Music to Impress my Kid's Friends?

I'm not very interested in "impressing" anyone who listens to music at my place, so I don't get caught up in that kind of thing. I put the system together for personal enjoyment of recordings that I like. But I can say that if guests want to hear some music on the system, I ask them what kind of music they like best. I show them the many records I have and invite them to pick some out, if they want. If they would rather to play their own mp3's, CDs, or vinyl records, I invite them to do so.

I find that quality music crosses generations. I like many of the "jamband" type modern bands that reference Neil Young, Dylan, Earl Scruggs, Grateful Dead, and others. You might try Railroad Earth's self titled recent release. They are a very talented bluegrass band with lots of jazz/rock and roll influences. My Morning Jacket is more rock oriented, but very popular on the touring circuit. At Dawn, It Still moves, and Z are my favorites. Big Moon Ritual by the Chris Robinson Brotherhood is an excellent recent release with lots of Grateful Dead influences. The new Gallactic album is fun. You can sample all of these on amazon. You may also go to Jambands.com and look at the college radio top 25 lists as a source for exploration. At the end of the day, they may be more impressed with some of the music already in your collection that inspired artists of today and frankly, you may discover an exciting new talent during your search. It is important to know where you are coming from to better appreciate where you are going.

Informative thread for our own sakes, as oldsters.

You'll only find the answer to that by talking to your kids/friends. This forum sure as heck is not the spot! These threads pretty much cycle through the same music discussions over and over. As for what younger folks are into today, that is a very wide range, even within genre's it's a wide range. Say a kids into electro stuff...they could be into Trance, D&B , big room stuff or they could be into techno, or dub techno or minimal techno or ambient or drone or chiptune or Dubstep, UK Garage or whatever and one who is into one side of that stuff prolly hates the other. They could be into folk/Nu folk or they could be into garage or punk or metal or screamo or straight indie rock or R&B or rap but just because a kid likes rap doesn't mean he likes all rap! One may enjoy stuff like Danny Brown and those cats but will hate mainstream stuff like Lil Wayne and the like. Pitchfork record reviews is a decent place to get a general feel for the pulse and they will review 5 different genres per day and a kid who is into one (or one small segment of one) likely will not be into the other. Point of all this mess is you will ONLY know the answer to that by asking the kid. Heck, he/she may be into 50's jazz or classical or even classic rock...who knows. I know if someone tried to pick music out for me based on my age/culture they would miss very wide:)

The Decemberists (Pacific Northwest folk influence)

The Fratellis (Scottish guitar driven rock)

Regina Specktor (Russian born singer songwriter, classically trained pianist)

The Wombats (Australian pop, more my daughter's than her older brother)

The above are some examples of what my recently graduated from college son and his high school age sister are listening to these days