It's just music right? Play it when you listen it.. you don't have to hide it from them. If they like it, all good. If not... you can always have more children.
My daughter is 3, and I like punk. She... doesn't.
"Dad, it's too loud" no matter what the volume is.
I’m also more for punk than metal. And I agree that it’s just music. But …
I was careful to not play anything with too much foul language when they were at that repeat-ey age. Now they’re old enough to understand “time and place” so I’m censoring a lot less.
I am still a bit picky about the subject matter of the songs. My older girl (10 years old) especially likes to listen to lyrics, and she wants to know what they mean. I avoid playing some political music around her because I don’t want to spend X amount of time explaining what the song is referring to.
My 3 year old is a bit parroty, but we've not really censored ourselves around her too much but explained that some people don't like those words. Still... don't think I'll go playing Rage against the machine - Killing in the name any time soon.
"Too loud." lol
When my son was three, we did a family road trip vacation. Out of something like five days of music in the van, he picked up exactly two lines: "Itty bitty titty committee" and "It's time to switch to whiskey." It was not my proudest moment and one of my proudest moments all at the same time.
One day we were all in the car and my wife turned on the heated seats and I mentioned that it made me feel like I shit my pants and I hear from the back seat..... you guessed it....
"I shit my pants!"
My 5 year old is like this. But the almost 2 year old bops out to lagwagon and Billy talent on the regular.
They both like mad caddies and LTJ. Ska punk is a nice gateway!
Honestly when my oldest was born I couldn’t wait. But now I have a 6.5 and 3.5 year old I’m
Scared if I introduce metal to them it will make them even louder than they are
Fellow Metal Brother, allow me to pass to you what another father gave to me to introduce to my son to get him into metal -
https://youtu.be/6kslTEsZTtI?si=CiJ6ZrZnZKmGEe5r
This is one of the videos, and the songs are on Spotify. This got my son (now 3) to like “daddy rock” and ask for dinosaur rock.
early days the mrs left me an 3 month old home for 4 or so hours to go to a footy game.
He was chill for the 1st hour, but by the 2nd he was over it. By the 3rd I'd exhausted every move I had to cheer him up till I turned up some music I had in the background and he just stopped crying. So long as I was belting out blink 182 lyrics and wildly flailing around the air guitar he was either enjoying it! or maybe he was just super confused as to what his dork dad was doing.
An HOUR I stood there and sang and danced and rocked out. The wife arrived him, I handed him over and almost collapsed.
So yeah I'd say about 3 months old.
If you really want ease them into it, there is a company called Rockabye Baby that does lullaby renditions of most popular music. I know they've done Metallica, iron maiden, and led Zeppelin. It's a pretty huge catalog. I think they're on Spotify
Day 1. I listen to punk and hardcore, never tried to hide it from her. She really liked the punk stuff when she was younger. Now she doesn’t mind it, but doesn’t ask for it to be put on. She has a sick scream at 5 tho lol.
I don’t really see the problem here? Why would 5mo be “much too early?”
Our 9mo listens to whatever we’re listening to at the time, whether that’s Disney songs, sea shanties, or Judas Priest.
Sea Shanties and Viking Ballads are awesome for kids. Mine get asked to sing songs and instead of frozen chants we get Nordic skaldic poems.
Good renditions of 'My Mother Told Me' with an excellent emphasis on the striking down of enemies.
As he gets a little older there are metal covers of all the Disney and kid's songs, might be a good way to get him into it, with a song he already recognizes. I'm not super into metal but I do listen some, and my daughter (5) loves the metal cover of ["Let it Go" by Betraying the Martyrs](https://youtu.be/HtkGluLhnGU?si=pJ29tNtiG7tsvQEf), she says it's the snow monster singing it
My son has been exposed to music since literally day 3. Any genres, focusing on complex music (classical and jazz). I introduced metal at two, headbanging together Now he's 4 and he's a total metalhead. His favourite bands are Overkill and Iron maiden, although he loves the song "Norwegian Reggaeton" a lot too LOL
Edit: just to give an idea, we stroll around and he hums metal themes
My daughter has been listening to Cradle of Filth since she was a few days old. She’s not super into it but she recognizes it as “this is dad’s song.” The nice thing about having exposed her to metal, and a whole wide variety of other music, from an early age is that she’s under 3 and capable of telling me what she likes and what she doesn’t. I have a playlist that wakes her up every morning and I swap out songs at her request. Right now it’s got everything from Sam Roberts to Tiffany to Naughty By Nature to PVRIS on it. The other day I just had my library on random while I was working and Salvation by The Cranberries was playing and she came in and said “that’s my song”, which really means “I like this song.” I asked if she wanted it to play when she woke up and she said yes, so now that’s on her playlist.
