What's Your Guilty Pleasure?
Musically that is. Abba when alone? Or worse?
Wednesday night is cleaning night at my house. It has to be this way, because otherwise I will live in squalor until the health department comes in. I don't like to clean. And so I dance. With my broom. Like the Swiffer ads, but, I hope, less soccer mum-y. I am not proud. But I am also not knee-deep in my own filth. It's a compromise I've learned to live with.
On a recent Wednesday, the broom and I were performing our usual pas-de-deux when the phone rang. I answered, without turning down the cranked stereo, to find one of my editors on the line. Not just any editor. A rock-snob, controller-of-an-uber-hip-music-rag editor. I turned the stereo off, but it was too late. He had caught me listening to "Emotions". Not even the BeeGees version. The schock-o'-the block Destiny's Child cover. I felt vaguely like a teenage boy caught in the, er, exploratory phase of adolescence. Shut the Door! Shut the Door!!! Turn the stereo down!!!
But it was too late. There I was, caught red-handed with the musical equivalent of the Sears catalogue. My guilty pleasure was exposed.
The guilty pleasure is a singularly decadent weapon in the arsenal of personal musical satisfaction. Its very nature is an indulgence in individual desire, a delight not shared with friends or lovers, but rather furtively enjoyed when we think no one else is listening. Unlike revered legends or critically adored buzz bands, the crap we crank up on the sly is perhaps the truest indicator of who we are, or who we'd like to be, if just for a moment.
I guess what I'm saying, is, somewhere deep down inside my pasty-white, nerdlinger self, I long to be bootylicious.
True confessions
After getting caught with my musical pants down, it seemed like a guilty pleasure survey was in order. The kind of survey that can only be conducted after a few beers have been consumed by the respondent. The results were shocking. There are more closet Steely Dan fans out there than one would ever suspect. Hall and Oates? Huge amongst aging hipsters. And amongst my educated, feminist friends, the dirtiest secrets of all: Kylie. Shakira. Mariah Carey. Lord help us.
Of course, the advent of podcasting, iTunes and general internet free love has meant that our access to our most unspeakable desires is now readier than ever. Pre-Napster (and surely time will one day be marked as such), a trip to the record store to buy Chicago or Lionel Richie would possibly incur the disparaging, judgmental sneers of the cooler-than-thou clerk. Now, we can download "All Night Long" in the privacy of our own home. No muss, no fuss, no brown paper bag. Let the sappy times roll.
Free your mind
But if our crap consumption is on the rise, our shame about it is not. Nick Bragg, manager at Zulu Records in Vancouver (where it should be noted, disparaging sneers are virtually non-existent), reckons there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Putting the trend of schlock fetishism of down to widespread post-modernism, Bragg insists that the idea of being ashamed of one's taste is long dead.
"A lot of people will want to hear something because they have a childhood memory of it, or it reminds them of a good time in their life. I don't really think there should be any guilt about that."
So much for the legend of the derisive record store clerk: Bragg, at the helm of Vancouver's nexus of indie-rock, couldn't care less about your fetish for Foreigner.
In fact, most of the self-identified rock snobs I surveyed seemed hesitant to make any musical mea culpas. It almost seems that guilty pleasures are in vogue, with DJ's and elitists scrambling one-up each other on their most cotton-candy indulgences. Think Manilow. Journey. Toto. Starship. Okay, now stop.
Worse and worse
In the UK, BBC DJ Sean Rowley has been hosting Guilty Pleasures club nights for over a year, allowing revelers to dance to everything from Queen to Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. In the club, faux- priests walk around to absolve dancers of their sins, at the same time taking requests for so-bad-they're good favourites. The nights have spawned two chart-topping compilation discs and legions of imitators, and have undoubtedly exposed hordes of Wham fans for the suckers they are.
Lest all this seem too silly, drop by Rowley's website, which features a report from a Guilty Pleasures night in London just one day after the July 7 bombings. "The atmosphere is always special." writes Rowley. "But this time it was something else."
