In less than a month, our good friends at xBk in Des Moines will host Dad Rock Night, a traveling show featuring a live band, Council Hill. The event promises “all of your favorite 2000s Rock hits from bands such as: Creed, Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Hinder, Audioslave & many more.” For emphasis, ticketbuyers are encouraged to “break out the band T’s, flip phones, (and) Walkman CD players and get ready for a night of nostalgia!”
I also have some minor questions about the timeline here: for example, was there a period in the 2000s where people were carrying a flip phone and a Discman at the same time? But, that’s not why we’re here today. As a bit of a musicologist, this event doesn’t quite square with what I consider to be “Dad Rock.” It feels more like the concept fueling Emo Night, if you ask me.
The term “Dad Rock” first appeared in print in 2007, when writer Rob Mitchum used it in his less-than-enthusiastic review of the Wilco album Sky Blue Sky. “An album of unapologetic straightforwardness, Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the Dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise,” wrote Mitchum. He also called the album “the stylistic equivalent of a wardrobe change into sweatpants and a tank top.”
I didn’t fully agree with the review. If nothing else, Sky Blue Sky includes “Impossible Germany," an instant classic Wilco song that justifies the album’s existence by itself. But it did crystallize the definition of “Dad Rock” for me personally, mainly the important qualifier that it can’t rock too hard. After all, dads are busy. You know, we have to get up early to do yard work and make sure nobody’s touching the thermostat.
By 2019, “Dad Rock” was in wide use thanks to the internet, and Mitchum felt the need to clarify his stance in Esquire magazine: “‘Dad rock’ had spilled over the banks of my review to describe most white-guy rock music, an entire genre of clothes and humor, and even a certain body type,” wrote Michum. “If my review was patient zero for the ‘dad-’ prefix outbreak, then watching it evolve from a snarky aside to a signifier of generational style has been truly weird.”
With the show coming up at xBk, and Father’s Day on Sunday, it’s a good time to dig into the subject again. And frankly, if anyone at Studio One is going to do it, it has to be me. In addition to being the only literal father on the Studio One staff, I’ve also become “Team Dad” when we travel for events and festivals. I like to know where everyone else is, and I’m always the one making sure everyone takes time to eat and is staying hydrated. Then there are the times when someone on the team asks whether or not a song qualifies as “Dad Rock.” Everyone looks to me (or to program director Nick Brunner, a self-described “childless dad”). So it feels appropriate that I answer the question: What is “Dad Rock?”
I cast a wide net among my network of friends, acquaintances and professional contacts, hoping to find an answer. I also asked my wife, known to our readers only as “Mom,” to do the same within her networks. I knew we’d get a wide variety of answers, but I was hoping there'd be enough common ground between those responses that I’d be able to come up with something resembling an agreed-upon definition.
As you would expect, more than a few musicians had an opinion on this. Joe Kinser, of The Big Joe Kinser Band, defined Dad Rock as “A cover band that plays music that came out about 20 years ago,” in apparent agreement with the folks putting on the show at xBk. Kinser then added that it's “a bunch of middle aged guys getting together to have fun.”
Then there's the perspective from Joe Alton, Studio One contributor and host of The Guitar Department With Joe Alton in Des Moines, "(Dad Rock is) modern rock music that is mostly only culturally relevant to an older generation," adding “I also think of this as a slightly derogatory term.” Cedar Falls-based comedian David Olson agreed, saying that in his experience “Dad Rock is a pejorative term from later Gen-Z folks describing rock radio hits from the early 2000s and '90s.”
With that feedback I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. Almost everyone I heard from cited a generation gap in their own personal definition. “Songs that remind me of riding in the car with my pops” and “Songs my parents made me listen to growing up” were typical responses. “I feel like when the term was coined, it was the kind of stuff middle aged guys listen to, which at the time would have been like Aerosmith,” said musician Justin Holmes. “Now that I’m middle-aged, it probably means Pearl Jam or something.”
This would suggest that the definition of Dad Rock is much more of a moving target than I originally anticipated, but then I talked to Mom about the responses she got, and … hoo boy. She spoke to people who cited Pantera and Tool as Dad Rock — moving target indeed! So much for “it can’t rock too hard.” Who are these dads, who have the energy to rock like that instead of passing out on the couch at 9 p.m.?
With such a wide range of answers, varying from dad to dad, I had to wonder whether there was any common denominator. Well, yes, there actually is: All of these bands have electric guitars! It’s the quintessential dad instrument, and for a while there it kind of looked like guitars weren’t cool anymore, much like dads. Personally, I think the alleged “death of the electric guitar” was more than a bit overblown. Guitars appear to be making a comeback in popular music, if they ever really went away, and you definitely hear guitar rockin’ sounds on Studio One these days.
So what did we learn here?
I’m not sure, to be honest. “Dad Rock,” whether used as a pejorative or a term of endearment, seems to now circle around being rock music that offers sounds that trigger feelings in "dads," reminding them of their younger days. Of course, given how it was first defined, and with today's internet culture, it could just be more of a meme than anything else. Ultimately, it’s whatever you want it to be, and your opinion is almost certainly going to be informed by the dads in your life. It's truly a musical Rorschach test.
Defining Dad Rock is hard enough, so I'm not going to take the time to get into “Heartland Rock,” “Divorced Dad Rock,” “Yacht Rock,” “Sad Dad Rock,” or any of Dad Rock’s alleged subgenres. I will, however, wrap up with this reminder from Des Moines singer Wiliam J Locker: “Whatever the music is, white New Balance shoes are a must.”
I wear the black ones ... so where does that leave me?
Happy Father’s Day, everyone.