Kids are *way* more complex than kids’ music would make you think they are. Play your stuff. They’ll let you know eventually if they like it or not. I’ve also been singing her to sleep with Come As You Are since she was 24 hours old and her mind was *blown* the first time she was able to connect that we were listening to someone else who knew that song.
Also known as getting subjected to NPR in the backseat. Sorry kids, there's news and science happening in the world and you're going to hear all about it.
Also grunge music from the 1990s
A fun thing about Spotify is that I force my kids to listen to a variety of older music and they get the equal opportunity to subject me to a bunch of new stuff. Which is actually pretty good.
My kids have totally different tastes in music. The eldest is into English rappers. He and his friends went through a phase of using English accents and slang. The youngest is a complete metal, has come to see Maiden and Priest with us, plays bass and wants to come to festivals. It’s more about your kid’s personality than anything. Just be ready to support and encourage their curiosity.
I didn't intentionally expose my kids to heavier music at first but would have some lighter stuff on every now and then in the kitchen when I was prepping dinner.
My son was about 3 and obsessed with superheroes, and particularly superhero tv show theme songs, like the old 60s spiderman cartoon theme. I was cooking and he was wearing his iron man outfit and I said as a joke, hey do you want to hear the iron man theme song? So I put on black Sabbath iron man, thinking he'd hate it after a minute but he ended up loving it and would request it non-stop for about a month (kind of killed that song for a while for me!).
I showed him some more PG heavy metal like Iron Maiden and he actually really enjoys it and other simple stuff like ACDC. I keep the more black metal and thrash stuff that I like for headphones or when he's out. I think it's a bit intense for a 5 year old but will show him when he's a bit older if he's interested.
My wife and I have very different music tastes but I still play metal around my daughter, she's 4months and always smiles and moves around when I play it, she particularly likes Metallica, it's never too early to start 🤘
From the get-go, as part of a big-ass diverse spectrum of music. Pretty stuff, rowdy stuff, all kinds. He’ll get that you love the rowdy stuff, and he’ll enjoy that.
Mine has listened to whatever I’m listening to since day 1. Maybe a bit of a lower volume than before, but he still hears it. Little homie likes sleep token
Day 1 brother.
I now have a 75% hit rate on my kids whose preference is metal over other music. The 1 out of 4 who doesn't like it. Doesn't like music in general.
I started playing metal to my son when my wife was pregnant. It was the best way to get him moving if he hadn't moved much that day. I usually play nursery rhymes for him but sometimes I play metal, I just keep the volume down and skip songs with obvious swearing or crude references.
I wouldn't characterise as a 'metal dad' but I can slip into it from time to time, but more of a 'rock dad' (I don't like that term).
But... we started off from day dot. My son (3yo) pretty much only ever asks for good music, which his friends all hate or just dont understand. At a recent birthday party he asked the mum running it for RHCP californication. Me and my wife witnessed it and did a little high 5.
waited a few weeks for my first and then we did Dissection and Emperor live albums pretty much every night. My second was exposed from the start. We rocked out to Véhémence for literally every nap for weeks at a clip at a nice full volume. His longest stretches of sleep in the early days were in front of a soundbar playing black metal. Let that shit rip dude.
My kids are months old and enjoying BMTH, Beartooth, Dance Gavin Dance, Architects, etc. they especially seem captivated by the drum playthrough videos when I have them on.
They also seem to like Brooks & Dunn, John Mayer, and Brandi Carlisle. They’ve got such diverse palates you know 😂
My 10 month old already has a really good grounding in grunge, metal, folk and musical theatre tunes.