Maybe that's the ultimate allure of the guilty pleasure, and why so many are coming out of the closet on their forbidden loves. Enjoying songs without any supposition of cool brings us back to why we're music fans in the first place - the power of a good pop song to transcend all tragedy and heartache. Whether it be shower-singing to the Carpenters, air-drumming to Boston or gobbling up some piping hot Bread, there's no reason to keep your love of crap in the closet. There's no reason for shame. There's just tunes that make you happy. Go on and enjoy it. It's your destiny, child.
Elaine Corden is a Vancouver freelance writer and Interim Arts Editor at The WestEnder.
Go ahead. Confess you musical guilty pleasures. Post a comment below. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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granthams
6 years ago
Comments on "What's Your Guilty Pleasure?"
Elton John, Billy Joel
Apegirl
6 years ago
Dean Martin, Kate Bush, French pop music.
kurt
6 years ago
Bollywood soundtracks
loblollyboy
6 years ago
There's a lot of musical pleasures which stopped being guilty the moment I began respecting my own judgement and stopped allowing the curled upper lips of the hipper-than-me to direct my musical opinions. Abba was just the start.
skeptikool
6 years ago
One need not feel guilt over pleasuring oneself.
I like karaoke. Will sing for beer and just the pleasure of it. Have won prizes and been told that I am...ahem...awesome, fabulous, etc.
I favor many of the standards and hits from the musicals. I was crazy about bebop and loved to jive to it.
In contrast, I find much of today's music boringly repetitive and tuneless. Much Canadian music that CBC feels compelled (or perhaps is required) to play, I have found dirge-like.
Colin
6 years ago
Red Elvis, traditional Siberian Surf Rock
Pipes and drums
Carmen by Bizet
Tango’s, Salsa and Mambo’s
The Beetles and most of the 60’s music
Big band sound, fun to dance to
Katrina and the Waves
Buenos Vista Social Club
I like Bollywood movies, what’s not to like about 20 or so stunningly beautiful Indian women dancing in perfect synch. Plus I don’t need sub-titles as they are only about six different plots. Actually that’s not fair, if you see what they are actually saying, the dialogue is very poetic.
I tried karokee but I sing like a pig tossed into a deepfat fryer
elin
6 years ago
Cry me a river by Justin Timberlake
Yammer
6 years ago
Colin, those aren't guilty pleasures!!! ABBA isn't a guilty pleasure!!! THESE are guilty pleasures:
- QMFM
- Gilbert O'Sullivan
- Paul Mauriat
- Britney Spears
gardensnake
6 years ago
Yeah, Bollywood = guilty pleasure.
skeptikool
6 years ago
Parton really does it for me and, biblically,
perhaps I SHOULD feel guilt. Sings well, too.
runningdog
6 years ago
I hope Elaine Corden is just being tongue-in-cheek when she refers to her guilty-pleasures as "crap". Even though i don't like many of the songs/groups she mentioned, i don't think they can be called "crap"; certainly they meant something to enough people to make the crap-artist (or record label) famous and rich.
I remember when Jefferson Airplane/Starship was "cool", when Boston was "cool", when Queen was "cool".
My "guilty pleasures": almost anything by Led Zepplin, Yes, the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and the songs "Wild Thing", "You're So Vain", "Happy Together", "Here for a Good Time, Not a long time", "Seventeen", "Cat's in the Cradle" and more ... I feel so vulnerable now ...
kurt
6 years ago
Sorry to contradict but there is only one plot device in Bollywood (this is from firsthand experience as my wife and I made good coin there in our wild youth, and she even got a good run of star billing as "The Wicked Western Hussy Out To Steal The Betrothed's Heart And Affections," or something like that). This is not a criticism, as Hollyood also has one plot device, the universal one, but Bollywood does it with much more style and panache. Heck, even Shakespeare told the same story over and over again... but Bollywood's got better tunes.
darcy.mcgee
6 years ago
Story of Isaac, as sung by Suzanne Vega
Halleluljah, as sung by Jeff Buckley
I could listen to either of these forever. I probably wouldn't feel too guilty though.
deeby
6 years ago
My partner's is Neil Diamond...I can't stand him, hence her guilt.
