For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 07, 2017

Oh, Frederick Chopin is the devil’s music, Michael? Give me a break.

Define “good”…

This strip never made any sense to me. When this strip was released (1988), a man John’s age would be far more likely to be listening to the Guess Who, Blood Sweat & Tears, or Steppenwolf (like how I got all those Canadian acts, eh?) than Chopin. Sure, some guys might be into classical music, but John doesn’t seem persnickety enough to have been that type in the late 60s.

I wonder what Mike might have been listening to in the late 80s. Hair metal, no doubt, or maybe he was into Guns & F-in Roses.

I hope I’m not still around when the pop music of today becomes the elevator music of tomorrow.

I can appreciate most styles of music. But cannot take just one style for too long. Gotta hear some different after awhile.

My tastes run the gamut. I often surprise my older daughter by asking to borrow some of her CDs. She’s recently turned me onto Evanescence (she also introduced me to Melanie Martinez, but I can’t stand it). My younger daughter has little patience for most music after mid-1980s, although I would still love to know how she learned about Elvis when she was 3 (neither my husband nor I are fans, but he’s her #1 favorite solo artist).

Reminds me of that scene in ‘Back to the Future’, when Marty woke up George the same way.

Although I’m not an expert on Chopin’s music, the score quoted in the first frame looks invented—it has parallel fifths. Not something Chopin would write.

Good music is in the ear of the beholder.

In the final panel, I am not sure if John is listening to music or if he is suffering from being electrocuted with all those lines popping out of his head.

I think John now has damaged eardrums.

Listening to only one style of music is like eating your favorite meal over, and over and over.

Just as we need variety in our food to grow and be enriched, so too, with music. Limiting our musical taste, is limiting ourselves.

After listening to Joan Jett singing “I love rock ’n roll” John is going to throw away his Chopin records.

I hope Michael grows out of it. I listened to classical music as a child, when through a brief & regrettable spell of listening to pop music as a teen, & then returned permanently to classical. I can’t stand most modern music, in any genre. I hope when I have kids I can raise them to deplore it as much as I do & stick with classical.

He WAS, Michael. you MORON!

The Parents’ Dictionary:

Armenia: A place where children would be happy to eat creamed corn.

Noise: Any piece of music composed after 1949.

Sixteen: The number of miles your father had to walk to school.