SOS: What kind of music is popular with high school-age girls? - 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community

ANOther · 10-30-2007, 10:58 AM

Prof. x is leaving for a conference in Tokyo in a couple of days. His host there is a colleague he knows well. He has two daughters, I'm not sure of their exact ages but one must be a teenager (15 or 16) and the other maybe a little younger. Prof. x wants to have gifts for them and asked what I'd recommend. I'd go with music. I'm thinking maybe Hannah Montana or the Cheetah Girls for the younger one. Would High School Musical appeal to the older one? If not, what would you recommend ? I'd rather err on the side of being wholesome, so nothing too edgy please. It should be something that's readily available at Target b/c we won't have time to get to Barnes & Noble or any other record shop or order anything from amazon.com. Thanks!

NightengaleShane · 10-30-2007, 11:13 AM

eeeeek! That really depends on what "type" of people these high school kids are! Most will enjoy All American Rejects, matchbox twenty (don't get any of Rob's solo stuff, though, that can be hit or miss), The Get Up Kids, Foo Fighters, Three Days Grace, Flyleaf, and Finger Eleven.

NightengaleShane · 10-30-2007, 11:16 AM

That, of course, is what's hot in the rock charts. A lot of them like pop, R&B, and hip hop, instead. Some high school favorites right now are Kanye West, Timbaland, 50 Cent, ne-yo, Sean Kingston, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, and Daughtry.

Oh. Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy, and Plain White T's on the pop rock end.

Amy8888 · 10-30-2007, 11:28 AM

I don't suppose an iTunes giftcard would work, since you don't know if they have iPods or if the card would work in another country. Something like that might be good though. I think it's really hard to figure out what kind of music to get...if they like it, they might already have it. If they don't have it, it could be they hate it or never heard of it and would love it.

ANOther · 10-30-2007, 11:34 AM

Thanks for the suggestions, they'll help. What's Gym Class Heroes? Their name popped into my mind when I saw some of your suggestions, I've seen them mentioned in promos for Mountain Dew or some pop

NightengaleShane · 10-30-2007, 11:38 AM

Oh, high school kids love Gym Class Heroes!

Their biggest song is Cupid's Chokehold... you know, "Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got, not much of a girlfriend, I never seem to get a lot"

I'm sure you've heard them.

Amy8888 · 10-30-2007, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NightengaleShane

Their biggest song is Cupid's Chokehold... you know, "Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got, not much of a girlfriend, I never seem to get a lot"

Oh geez, I must be getting old. I'm not offended by these lyrics, but wow. What a nice message for high school students to enjoy.

ANOther · 10-30-2007, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NightengaleShane

Oh, high school kids love Gym Class Heroes! [...] I'm sure you've heard them.

Not that I'm aware of! That's exactly the point, I never developed much of a taste for rock'n'roll (call me a heretic but as far as I'm concerned all popular music post-Sinatra, except for country, IS rock'n'roll, I can get the shades of difference in hip-hop and heavy metal but I couldn't tell you the difference between pop, classic rock, R&B and alternative rock under torture: I do like what I hear of Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen but I don't have any of their albums), I grew up (in the 1960s/70s) listening to my parents' stuff which was show tunes and Sinatra (and Robert Goulet, RIP 10.30.07: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/ar...goulet.html?hp

, had no older (or younger) siblings to inoculate me with anything else, didn't hang out much with other kids, I don't have kids of my own, and my personal taste runs to hard-core classical music (full-length symphonies) @ home and Boston/Cincinnati Pops in the car: so my exposure to popular music is very much like looking in through a window from outside and I don't know what "the kids are listening to these days", except we just had a Hannah Montana show here and you couldn't pick up a newspaper without some story about the outrageous ticket prices (hey, if this morphs into a thread about the younger generation's tastes in music it's ok by me)

charolastra00 · 10-30-2007, 12:34 PM

High School Musical and Hannah Montana are geared towards younger kids. When High School Musical came out, a bunch of us liked the soundtrack (I think we were seniors or juniors) but no one would admit it :P. Hannah Montana is more of an elemtentary/ early middle school type show.