For me, I think it would be anything by the Supremes.
skeptikool
6 years ago
NOW it comes to me. Why was I thinking: Dorothy? It was Dolly - yes Dolly that I have a thing for, Dolly Parton - not George.
Hope senility is not beginning to set in.
Colin
6 years ago
Kurt
I always get a kick out of the “token white girl†in bollywood movies, no offence to your other half but the white girls never seem to be able to keep up with the dance steps.
Bollywood is evolving, my wife is Indian-Malay, so we watch it a fair bit, the new story lines are getting more complex and even the singing has changed (thankfully)
Yammer
I am glad that Brittany will be a long distance memory by the time my daughter gets older, mind you I sure there will be someone else just as bad.
Got to take my friends daughter to the Spice Girls movie at the height of their craze. Gave me a taste of what it must have been like during a Beetles era concert. A Theatre full of screaming 13yr old girls and a few deafened adults. To give credit, the movie was not as bad as I thought it would be, sort of a attempt at redoing “Hard day’s nightâ€
sandra
6 years ago
Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. Oh, the shame....
NorthShoreEd
6 years ago
ABBA.
Opera.
Broadway show tunes.
alexwh
6 years ago
alexwh
6 years ago
alexwh
6 years ago
deeby
6 years ago
Who are they Alex?...your silence suggests guilt :-)
Carmen
6 years ago
Not so guilty (general):
Salt n' Pepa
Jon Bon Jovi
Catchy bhangra beats
Broadway, Gershwin, or otherwise 40s-60s tune
90s reggae/dancehall (think Red Rat)
Guilty (specifics):
"I know you're out there somehwere" - Moody Blues
"Inspiration" - Chicago
"Toxic" - Britney Spears
"You remind me" - Nickelback
"Beautiful" - Christina Aguilera
kurt
6 years ago
I think Alex's photo 3 is The Cramps? If so, good choice for guilty pleasure...
alexwh
6 years ago
The Cramps
Iggy Pop
Johnny Thunders
Pepa
6 years ago
So many guilty pleasures, so little time!
Here are but a few of mine:
Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung
I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
You're the 1st, the last, my everything, Barry White
ABC, The Jacksons
This Love, Maroon 5
deeby
6 years ago
Alex, why the guilt? All three are trés cool....
alexwh
6 years ago
Deeby I hardly ever listen to these guys so I feel guilty. I have been listening to 17th century baroque music lots for the last couple of years or 60s jazz particularly Gerry Mulligan playing My Funny Valentine (I have at least 10 versions of Gerry playing that tune). So I feel guilty that I no longer listen much too rock music. By I do remember the first time Devo came to Vancouver and I heard them at the Commodore. The strange new chords left me refreshed. But I feel specially guilty that I have made no recent efforts to find out how my former hero, Art Bergmann may be doing in Toronto. For me Art Bergmann and Johnny Thunders could play with more electrical passion than anybody else, sober and clean for 30 minutes. I could listen to Art singing Data Redux for a long time.
kurt
6 years ago
Art was clean and sober for 30 minutes?
alexwh
6 years ago
I wrote all that wrong! What I meant was that Art or Johnny in just three or four minutes of brilliance could top anybody else who was clean and sober for 30 minutes.
deeby
6 years ago
Hmmm...I guess guilty pleasures change with time.
Back in the days when DOA, the Young Canadians, Black Flag etc. formed the backdrop for my very-wasted youth, I had many guilty pleasures:
Heaven 17
Soft Cell
Adam and the Ants (the worst of all!)
pony
6 years ago
I don't think Kate bush is a guilty pleasure. I guess mine is not a specific group/song but playing the same song over and over again for hours at a time (like Wicked Games etc.). I mean HOURS. And singing along of course.