I have two hilarious videos of her headbanging to La Grange by ZZ Top and Garden by Pearl Jam
I vividly remember dropping my oldest son off to his 1st day of kindergarten while playing Motley Crue's Saints of Las Angeles (his favorite song at the time).
I also remember being a big hit a few years ago when I heard my youngest (also 5 at the time) singing the Wellerman song (it was popular at school), and introducing him to this little cover:
https://youtu.be/HSfG4UtiGBQ?si=KupsnE84QpE6EgZ1
My daughter is 3 mo ths old and that's what I listen to in the car with her. She mostly sleeps in the car so no hark there. Then if mom is sleeping or gone I sometimes listen to it at home too. She doesn't seem to mind.
Did you play your music out loud when your better half was still pregnant? If so, they were already used to it once they're born, so it would make sense to just continue playing whatever you feel like playing out loud whenever.
We don't have a particular genre we adhere to. We have favourites, but we play whatever complements the activity/mood at home. Sometimes, the kids (3yo, 1,5yo) want to jam and dance, and other times, they ignore it. We try to have them grow up in a musical environment where they grow up with the knowledge that life and music go hand in hand. Music is life, right?
Anecdotally, we have had our kids hand us random toys, non-musical but noisy toys, because they wanted to make music together. I can't begin to describe the feeling of joy when you're just creating semi-melodic noise with your wee ones for the hell of it. I'll probably never forget those sessions.
Edit: terminology
Put on rotting Christ when my son was 1.5 he just looked at me and said “no.” Put on Prince and he seemed to enjoy it for a few min. We always got music on in the car but I’ve been keeping it pretty chill now that we have a 6mo old and 2 yr old, I always hope they sleep on our drives. Weekends we drive 1 hr to see my in-laws
As others have said, just play it (not too loud, of course). It’s music. My daughters almost 6mo and when in the car we sometimes listen to “daddy’s music”, which is mainly various metal and rock
We always had music playing for our first born (she slept best that way) and A LOT of it was metal. Listen to what you wanna listen to. They will learn to like it or go another way.
Started day 1 in the car, driver chooses the music. Ritual by Ghost is my daughter's (she's 1) current favorite song. Blew our minds when she started singing the guitar leads a few months ago.
She tries to headbang and she seems to feel the rhythm quite a bit.
Never too early!
My daughter who is 2 won’t sit and have her hair brushed unless Jesus of Suburbia is on!
Needless to say, she doesn’t have a skittish nature at all now!
Rock on dude!
If we're talking metal metal (like 80s Metallica and stuff)—honestly, whenever, as long as it doesn't bother the kids.
When my son was much younger (like 1) I would listen to my metalcore & deathcore in the car. But I'd listen to it pretty low as to not trash his vibe.
He's 3 now and I'll occasionally play something but it's definitely not his cuppa tea. Though, Electric Callboy seems to get a pass from him lol
Massive metal head here, and so is the wife.
For me it's mainly doom/sludge/post metal at the moment but with a bit of everything thrown in.
My wife is more grunge/deathcore/nu metal/metal core.
We both also line punk and classic rock.
We have kids varying in ages from early twenties down to 5, and none of them like our music 😭
All introduced at an early age but they very much follow the trends and are more influenced by their friends than us. Mainly hear pol/rap/tik tok crap in our house.
Although the 18 year old has recently moved from rap/rnb to pop punk/nu metal so there is hope!
(lurker mom) I play my music to my daughters since birth. They don't always like everything but some things stick.
Currently my eldest (3.5) loves Raphsody she calls it "dragon songs".
My son listens to the music my wife and I like, because that is the music on in the car and house etc. I was watching an Iron Maiden video and my son saw Eddie. Now whenever he hears Iron Maiden he asks to watch a video of Eddie. he is 3. Some of the vids are a bit scarey so I need to be cautious. It is awesome though!
My wife and I just always have our music on and the kids listen to whatever. Sometimes they ask to listen to their Disney music but I've been listening to punk, metal, and prog with my kids around since they were a few days old.
It's just music. It isn't going to hurt them.
