We won't be playing Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie" in the car this summer. He's been stripped from our playlist. In fact, I'm banning a long list of pop tunes, and I bet you will too.
Wanna know why?
Actually, there are a lot of great reasons to restrict some songs from the road trip soundtrack. Especially if you plan to spend more than 30 minutes in the car getting to your destination. Remember, the average summer road trip is almost 700 miles. That's a lotta hours, fellow family travelers.
But when we started our "banned" list, we realized that making a song verboten was about more than eliminating those annoying earworms that follow you into the shower. And you know what I'm talkin' about, kids.
Obviously, traveling with young children, language will be a big consideration (Sorry, wil.i.am and Britney B!^$&).
Some songs are nixed because they get stuck in your head like "It's a Small World." Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Pitbull and Icona Pop seem to have mastered the art. By the way, if any of those earworms have now entered your brain, I apologize.
It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all ...
Aaaaaaaack!
Other tunes are banned because we're just not ready for that conversation with our six-year-old daughter yet. Thanks a lot Usher, Daft Punk, P!nk, and Justin Timberlake.
I hate to pick on J.T., but we also try to avoid songs that are so totally overplayed on the radio that the kids practically know all the words by heart. Like "Mirrors," another Justin Timberake ditty. Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe" also comes to mind.
There are even a handful of songs that, for one reason or another, put the adults on edge. Some just aren't that musical, like Drake's "Started from the Bottom." Or they're too talk, like "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz.
Or they're really, really pretty, but kinda boring, like Mariah Carey's "Beautiful."
And of course that last thing you need is a high-energy song that the kids want to dance or shout along with like Mumford and Sons "I Will Wait," Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)," Ke$ha's "Come On," or Demi Lovato's "Heart Attack."
Actually, we like some of these tunes, but play them judiciously, especially when the driver needs encouragement. After all, this is the sountrack to our family adventure.
When the parents were growing up, the trashiest lyrics came from Prince. He seems pretty tame now compared with the mature lyrics that we hear on satellite radio. I admit, we'll look the other way on trash-talk sometimes if there's a catchy melody. But we have our limits.
Which songs will you ban on your summer road trip?