You’ve Heard of DAD ROCK, But What is MOM ROCK?

There’s a lot of online debate about dad rock, a collection of bands and artists who appeal to slightly more mature gentlemen who may have kids. It gets quite heated, defending which bands should or shouldn't be included in the tag. 

It's a bit of fun really, but also: why leave the mums out? Mom rock is also a thing! Today I’ll present to you the ultimate in Mom rock, using both ‘mom’ since the internet likes it, and ‘mum’ since I’m from the UK. The songs, either way, will remain the absolute jewels of mom rock. If you need a refresher on dad rock for context, please hit up my dad rock blog.

Get the champagne flutes ready and let's go!

What is Mom rock? Mom rock appears to be a blend of catchy, melodic soft rock music that’s easy to listen to, blended in with some more angst-ridden, slightly more gritty alternative rock from the 90s and early 2000s. Female fronted, mostly, but not completely. Some bands could clearly also be Dad rock, but that’s another matter. 

Somebody online described it as “Landslide on a loop while drinking a bottle of wine”, and whilst that doesn’t describe the whole scene, it certainly paints a picture! I guess we’re talking about a more overtly emotionally resonant vibe, over just ‘chicks and partying’ like we get with some (not all) dad rock. Here, then, are some prime examples of mom rock…

Despite mentioning Landslide only a second ago, I’ve decided to go with Stevie Nicks’ huge hit Edge of Seventeen for today’s article. This is partly because Landslide is a ballad which refuses to rock at all (and this blog is about mom rock, after all), but also probably thanks to that immortal scene in School of Rock. You know the one, when the movie’s mom/teacher character (played by Joan Cusack) has a few drinks and gets rowdy upon hearing the opening guitar lick for this tune. The song activates her, and then there’s no stopping until headaches, next-day-anxiety and embarrassment ensue.

It’s the accuracy of the scene that makes it a win - and qualifies Edge of Seventeen as prime mom rock fodder. After all, we’ve all known someone who has behaved exactly like this before. Immortal.

All of Bon Jovi is mom rock, but this tune in particular signposts a certain point in a girls’ night out when it’s time to visit the karaoke bar. It’s easier to sing than Livin' on a Prayer, which was the close runner-up here.

An anthemic ode to seizing the moment, Jon Bon and pals have always been a top choice holler for mums out on the lash. “It’s MY life! It’s now or never! I don’t wanna live forever! I just wanna live while I’m alive!” Well said, Jon Bon. And mums across the world shriek in agreement.

A favourite tune for both weddings and funerals apparently, this Goo Goo Dolls (what is that name all about?) favourite strikes the right balance between ‘big emotional’ and almost-rocking, a combo that pleases mums everywhere. It’s a soft tune, there’s no doubt about that, but in the days of alternative rock’s late 90s twilight, when things like Dawson’s Creek were huge on the telly, this tune hit just the perfect pitch for the girls who later became mums.

The righteous fury that runs through this song is unstoppable. When Alanis came through in the mid 90s, it was like thunder had struck throughout the entire music industry. She took the sound and style of post-grunge alternative rock, injected it with the frustration and pain she’d been served in various broken relationships, sharpened all of that into a point and thrust it like a spear into the male-dominated music scene to incredible effect.

Jagged Little Pill became one of the hugest albums in existence and thousands of like-minded female artists took Alanis’ stance as a rallying cry and inspirational example. One of the ultimate mom rock songs, without a doubt, is this seething epic, containing lyrics that I’ll decline to transcribe but recommend you pay attention to as you listen.

“Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m only falling apart”. How many wild nights have ended with sobs, regrettable texts and this song? It’s a mom rock mainstay, and it works just as well when driving to work, chasing the kids to get ready for school, and for all of life’s other tribulations. An empowering song about loss, it’s one of those ‘they don’t make ‘em like they used to’ songs for sure.

And the same goes for the video!

Slightly more melodramatic moms will see themselves mirrored in Evanescence vocalist Amy Lee. If said mom was a teenager around the millennium - and an avid watcher of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - then it may well be the case that she never quite moved past this era of her life.

