THE ITOD: CREATING TOMORROW'S HIPSTERS, TODAY

When Earshot was growing up, our main source of music was the arsenal of Maxell tapes we used to record the Sunday-night countdown on Philly’s Eagle 106 FM (we still have the cassette featuring only the first half of The System’s “Don’t Disturbing This Groove,” leaving us forever confused as to how the song ends, and whether said groove was left undisturbed). Anyway, The London Times Online has a write-up on the new iTod, a Fisher-Price MP3 player aimed at not only kids, but the yuppie-prick parents who want their child to listen to Sufjan Stevens instead of the Wiggles.

The best part of the iTod is its extras, which includes access to a kid-friendly digital-download shop (all the good 2 Live Crew songs are edited—we checked) and a device that “visually symbolize(s) songs, such as displaying a star for ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’” This last feature, of course, will be completely abused by college stoners.

But what "grown-up" songs do kids actually enjoy? Earshot was a big fan of the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" and Kurtis Blow's "Basketball," even though boating and sports played zero part in our childhood. Any other strange childhood soundtracks? Or would everyone rather play it cool and pretend that the first record they owned was Surfer Rosa?