It’s all in the ear of the beholder, isn’t it? For a blues hound, a guilty pleasure might be ZZ Top. If you’re a soccer mom, maybe it’s 50 Cent or Kanye West. For classical music buffs, it could be anything composed after the 18th Century.
For me, it’s really quite simple… Given that some of my friends and family members are a little nutty about American roots music, it’s usually anything that would make these music snobs recoil in horror if I admitted that I own it, much less listen to it.
In the movie Office Space, a computer-programming Michael Bolton calls his more famous namesake an “ass-clown” – then tries to ingratiate himself with a couple of soulless consultants (the two Bobs) when he tells them that the other Bolton is “pretty good.” In one of the movie’s best moments, the first Bob then confesses, “I celebrate his entire catalog.” So basically, a guilty pleasure is like admitting you’re a bit of a Bob, or even worse.
OK, I don’t think I’m quite there yet. But I’d rarely put the entire contents of my iPod (21,000 songs and counting) on shuffle in mixed company, because I never know what kind of crazy shit will pop up. Just the other day, I nearly drove into oncoming traffic when my iPod segued from Coltrane to Coldplay – mainly because I couldn’t find the advance button on my steering wheel.
Recently, I connected with an old friend from college. We quickly shared notes on stuff we’ve been listening to – turns out both of us are addicted to Sixties jazz – then we started talking about albums we couldn’t do without back in the Seventies. It got even better when we compared our expansive playlists of songs from the era.
Both of us listed the obvious culprits: the Rolling Stones, Taj Mahal, Joni Mitchell, the Allman Brothers Band, the J. Geils Band, Bob Marley, Little Feat… then things started to get a little more debatable, with forays into blooze-rock limbo (Humble Pie, Foghat, Savoy Brown), prog-rock purgatory (Yes, Genesis, the Moody Blues), and glam-rock hell (David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music). Now I enjoyed listening to the latter dreck back in the day, just like any other self-respecting stoner, but it’s hard to slap on the Pie’s Rockin’ the Fillmore or Yes’ Fragile today without a healthy dose of ironic detachment – the old wink-nod, as they say. And god help the ass-clown who whips out The Best of Bread.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
But some of the stuff on these records holds up surprisingly well, in an earnest, pseudo-soul kind of way.
nothing pseudo about those records....with backing musicians like most of Little Feat, The Meters, and the Muscle Shoals horns
2 - Mark Saleski
by the way, i wrote something similar to this a few (geezuz...seven!) years ago, though it was song-oriented.
check it out here
3 - El Bicho
Why would a blues hound find ZZ Top a guilty pleasure? They play the blues
4 - Tim Quine
Mark, enjoyed your article from seven-some years ago... and yeah, we were both a little lazy with the title! Definitely prefer the Meters and Little Feat to that Power Station garbage.
5 - Tim Quine
Sorry, El Bicho... I'm old school. Lost interest after Tres Hombres.
6 - Robert Mole
I share two of yours:
Jolene & Dance Of Maya.
Would like to add Soft Cell's "Tainted Love"
and "la mer", you know from this Atkinson movie.
7 - Tim Quine
Thanks, Robert... I think the entire decade of the Eighties was a guilty pleasure!
8 - Scott Deitche
My favorite band of all time, Rush, is a guilty pleasure for many. I often hold it up against the blissful cluelessness of music critics who cannot play music, therefore cannot understand the musical complexity of the band (nor anyone who votes for Rock N Roll Hall of Shame inductees).
But then I can turn on a dime and be a indie music snob who looks down on anything on Top 40 radio, and mercilessly mocks Nickelback (I mean, seriously, how can anyone like them?).
I think that trait is in every person who is passionate about music.
As far as songs-My list of guilty pleasures goes from 50's lounge to 70s soft rock to 80's new wave to modern stuff I find that even Pitchfork won't touch. And being a big metal fan, I won't even get into how much 80's hair stuff I still listen to on occassion.