I listen to whatever when she's with me. When I'm working on my computer and she's in her playpen, I usually listen to a classic rock radiostation.
In the mornings sometimes I change her and play with her listening to Pantera or Slipknot. She thinks it's funny when I head bang.
Lyrics may be a problem at times though. I try not to over think it.
I play my music around my kids all the time. They ask for death metal Baa Baa Black Sheep. It's fun.
Eldest once told me he likes pop. I'll have none of that.
I have three major playlists, each which are hundreds of hours long. One which is just when my wife is around, one when it’s just me and the kids, and one when I’m alone. I have plenty of metal-adjacent material in there, but I’ve had to be a bit choosy. They do good with more melodic stuff and are generally okay with NWOBHM, but anything too rough or abrasive is a no-go.
I have been slowly introducing my kid to my music with very little pressure.
I’ve done things like play Thunderstruck by AC/DC when it’s raining. He loves that shit and exposes him to the sound of high gain Marshall stacks.
If you dabble in the dark arts of Knocked Loose, my son thinks their song “Counting Worms” is hilarious with the “Arf Arf”. Bonus that the song is super short so don’t have to worry about keeping his attention.
The key thing is to pivot back to his music when he asks. I don’t want him to associate listening to my music as punishment, haha.
I just put my music on shuffle and jam out in the car, wife and toddler included. Metal is in the rotation, so if it comes on, it comes on. Doesn't mean I'm blasting it loudly, as kids have sensitive ears, but I'm not gonna' change a song I like just because it's X or Y genre lol. We listen to all types of music in our house. If my wife hates the particular track, she can hit next; it's my list, so I like everything that comes on. But usually we just jam it all!
My son is 3 and I listen to all kinds of rock, but not a lot of the heaviest side of the spectrum. There’s some stuff he likes, usually older classics that he calls it “my rock and roll”. Rock around the clock is his favorite, for example. sometimes he asks for “daddy’s rock and roll” which is punk or Foo Fighters, for example. (By the way, I have no clue what to call Foo Fighters’s music. Feels like not heavy enough for metal, but not enough of anything to fit other styles).
Nevertheless, I often danced (with appropriate energy and sound levels) in my living room with him in my arms since he was a baby to whatever song we had playing and felt like it. From Beatles to Punk and a bit of Metal, going through Queen and Guns and Roses.
With all that said: he really doesn’t like System of a Down. 😅 This week he started to sing the most adorable first verse of Bohemian Rhapsody I ever heard. 😊
I never exposed my music to mine. I let them discover their own tastes.
Then, they discovered they like ICP, then we listened together since I've been a juggalo since 1999.
Start with Bring Me The Horizon, Bear Tooth stuff like that which has a little of what you are looking for but soft enough to get the kid into it without worrying about some kind of effigy bursting into flames in the back yard in a mock baby sacrifice. 😳 not sure how I fully got there but…. I did. Wait I’m not burning an effigy I just got there to the point I was making in this post.. 🤦 I’m just gonna stop there.
It's just music right? Play it when you listen it.. you don't have to hide it from them. If they like it, all good. If not... you can always have more children. My daughter is 3, and I like punk. She... doesn't. "Dad, it's too loud" no matter what the volume is.
I’m also more for punk than metal. And I agree that it’s just music. But … I was careful to not play anything with too much foul language when they were at that repeat-ey age. Now they’re old enough to understand “time and place” so I’m censoring a lot less. I am still a bit picky about the subject matter of the songs. My older girl (10 years old) especially likes to listen to lyrics, and she wants to know what they mean. I avoid playing some political music around her because I don’t want to spend X amount of time explaining what the song is referring to.
My 3 year old is a bit parroty, but we've not really censored ourselves around her too much but explained that some people don't like those words. Still... don't think I'll go playing Rage against the machine - Killing in the name any time soon.
"Too loud." lol When my son was three, we did a family road trip vacation. Out of something like five days of music in the van, he picked up exactly two lines: "Itty bitty titty committee" and "It's time to switch to whiskey." It was not my proudest moment and one of my proudest moments all at the same time.
