Shea: My mom has better taste than you

My mom probably has better taste in music than you.

Don’t get mad. It’s not… My mom probably has better taste in music than you.

Don’t get mad. It’s not an insult. She probably has better taste in music than me — minus her whole infatuation with Abba, of course.

The reason my 48-year-old mother probably has better taste than us lies in the fact that she is, well, 48.

My mom’s fallen into a unique age group that is old enough to be free of social prejudices against certain music but young enough to know how to use the many music searching engines, websites and programs out there.

For example, my mom would never hear the name Animal Collective and say, “Um, yeah right. Maybe I’d be into them if my pants were a lot tighter and I only drank fair trade coffee.” She wouldn’t have any hipster association with it. It would simply just be a new band that she’s never heard of before. No preconceptions and no expectations.

Thus, her taste isn’t limited at all by vague expectations or social prejudices.

My mom also has the benefit of having three charming and technologically savvy daughters to introduce her to online radio, iPods, how to actually use iTunes and her computer’s CD burner. So she’s got all that the World Wide Web has to offer her and no inhibitions about what she is supposed to listen to or what is socially acceptable for her. (I think even if something weren’t “socially acceptable” she probably wouldn’t mind. My mom does what she wants.).

So this isn’t to say that my mom is some great authority on the true nature of music — she just has a large pool and no preconceptions about what music is supposed to be or how good it is.

She’s introduced me to cool bands and performers that I love, like Adrienne Young and Little Sadie and Delta Spirit that I wouldn’t have guessed I would like.

Then again, she did make me listen to “Country Ladies” for long hours in the car. All the same, she’s still cooler than the average mom.