That’s ok, because it’s a particularly safe form of dramatic gothic ‘danger’ that is evoked in the band’s biggest hit Bring Me To Life. There’s a hint of darkness and edginess, but it’s very ‘PG’, an important element to mom rock that continues in spirit through TV shows like Tim Burton’s hugely mom-centric Wednesday. Safe spookiness, big choruses.

If ever a ‘rock band’ were not marketed towards a male audience, it would be Maroon 5. I had to put ‘rock band’ into quotes there because I may never have come across a group of individuals who so collectively present themselves as a rock band, yet who resolutely do not ‘rock’ in any shape or form.

But they are a massive band, and their audiences are full of moms who love the band’s melodic-ish highly jaunty soft pop-soul sound, so they certainly have their place out there.

I was intrigued about where the name ‘Maroon 5’ came from, and it seems that it’s a secret which vocalist Adam Levine has only ever told to one person (cue namedrop): the deeply un-rocking Billy Joel. Okay. But two seconds of research brings another meaning: some of the band members went to 5 Towns College in Long Island, where the college colours are white and Maroon.

Mystery solved, moms!

Chris Daughtry is as ‘mom-coded’ as a singer/band can be. Safe, polished, melodic, sanitised and thoroughly ‘nice’, he’s the polar opposite of Lemmy or Lou Reed. Daughtry is also the name of Chris Daughtry’s band, formed after he caused a stir on reality TV show American Idol. After his appearance, he did the decent thing and actually became a real life American Idol, a job title he retains to the present day.

Every album sells by the bucketload - even in this current music-buying climate - and his tours are massive. If your mum/mom knows about Daughtry, she 100% loves him/the band, and that’s simply how it is.

Although Take That are by no means a rock band, they ARE filling stadium upon stadium with mums right now as part of their huge Circus tour, so I feel like any exclusions here would be a little harsh or snide on my part. Plus, they are actually no less rocking than Maroon 5 when you think about it, so let’s hear it for the boy band of Gary Barlow plus dancers, who ended up being one of Britain's biggest musical acts!

Mums love Take That ex-member Robbie WIlliams too, and I suppose he should be on here too, the cheeky monkey, so I’ll count him as part of the overall group. Take That are a mixture of the ‘nice boys you’d bring home to meet your parents’ (even though they are all men in their mid 50s now) and purveyors of Barry Manilow-style grand balladry. Class.

The Barbie movie might’ve had Ryan Gosling’s Ken character singing this with his beach bros, but the song was most definitely there for the moms. The 90s brought a lot of ‘acceptably angsty’ bands with photogenic members and a vague hint of possible grit buried somewhere in the mix (see also Train, Third Eye Blind, many bands in this very article), but Matchbox Twenty (not 20) get the hallowed spot of inclusion here today. Let them represent all of those largely forgotten mom rock bands of the past. Let us all pay tribute by mumbling out vague lyrics in a protean, faux-Eddie Vedder voice that makes Scott Stapp sound like Elvis.

Carlos Santana spotted an eye for the emerging mom market back in the days when he’d become un-famous, and chose Matchbox 20 vocalist Rob Thomas to sing on his uber-hit Smooth, which of course is another great example of Mom rock!

So THAT’S what Mom rock is! Okaaaay. I hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of deeply mom-tastic tunes today. I also hope you’ve taken the whole endeavour in the spirit in which it was taken: as a light-hearted laugh at how ridiculous the term even is. Of course, there is really no such thing as Mom rock, any more than there is a thing called Dad rock. It’s just another neat media label used to describe a number of disparate things that may or may not have the tiniest correlation.

But still, I know that when you read the words ‘mom rock’, you automatically started having ideas about what that might mean, didn’t you? How right did I get it? Were Take That a step too far? Will I EVER go easy on Maroon 5?

I hope you had fun with this, and what’s next for this strange cultural coding? Kid rock?

Wait a minute…