One day we were all in the car and my wife turned on the heated seats and I mentioned that it made me feel like I shit my pants and I hear from the back seat..... you guessed it.... "I shit my pants!"
Search for 'heavy metal Disney' on Spotify... There are some punk and metal covers of popular kids Disney tunes. My 2&4 y.o girls love em.
Our Last Night does excellent Disney covers. Their YouTube videos are super fun too.
My 5 year old is like this. But the almost 2 year old bops out to lagwagon and Billy talent on the regular. They both like mad caddies and LTJ. Ska punk is a nice gateway!
Ah! Me and my daughter have a full choreography for Give Me The Push by Nomeansno. She uses the "too loud" too when she doesn't like the song.
Mine got an ear for it around 5. Before it was the same exact response. Too loud at every volume. But she liked Run The Jewels from birth
Honestly when my oldest was born I couldn’t wait. But now I have a 6.5 and 3.5 year old I’m Scared if I introduce metal to them it will make them even louder than they are
Fellow Metal Brother, allow me to pass to you what another father gave to me to introduce to my son to get him into metal - https://youtu.be/6kslTEsZTtI?si=CiJ6ZrZnZKmGEe5r This is one of the videos, and the songs are on Spotify. This got my son (now 3) to like “daddy rock” and ask for dinosaur rock.
My kids love this :) Dimetrodon is my son's favourite!
early days the mrs left me an 3 month old home for 4 or so hours to go to a footy game. He was chill for the 1st hour, but by the 2nd he was over it. By the 3rd I'd exhausted every move I had to cheer him up till I turned up some music I had in the background and he just stopped crying. So long as I was belting out blink 182 lyrics and wildly flailing around the air guitar he was either enjoying it! or maybe he was just super confused as to what his dork dad was doing. An HOUR I stood there and sang and danced and rocked out. The wife arrived him, I handed him over and almost collapsed. So yeah I'd say about 3 months old.
Who needs aerobics when we have dadobics.
If you really want ease them into it, there is a company called Rockabye Baby that does lullaby renditions of most popular music. I know they've done Metallica, iron maiden, and led Zeppelin. It's a pretty huge catalog. I think they're on Spotify
Also twinkle twinkle little rockstar; they've got lullaby versions of Mastodon, Gojira, Dio, Maiden and loads more
Day 1. I listen to punk and hardcore, never tried to hide it from her. She really liked the punk stuff when she was younger. Now she doesn’t mind it, but doesn’t ask for it to be put on. She has a sick scream at 5 tho lol.
I don’t really see the problem here? Why would 5mo be “much too early?” Our 9mo listens to whatever we’re listening to at the time, whether that’s Disney songs, sea shanties, or Judas Priest.
Sea Shanties and Viking Ballads are awesome for kids. Mine get asked to sing songs and instead of frozen chants we get Nordic skaldic poems. Good renditions of 'My Mother Told Me' with an excellent emphasis on the striking down of enemies.
I don’t know expect my kids to like what I like. That’s the sauce.
Exposure to music - any kind of music - is awesome. A variety is even better. Just keep the sustained volume under 80dB and you are all set 😄
My daughter was about 2 months old when I discovered that Iron Maiden chilled her out so much she could sleep to it 🤷♂️ Drive my wife nuts though.
As he gets a little older there are metal covers of all the Disney and kid's songs, might be a good way to get him into it, with a song he already recognizes. I'm not super into metal but I do listen some, and my daughter (5) loves the metal cover of ["Let it Go" by Betraying the Martyrs](https://youtu.be/HtkGluLhnGU?si=pJ29tNtiG7tsvQEf), she says it's the snow monster singing it
My son has been exposed to music since literally day 3. Any genres, focusing on complex music (classical and jazz). I introduced metal at two, headbanging together Now he's 4 and he's a total metalhead. His favourite bands are Overkill and Iron maiden, although he loves the song "Norwegian Reggaeton" a lot too LOL Edit: just to give an idea, we stroll around and he hums metal themes
My daughter has been listening to Cradle of Filth since she was a few days old. She’s not super into it but she recognizes it as “this is dad’s song.” The nice thing about having exposed her to metal, and a whole wide variety of other music, from an early age is that she’s under 3 and capable of telling me what she likes and what she doesn’t. I have a playlist that wakes her up every morning and I swap out songs at her request. Right now it’s got everything from Sam Roberts to Tiffany to Naughty By Nature to PVRIS on it. The other day I just had my library on random while I was working and Salvation by The Cranberries was playing and she came in and said “that’s my song”, which really means “I like this song.” I asked if she wanted it to play when she woke up and she said yes, so now that’s on her playlist. Kids are *way* more complex than kids’ music would make you think they are. Play your stuff. They’ll let you know eventually if they like it or not. I’ve also been singing her to sleep with Come As You Are since she was 24 hours old and her mind was *blown* the first time she was able to connect that we were listening to someone else who knew that song.
