkees Daydream Believer 6.73

34 Jackie Wilson Reet Petite 6.65

35 Eva Cassidy Fields of Gold 6.45

36 Aretha Franklin Say a Little Prayer 6.40

37 Elvis Presley The Girl of my Best Friend 6.35

38 The La’s There She Goes 6.33

39 Louis Armstrong We Have All the Time in the World 6.32

40 Tom Jones Delilah 6.29

41 Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall 6.25

42 Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star 6.20

43 Demis Roussos Forever and Ever 6.10

44 Yvonne Ellman If I Can’t have You 6.09

45 Oasis Cast No Shadow 6.06

46 Jimi Hendrix All Along the Watchtower 5.96

47 The Verve Bittersweet Symphony 5.94

48 The Smiths There is a Light that Never Goes Out 5.88

49 The Cure Friday, I’m in Love 5.82

50 Blondie Dreaming 5.77
Dolly Parton Jolene 5.77

52 The Jackson Sisters I Believe 5.72

53 Edith Piaf Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien 5.58
54 Don McLean Vincent 5.46

55 Abba Bang-a-Boomerang 5.42

56 David Bowie Space Oddity 5.37

57 Musical Youth Pass the Dutchie 5.33
Cast Walkaway 5.33

59 The Pogues Irish Rover 5.31
60 R.E.M. Losing my Religion 5.30

61 Bronski Beat Smalltown Boy 5.25
62 Stevie Nicks Landslide (Live version) 5.23
63 Madness Embarrassment 5.21
64 P.M. Dawn Set Adrift on Memory Bliss 5.10
65 Blur Parklife 5.07
66 Smokey Robinson Tears of a Clown 4.96
Bobby Vinton Blue Velvet 4.96
68 The Bay City Rollers Bye Bye Baby 4.91
69 The Cocteau Twins Carolyn’s Fingers 4.91
70 John Lennon Nobody told Me 4.88
71 Dinah Washington Mad about the Boy 4.85
72 The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter 4.82
73 The Mamas and the Papas California Dreamin’ 4.73
74 Kate Bush A Woman’s Work 4.68
75 Morrissey Every Day is Like Sunday 4.62
76 Nina Simone Mr Bojangles 4.58
77 Herman’s Hermits Something Tells Me 4.55
78 The Osmonds Love me for a Reason 4.55
79 Suzanne Vega The Queen and the Soldier 4.52
80 Bobby Womack Across 110th Street 4.46
81 Underworld Born Slippy 4.41
82 Motorhead Ace of Spades 4.38
83 Bananarama Cruel Summer 4.36
84 The Three Degrees When Will I See you Again 4.32
85 Puccini O Mio Babbino Caro 4.31
86 Kyu Sakamoto Sukiyaki 4.30
87 Cilla Black Anyone who had a Heart 4.20
88 The Jam Going Underground 4.17
89 Madonna Cherish 4.10
90 Tasmin Archer Sleeping Satellite 3.71
91 Henry Mancini Lujon 3.67
92 Vanessa Paradis Joe Le Taxi 3.55
93 Billy Idol Eyes Without a Face 3.12
94 U2 New Year’s Day 3.00
Haircut 100 Fantastic Day 3.00
96 Bjork Big Time Sensuality 2.85
The Sugarcubes Birthday 2.85

98 Lemon Jelly Nice Weather for Ducks 2.84

99 The Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK 2.62

100 The Doors Light my Fire 2.55


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Comments


  • Down the Jam Night/Open Mic in our village pub, we get youngsters come along and say, "I'm now gonna do a classic tune ...".
    And play Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl.

    Or stuff from that period.


    Classic tune :smiley:

  • Only 2.55 for the Doors.
    I hope they got detention.

    Shocking score for one of my favourite bands. In Year 11, a few bands may get a second chance!
  • Great idea, just a shame there’s no ‘lovers’ of seemingly older music - wonder if the marks would be any different if the kids were under the impression that these were modern artists/songs??

    Ironically though, the stones/Jimi Hendrix/Bowie all get low scores but no doubt on a t-shirt they wear
  • Great variety in that list. "Catchy" pop songs will invariably do better, simple pop songs like Take on Me are perfect ear worms, which are memorable straight away whereas many other tracks are far less immediate

    I don't think there is much danger of old songs being forgotten, when you consider the songs most football chants are based on are from the 60s and 70s!
  • Nice to see Debussy in the top 20
  • The La’s as low as 38!!!

    They have no taste.
  • For their homework play them.
    Hotel California
    Then ask them what they think the song is about.
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  • I wish I had music teacher like you when I was at school!

    Do you play each song just once and ask them to give a mark immediately? I think if so then that's why the pop songs have got relatively higher scores. Some rock music tends to be difficult to get into on first listen.

    When I was at university I got interested in a lot of 80's music released before I was born. I remember it took me a few weeks to like Depeche Mode's music (I didn't 'get' it at all at first. Thought it was flat.) They slowly became one of my favourite bands.

    I'm not a music teacher; I teach English and Film Studies. I do feel, though, that a teacher's job is to introduce pupils to more than just their specialist subjects, hence Music Friday, walks in the countryside, sharing my travel adventures and trips to Charlton!