Honestly, music really isn't that great of an idea. You really can't tell what kind of music a person will like. My parents got me a My Chemical Romance CD when I was in high school and I ended up using it as an experiment to blow up in the microwave and promptly gave them a list of metal, folk, and underground bands that I would listen to. :P High schoolers are full of drama anyway and I know I would have been offended if I got a Disney channel soundtrack thinking that the giver assumed I was immature. Now I know that they just weren't up with the high school jive, but oh well :P

Are these kids from the US living in Japan? I would say make little giftbaskets with things in the US that you probably can't get over there though I don't know what those things would be.

ShyShy19 · 10-30-2007, 12:47 PM

Ya I defiantly wouldn't do music. Like me I like rock but only certain types I can't stand maetal ot the linkin park type. I like R&B on occasion, can't stand rap. Music is personal. A gift card would be nice. They have little visa gift cards so they can buy whatever from wherever, that what I buy the teens in my family for b-days and stuff and they always like it.

ANOther · 10-30-2007, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Are these kids from the US living in Japan? I would say make little giftbaskets with things in the US that you probably can't get over there though I don't know what those things would be.

No, they're Japanese, although the family did live here for a while, I got to know the father then, and the younger girl was almost born stateside. The more I ponder this, the more other questions come up, like how much cross-pollination is there between Japanese and US pop culture (we certainly have our share of Hello Kitty,

and how do I know Japan doesn't have as much Hannah Montana and HSM up the hoo-hah as we do?), are there different tastes in music (anywhere!) between teenage boys and teenage girls (i.e., are Plain White Ts and Gym Class Heroes more boy-appeal groups than girl-appeal gps), I have a stereotype image of Japanese schoolgirls in tidy little uniform blazers and plaid skirts but once they get home from school do they break out the tank tops and tight jeans and hang out at the Japanese equivalent of the mall? etc etc

valpal23 · 10-30-2007, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Are these kids from the US living in Japan? I would say make little giftbaskets with things in the US that you probably can't get over there though I don't know what those things would be.

I think this is a great idea and less risky than picking a cd out for unless you go with some sort of near-classics or movie soundtracks (??)... something widely popular/generalized interest.

NightengaleShane · 10-30-2007, 03:25 PM

I also agree that music is not necessarily the best idea *because* people have different tastes... if you can get them something else, it might be a safer bet.

For instance, I am a fairly open minded person about music, but if you got me a bubblegum/American Idol/cheesy type pop or R&B album (unless it was the old school stuff), I'd probably give it to someone else who enjoyed it more or sell it to a used CD store. oops.

Spinymouse · 10-30-2007, 03:25 PM

I agree that music is hard to pick out for other people, of any age. I know when I was in high school I did not like what was popular then. (It was so bad!! I never want to hear "Taking Care of Business" again in my whole life!!) I think the iTunes gift card would be good if you want to do music and some non-music things you can only get in the US would be good also. I know some young people in other countries love to get T-shirts from here with some "cool" US-based logos. Everyone likes t-shirts, right?

melekalikimaka · 10-30-2007, 03:34 PM

I'm w/Spinymouse on the t-shirt suggestion, you could probably get one for the same price as a CD. I live in Hawaii and we have a touristy convenience catch-all type store here called ABC Store (I think this store has reached Las Vegas, NV and some other pacific islands like Guam and Saipan), but the thing the Japanese really go for is the logo t-shirts. Personally I would never wear the shirt, but this is what it looks like:

Maybe you can get a t-shirt that is from the area you live, they would probably think it is pretty neat since it is from the US and not readily available where they live. Maybe Starbucks? or Even a Target t-shirt (with the Target logo on it)