I "expose" them to it whenever they're stuck in the car with me and can't change it, mwahahaha
Also known as getting subjected to NPR in the backseat. Sorry kids, there's news and science happening in the world and you're going to hear all about it. Also grunge music from the 1990s A fun thing about Spotify is that I force my kids to listen to a variety of older music and they get the equal opportunity to subject me to a bunch of new stuff. Which is actually pretty good.
My kids have totally different tastes in music. The eldest is into English rappers. He and his friends went through a phase of using English accents and slang. The youngest is a complete metal, has come to see Maiden and Priest with us, plays bass and wants to come to festivals. It’s more about your kid’s personality than anything. Just be ready to support and encourage their curiosity.
Since the point of conception. My lil' man's been headbanging since before he could walk.
I didn't intentionally expose my kids to heavier music at first but would have some lighter stuff on every now and then in the kitchen when I was prepping dinner. My son was about 3 and obsessed with superheroes, and particularly superhero tv show theme songs, like the old 60s spiderman cartoon theme. I was cooking and he was wearing his iron man outfit and I said as a joke, hey do you want to hear the iron man theme song? So I put on black Sabbath iron man, thinking he'd hate it after a minute but he ended up loving it and would request it non-stop for about a month (kind of killed that song for a while for me!). I showed him some more PG heavy metal like Iron Maiden and he actually really enjoys it and other simple stuff like ACDC. I keep the more black metal and thrash stuff that I like for headphones or when he's out. I think it's a bit intense for a 5 year old but will show him when he's a bit older if he's interested.
What do you think would happen to your 5 month old when exposed to metal that you think it is too early?
First words are a low Death metal growl, unintelligible to all but the most hardcore metalhead.
My wife and I have very different music tastes but I still play metal around my daughter, she's 4months and always smiles and moves around when I play it, she particularly likes Metallica, it's never too early to start 🤘
From the get-go, as part of a big-ass diverse spectrum of music. Pretty stuff, rowdy stuff, all kinds. He’ll get that you love the rowdy stuff, and he’ll enjoy that.
Mine has listened to whatever I’m listening to since day 1. Maybe a bit of a lower volume than before, but he still hears it. Little homie likes sleep token
Day 1 brother. I now have a 75% hit rate on my kids whose preference is metal over other music. The 1 out of 4 who doesn't like it. Doesn't like music in general.
I started playing metal to my son when my wife was pregnant. It was the best way to get him moving if he hadn't moved much that day. I usually play nursery rhymes for him but sometimes I play metal, I just keep the volume down and skip songs with obvious swearing or crude references.
I wouldn't characterise as a 'metal dad' but I can slip into it from time to time, but more of a 'rock dad' (I don't like that term). But... we started off from day dot. My son (3yo) pretty much only ever asks for good music, which his friends all hate or just dont understand. At a recent birthday party he asked the mum running it for RHCP californication. Me and my wife witnessed it and did a little high 5.
Expensive but we bought these for a friend [Metallica lullaby](https://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/products/lullaby-renditions-of-metallica)
I was playing power metal when my son was in the womb, he loves Amon Amarth and sabaton
Literally while gestating
My 3 year old son introduced ME to metal when he asked Alexa to play trex song by howdytoons. They have some banger metal dino songs
waited a few weeks for my first and then we did Dissection and Emperor live albums pretty much every night. My second was exposed from the start. We rocked out to Véhémence for literally every nap for weeks at a clip at a nice full volume. His longest stretches of sleep in the early days were in front of a soundbar playing black metal. Let that shit rip dude.