    I agree with your point but if they don't score immediately, they'd have forgotten by the next day!
    Trips to Charlton? I bet most of them would prefer the cane.
    And I thought you were happy :smiley:
  • Interesting experiment, Captain. I think on average your class gave higher scores than I'd have expected. There are some strange ones though. First off, I've got to ask, did they know that The Doors are your favourite band? Are there a few of them going "ha ha, let's make sir suffer by pretending we don't like them"? Then there's Space Oddity, I know that it was the perfect song for the space age, but barely half marks - really? It's an absolute classic. And who'd have thought that A-ha would be highest rated? It's not bad, but the best thing about it was the (then) ground-breaking video which looks shockingly dated now. The big thing that strikes me though (and this is probably a big generalisation for pop music not just your class), the popular one's are the one's with simple lyrics with uplifting themes: Don't stop me now, ain't no mountain high enough, a change is gonna come, fast car, girls just wanna have fun... Wow, I think you've just unearthed the winning formula.
  • Interesting concept as I've been doing something simialar with Golfie Jnr. He turns 15 next week & I've said that I will be making him a list of the top 20 Albums that he should listen to by the time he is 18. On the list will be classics duch as Bat out of Hell, Trick of the Tail, Love over Gold, Dark Side of the Moon, LA Woman, Hotel California....

    We listen to a lot of music in the car (mainly on the radio) & get him to try to guess the artist......was stumped by I am the Walrus the other day but I suppose its not quite a Beatles standard.
  • bloody trick of the tail. when will you give it a rest?
  • Stig said:

    Interesting experiment, Captain. I think on average your class gave higher scores than I'd have expected. There are some strange ones though. First off, I've got to ask, did they know that The Doors are your favourite band? Are there a few of them going "ha ha, let's make sir suffer by pretending we don't like them"? Then there's Space Oddity, I know that it was the perfect song for the space age, but barely half marks - really? It's an absolute classic. And who'd have thought that A-ha would be highest rated? It's not bad, but the best thing about it was the (then) ground-breaking video which looks shockingly dated now. The big thing that strikes me though (and this is probably a big generalisation for pop music not just your class), the popular one's are the one's with simple lyrics with uplifting themes: Don't stop me now, ain't no mountain high enough, a change is gonna come, fast car, girls just wanna have fun... Wow, I think you've just unearthed the winning formula.

    Ha ha, no, I don't let them know beforehand what my opinion is of the songs - the fact is that I like all of the songs - so I was surprised that The Doors scored such a low score. They are conventional in their music tastes but I did see an article recently about the genres of music which have featured on the 'Now That's What I call Music' compilations and saw that rock and indie have disappeared and that the proportion of 'pop' has increased.

    Pupils in other classes have seen my list and the music afficianados have commented on the odd placings such as 'Space Oddity' being so low. I think Bowie would score higher if they listened now rather than two years ago when they were 13-year-olds.

    Coming soon...Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Sinatra, Mozart...
  • Captain Bob....I want you to teach my grand kids ...please.Proper teacher.
  • Captain Bob....I want you to teach my grand kids ...please.Proper teacher.

    Cheers, Heckington. There's more to life than data.
    Great comment and very true
  • edited September 2018
    I’d exclude them permanently for giving that awful song at number one...

    My number one would be; The Jam - Going Underground, just cause the remake of “London Underground” cracks me up.

    Would’ve posted the link but naughty words in it, so not sure the rules etc of posting on a forum!
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  • _nam11 said:

    I’d exclude them permanently for giving that awful song at number one

    I think it’s a great song.

    I’m down with the kids :wink:
  • What a fantastic and fascinating social experiment! Great stuff.
  • Disappointing score for ' Reeling in the ears' by Steely Dan.
  • edited September 2018
    Great initiative!!!
    I would think videos would have great influence on their markings...
    Mind you, now days its hard to tell weather we are watching a song supported by a video or the other way around.

    So perhaps it is a good idea to repeat the experiment 2 more times.
    1. Videos (or stills when none is available) andno sound
    2. Audio only.


    Chop chop...
  • No Men at Work? Clearly an omen.
  • Disappointing score for ' Reeling in the ears' by Steely Dan.

    The things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand.
  • Why no Simon and Garfunkel? no wonder the educational system is in such a mess :-), some interesting and surprising results there.
  • Stig said:

    Interesting experiment, Captain. I think on average your class gave higher scores than I'd have expected. There are some strange ones though. First off, I've got to ask, did they know that The Doors are your favourite band? Are there a few of them going "ha ha, let's make sir suffer by pretending we don't like them"? Then there's Space Oddity, I know that it was the perfect song for the space age, but barely half marks - really? It's an absolute classic. And who'd have thought that A-ha would be highest rated? It's not bad, but the best thing about it was the (then) ground-breaking video which looks shockingly dated now. The big thing that strikes me though (and this is probably a big generalisation for pop music not just your class), the popular one's are the one's with simple lyrics with uplifting themes: Don't stop me now, ain't no mountain high enough, a change is gonna come, fast car, girls just wanna have fun... Wow, I think you've just unearthed the winning formula.

    Ha ha, no, I don't let them know beforehand what my opinion is of the songs - the fact is that I like all of the songs - so I was surprised that The Doors scored such a low score. They are conventional in their music tastes but I did see an article recently about the genres of music which have featured on the 'Now That's What I call Music' compilations and saw that rock and indie have disappeared and that the proportion of 'pop' has increased.

    Pupils in other classes have seen my list and the music afficianados have commented on the odd placings such as 'Space Oddity' being so low. I think Bowie would score higher if they listened now rather than two years ago when they were 13-year-olds.

    Coming soon...Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Sinatra, Mozart...
    How about some "proper" rockabilly. I suggest "Train kept a Rollin'" by Johnny Burnette and the Rock n Roll Trio.

    Regarding the comment about higher scores now, why not play some of the same tracks again and see what they do score now?
  • Fascinating experiment Bob.
  • I think the next part of your experiment needs to be an education in music and why the pop stuff they listen to now is on the whole crap.

    Music really has dumbed down now, nothing really original.

    Cant believe kids giving the Doors such a low mark has riled me this much!
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