(Not a) Guilty Pleasure Song

"Nearly Lost You" by Screaming Trees



Maybe because it was in Singles or maybe because it was I was 18 when the song came out and we often associate music at that tender age as being awesome.

Did you hear the distant lie
Calling me back to my sin
Like the one you knew before
Calling me back once again


Here is my question: Is this song comparing relationships to addiction or is it just a song about addiction? I am confused.

Guilty Pleasure Song #11

Is it really 11? I haven't been keeping track. Not that it matters...

This one is a big one, and I was reminded of it during a conversation with Teacher Dave a couple of weeks ago.

It is from a great band (one of the greatest) and it is a great song, so why is it a guilty pleasure.



Yep, that's the Rolling Stones, and that is "Miss You".

So, why do I feel guilt about this?

Well...I blame Stephen Metcalf from Slate. A couple of years ago, when they were doing their now annual "What is going to be the song of the summer?" segment on Slate's Culture Gabfest, he mentioned that this was the song that he recognized as being the last song that every station played. Regardless of genre, it made the playlist, and it does work that way. So...I added it to my summer playlist, with some trite title.

I listened to that playlist a lot that summer, and I fell in love with this song. I have a very distinct image in my head of what this song is about, and when the weather hit the low nineties today (and I was in a suit), I put it on, plugged my headphones in and just...relaxed to the music.

Guilty Pleasure Song #10

Why should I feel guilty about loving this song?

1) It is a cover of an iconic song by David Bowie.
2) It is from the soundtrack of an awful film that was a relaunch of an iconic series. You know...Godzilla?
3) The lead singer, while good (and occasionally great), still is in the shadow of his iconic father.

With that, I give you "Heroes".

Guilty Pleasure Song #9

A safe night, I'm living in the forest of my dream
I know the night is not as it would seem
I must believe in something, so I'll make myself believe it
That this night will never go



Yes, there is no excuse for loving this song. Well, there are several reasons, with the main reason this was a video that MTv banned when it first came out because it was so risqué. We lived through interesting times in the Reagan '80s, didn't we?

The song came back into my consciousness because of two things: the watching of Miami Vice on DVD and the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack.

Guilty Pleasure Song #8

Yes, it is from a musical. Yes, it was written by the folks from Abba. Those two things by themselves make it a guilty please but...Murray Head's vocalizations make it the ultimate in guilty pleasures.

Can you guess what it is?


Yep, One Night in Bangkok.

Maybe the song has been haunting me because of The Hangover 2...maybe.

Guilty Pleasure Song #7

And you need her and she needs you...

I could have gone with "Everybody Have Fun Tonight", also by Wang Chung, but it did not seem correct.

I do not know why it seemed incorrect, it just did.

I love the hair on the band members by the way. It says 1984. I wonder if any of my friends had that style of hair.

Guilty Pleasure Song #6

Now, if I was listening to the original, it would not be a guilty pleasure. It would be a simple pleasure, but since one of the things that I like to listen to at weird times is a remake, it has to be a guilty pleasure. Like tinned oysters (which do have a place, thank you), remakes are pale reflections of the original without the subtly or nuance of the original.

Now that I have lowered your expectations...



Now, this video has a saving grace as it was directed by Michel Gondry (who directed one of my favorite films while being a non-rapey Frenchman) but the song...

Used for Donnie Darko (which I still find unwatchable) and then used in commercials, teen dramas, and trailers for television shows where the protagonist confronts something awful from his/her past, or...death at a wedding. It is also used subtly in film commercials where they producers know that you have no clue what the film is about but...they want you to know that the films is going to be both sad and thought provoking. I am surprised that it was not used in the trailer for "The Ice Storm".

Guilty Pleasure Song #5

Do you even know who Aesop Rock is? It is totally okay if you don't. I had no clue who he was until this song, and that was because he collaborated with John Darnielle. I do not remember if it was Pretty Much Amazing, Pitchfork, or a friend (in all likelihood Paige) who introduced me to this song.

Mostly it was because of the last 20 seconds (the appearance of Darnielle) that made me like it.

But then I saw the video...

There is fake blood. There are zombies. There are boobies! There is really tight hip-hop.

It is wonderful and reminds me of the films of Germán Magariños, especially Zombie Apocalypse Now: A Zombie Hunter. (By the way, if you have not watched this film, you really can't call yourself a fan of the genre. Just sayin'.)


Favorite line:
"This is what they take...their medication for."

or

"T-A-K-E-N-O-P-R-I-S-O-N-E-R-S"

Guilty Pleasure Song #4

Who remembers Kon Kan?



Following up Rick Springfield for the other day, this is amazingly bad. It is so bad yet is still memorable.

I remember listening to this while on my paper route, (Can you imagine me with a paper route?) and bopping along.

Guilty Pleasure Song #3

This song came out when I was nine and I loved it then.

That I still find myself singing it while in the shower twenty five plus years later I find hard to understand (I was going to try to make a "Hard to Hold" joke but it seemed too difficult.) and more difficult to explain.



So...let's talk about this video for a second...

In the future, on a distant desert world (Arrakis?), humanity is grey faced and enslaved by the lizard people (The Gorn?) to work in a factory where they are shackled and forced to either pull on fire hoses or use two pound sledges to hammer things. And then...there is our hero, Rick Springfield...



Look at him. Not grey at all, and perfectly suited to lead the rebellion with his song and his "futuristic" headset mic. Naturally, someone that "pretty" is the natural leader of the rebellion against the Lizard People, and he is more than amazing because his Tarzan swing and kick was able to make the "Lizard with the Laser Turret" explode.

And then...

After being carried by the adoring grey people, he ends up back on the stage...to finish singing!

So, what was the point of this video?

I think, upon a close viewing, that it had something to do with the end of the Cold War, but...I can't make it work intellectually.

Edit: While I was searching for the static image of Mr. Springfield, I came across this post from io9.com about the 10 greatest post-apocalyptic music videos of all time. I wish I had known about this, but...there are better speculative fiction blogs out there right now (and no, I am not going to share) and io9 has started to bore me.

Guilty Pleasure

Teacher Dave and I were doing Habitat for Humanity on Friday and Rush came on the radio.

The song was Subdivisions. Yes, I did sing along.



I made a banal remark about loving Rush at one point and Teacher Dave replied that he did as well but it was too bad that they were so "cheesy".

(An aside here: Over the Holidays, a friend and I were out at Brown's and we ran into Rick. I have known Rick since I was fourteen or so and seeing him made me listen to Rush the next day. Rick was the person who introduced me to the band, as well as instilling in me a love of Saabs.)

After thinking about it for a moment, and thinking about their lyrics, and they are not "cheesy" and I told TD that.

Rush isn't cheesy. Rush (as a band) is perpetually fourteen years old. When I think "cheesy", I think Warrant, Winger, and maybe Asia. With Rush, I think of myself before I discovered girls. Concerned with weird things like speculative fiction, cars, and the loneliness of high school (and of stardom). Rush never concerned themselves with girls, women, and maybe the chance at "sexy time". Plus, Rush promoted a type of rational objectivism that was really appealing to fourteen year old me (and is still appealing on a number of levels).

(Yes, I am listening to Rush as I am typing up this post.)

So, is it wrong that I love Rush, even as a guilty pleasure? Do you have guilty pleasures that you are embarrassed to mention in public?