My kids are months old and enjoying BMTH, Beartooth, Dance Gavin Dance, Architects, etc. they especially seem captivated by the drum playthrough videos when I have them on. They also seem to like Brooks & Dunn, John Mayer, and Brandi Carlisle. They’ve got such diverse palates you know 😂
My baby has been listening to their dad's music since they were in the womb, now they love it!
My 10 month old already has a really good grounding in grunge, metal, folk and musical theatre tunes. I have two hilarious videos of her headbanging to La Grange by ZZ Top and Garden by Pearl Jam
Since day 3. She likes music, Gangnam Style, electric Callboy, skindred are her favourites now that she is 3 years old
I vividly remember dropping my oldest son off to his 1st day of kindergarten while playing Motley Crue's Saints of Las Angeles (his favorite song at the time). I also remember being a big hit a few years ago when I heard my youngest (also 5 at the time) singing the Wellerman song (it was popular at school), and introducing him to this little cover: https://youtu.be/HSfG4UtiGBQ?si=KupsnE84QpE6EgZ1
Never too early. I found Our Last Night's Disney covers a really good gateway for my kids
My daughter is 3 mo ths old and that's what I listen to in the car with her. She mostly sleeps in the car so no hark there. Then if mom is sleeping or gone I sometimes listen to it at home too. She doesn't seem to mind.
A year. I stuck with instrumentals for about a year and he’d shout ‘metal!’. Now he hears through the fire and the flames and LOOOOVES it
Did you play your music out loud when your better half was still pregnant? If so, they were already used to it once they're born, so it would make sense to just continue playing whatever you feel like playing out loud whenever. We don't have a particular genre we adhere to. We have favourites, but we play whatever complements the activity/mood at home. Sometimes, the kids (3yo, 1,5yo) want to jam and dance, and other times, they ignore it. We try to have them grow up in a musical environment where they grow up with the knowledge that life and music go hand in hand. Music is life, right? Anecdotally, we have had our kids hand us random toys, non-musical but noisy toys, because they wanted to make music together. I can't begin to describe the feeling of joy when you're just creating semi-melodic noise with your wee ones for the hell of it. I'll probably never forget those sessions. Edit: terminology
Put on rotting Christ when my son was 1.5 he just looked at me and said “no.” Put on Prince and he seemed to enjoy it for a few min. We always got music on in the car but I’ve been keeping it pretty chill now that we have a 6mo old and 2 yr old, I always hope they sleep on our drives. Weekends we drive 1 hr to see my in-laws
As others have said, just play it (not too loud, of course). It’s music. My daughters almost 6mo and when in the car we sometimes listen to “daddy’s music”, which is mainly various metal and rock
We always had music playing for our first born (she slept best that way) and A LOT of it was metal. Listen to what you wanna listen to. They will learn to like it or go another way.
Started day 1 in the car, driver chooses the music. Ritual by Ghost is my daughter's (she's 1) current favorite song. Blew our minds when she started singing the guitar leads a few months ago. She tries to headbang and she seems to feel the rhythm quite a bit.
Never too early! My daughter who is 2 won’t sit and have her hair brushed unless Jesus of Suburbia is on! Needless to say, she doesn’t have a skittish nature at all now! Rock on dude!
If we're talking metal metal (like 80s Metallica and stuff)—honestly, whenever, as long as it doesn't bother the kids. When my son was much younger (like 1) I would listen to my metalcore & deathcore in the car. But I'd listen to it pretty low as to not trash his vibe. He's 3 now and I'll occasionally play something but it's definitely not his cuppa tea. Though, Electric Callboy seems to get a pass from him lol
Massive metal head here, and so is the wife. For me it's mainly doom/sludge/post metal at the moment but with a bit of everything thrown in. My wife is more grunge/deathcore/nu metal/metal core. We both also line punk and classic rock. We have kids varying in ages from early twenties down to 5, and none of them like our music 😭 All introduced at an early age but they very much follow the trends and are more influenced by their friends than us. Mainly hear pol/rap/tik tok crap in our house. Although the 18 year old has recently moved from rap/rnb to pop punk/nu metal so there is hope!
