New flash! Parents may be hipper than thought

The room was packed with sixth- and seventh-graders, black lights transforming clothes, hats, pants, shoes and teeth into vibrant shades of neon somewhere along the brighter slice of the visual spectrum.

The students were pretty vibrant all on their own. At Ivy Academy in Soddy-Daisy, they filled the dance floor — whose secret identity in daylight hours is the cafeteria — with a frenetic blend of swirling and pogoing and laughing and screaming.

Yeah, a school dance for kids this age is quite a smile-inducing sight. The sheer exuberance — except for the too-cool kids sitting on the periphery, gazing at phones — was monumentally fun to watch.

But also eye-opening was the music being played. Sure, there was Meghan Trainor, Carrie Underwood, Bruno Mars and John Legend, but there also was Bon Jovi and Survivor and MC Hammer and Journey and Queen and — gasp! — Neil Diamond. In fact, the older acts far outweighed the newer ones on the playlist. And the students knew all the songs.

Ivy teacher Laura Weaver, playing deejay for the night, said many of the older songs were requested by the students. And where had they first heard them? Their parents played them.

Us. Yes. The Parents. We ancient crones and codgers who couldn’t possibly be hip anymore. Except, apparently, we are. At least when it comes to music.

Many teens are as Shawn Ryan interested in music from the ’70 and ’80s as they are in today’s. On the website Quora, a guy named Sam Montgomery who says he works in a store that sells vinyl records, writes that it’s hard to keep some bands from past decades in stock. Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, even Dio and Generation X, are still garnering attention. Punk rock is also a big seller, he adds, so rebellion is still alive and well. Cool.

And where did the teens learn about these bands? From their friends, sure, but also from their parents who played these artists in the car while the kids were trapped, begging Dad or Mom to puhleeze! change the station and being flatly refused. “My car, my radio.”

So parents, keep up the good work. It’s making a difference. If you’re listening to the music that meant something to you when you were younger, it will burrow through your kids’ skulls and lodge in their brains. They’ll hate some, of course, but they’ll like some, too. And some is good enough.