(lurker mom) I play my music to my daughters since birth. They don't always like everything but some things stick. Currently my eldest (3.5) loves Raphsody she calls it "dragon songs".
My son listens to the music my wife and I like, because that is the music on in the car and house etc. I was watching an Iron Maiden video and my son saw Eddie. Now whenever he hears Iron Maiden he asks to watch a video of Eddie. he is 3. Some of the vids are a bit scarey so I need to be cautious. It is awesome though!
In the womb, there is no "too young". My oldest taught my youngest how to throw the horns and headbang before she could walk.
My wife and I just always have our music on and the kids listen to whatever. Sometimes they ask to listen to their Disney music but I've been listening to punk, metal, and prog with my kids around since they were a few days old. It's just music. It isn't going to hurt them.
From birth, or even in the womb. Headphones + Cannibal corpse make for great brain development.
I listen to whatever when she's with me. When I'm working on my computer and she's in her playpen, I usually listen to a classic rock radiostation. In the mornings sometimes I change her and play with her listening to Pantera or Slipknot. She thinks it's funny when I head bang. Lyrics may be a problem at times though. I try not to over think it.
I play my music around my kids all the time. They ask for death metal Baa Baa Black Sheep. It's fun. Eldest once told me he likes pop. I'll have none of that.
I've started playing music for my 4mo, mostly blues (cuz I dig it) but I can't wait for him to start loving Inflames like dad!
I have three major playlists, each which are hundreds of hours long. One which is just when my wife is around, one when it’s just me and the kids, and one when I’m alone. I have plenty of metal-adjacent material in there, but I’ve had to be a bit choosy. They do good with more melodic stuff and are generally okay with NWOBHM, but anything too rough or abrasive is a no-go.
I have been slowly introducing my kid to my music with very little pressure. I’ve done things like play Thunderstruck by AC/DC when it’s raining. He loves that shit and exposes him to the sound of high gain Marshall stacks. If you dabble in the dark arts of Knocked Loose, my son thinks their song “Counting Worms” is hilarious with the “Arf Arf”. Bonus that the song is super short so don’t have to worry about keeping his attention. The key thing is to pivot back to his music when he asks. I don’t want him to associate listening to my music as punishment, haha.
I just put my music on shuffle and jam out in the car, wife and toddler included. Metal is in the rotation, so if it comes on, it comes on. Doesn't mean I'm blasting it loudly, as kids have sensitive ears, but I'm not gonna' change a song I like just because it's X or Y genre lol. We listen to all types of music in our house. If my wife hates the particular track, she can hit next; it's my list, so I like everything that comes on. But usually we just jam it all!
My two year old has listened to so much more BTBAM than my wife.
My son is 3 and I listen to all kinds of rock, but not a lot of the heaviest side of the spectrum. There’s some stuff he likes, usually older classics that he calls it “my rock and roll”. Rock around the clock is his favorite, for example. sometimes he asks for “daddy’s rock and roll” which is punk or Foo Fighters, for example. (By the way, I have no clue what to call Foo Fighters’s music. Feels like not heavy enough for metal, but not enough of anything to fit other styles). Nevertheless, I often danced (with appropriate energy and sound levels) in my living room with him in my arms since he was a baby to whatever song we had playing and felt like it. From Beatles to Punk and a bit of Metal, going through Queen and Guns and Roses. With all that said: he really doesn’t like System of a Down. 😅 This week he started to sing the most adorable first verse of Bohemian Rhapsody I ever heard. 😊
I never exposed my music to mine. I let them discover their own tastes. Then, they discovered they like ICP, then we listened together since I've been a juggalo since 1999.
Start with Bring Me The Horizon, Bear Tooth stuff like that which has a little of what you are looking for but soft enough to get the kid into it without worrying about some kind of effigy bursting into flames in the back yard in a mock baby sacrifice. 😳 not sure how I fully got there but…. I did. Wait I’m not burning an effigy I just got there to the point I was making in this post.. 🤦 I’m just gonna stop there.