So, my little faux-argument with Mr Indemnity (though he is, of course, wrong) has me musing on the concept of guilty pleasures. There's a feature they run in the (I think) Saturday sidekick in the Globe called Guilty Pleasures wherein both staff writers and readers confess to theirs. I myself both enjoy this feature and reject the whole concept.
The idea that some things are okay to enjoy and others, while equally pleasurable to any one person, are not, is a silly and elitist idea and we won't stand for it when they make me Empress of the Universe. You've all probably (definitely) heard my story of how one of my college roommates' boyfriend once told me that I had "the best small record collection he'd ever seen," the unspoken finish to that sentence being "especially for a girl" but we won't go into the inherent sexism of 1981 right now since we have other fish to fry and other cliches to use. The reason that I had such an admirable record collection was, of course, that it was carefully edited, with all the albums that were (and I'll use the term even though it's not the term I'd have used in 1981, the 1981 term being lost to me) hipster-enough for me to have at college living in my Allston apartment and all the other others, many of which I still enjoyed just as much, living at my parents' house. Because the 18-19 year old Andrea was both savvy enough to know what was cool and insecure enough to care.
Middle-aged Andrea long ago said fuck that shit. You got pleasures? Don't feel guilty about 'em. Embrace all your lowbrow, uneducated, unhip, unsophisticated tastes as much as you embrace those which are socially approved. And if anyone gives you any crap, you tell 'em I said it was okay.
That'll fix 'em.
xoxo
7 comments:
So you're saying it's OK for me to keep rocking out to my old Dolly Parton records? (Have you heard her latest one? Good stuff!!!)
I love the little thing they do in the Globe where the guy (or gal, don't know) makes the featured interviewee play their 'Pod on random and they list the first ten songs that come up.
Just tested it on mine and got:
1) A Robert McClosky / Homer Price spoken book chapter (a road trip preparation from a couple years back)
2) Turn the Page by J. Brown & Lost Company (Definitely not my favorite, but 80 gigs is 80 gigs, and something this unremarkable/awful might make one ashamed, but not "guilty" in that inimitable way)
3) Bare-boned Baby by Jim Taft (ex Fools drummer)
4) Blood Makes Noise by Suzanne Vega
5) Chiaroscuro by Paula Cole (almost)
6) Numbers by Pompeii (something from SXSW 2007, and pretty nice)
7) Daylight by Five Star Iris (yeay Amiestreet!)
8) Face Down by Katie Todd (yeay Amiestreet again!)
9) I Shall Believe by Sheryl Crow
10) Feats Don't Fail Me Now by Little Feat
Damn, nothing quite guilty there... Let's see how far we have to go...
Ok, 15 is too good not to mention, though not guilty: Backslide by Rancid. (Looking forward to August 8th at the Palladium!!!)
Ok, here it is: #26: My Funny Valentine by Linda Rondstadt. Yeah, I know that Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Holiday, and about 500 others did 'em better, but I've always had that soft spot for Linda's timbre and tone, and you gotta love Nelson Riddle's smarm and almost-camp.
Let me know if I should keep digging. There's ABBA, Olivia Newton-John and Tommy Roe still down in there to be dug up.
Oh, so many things to say.
1.) Most importantly, Dolly Parton can never be a guilty pleasure even if we are legitimizing the concept because Dolly Parton is and always has been fucking cool. She's Dolly "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap" Parton. C'mon now.
2.) The best part of that Globe feature is the "glad we missed..." where they do indeed dig for the worst thing on the iPod. It's not definitive, but on the skant evidence, I'll nominate your ABBA for that. *Not* that you should feel guilty about it, however.
3.) I can't adequately play the iPod game b/c I am so woefully behind on transferring all the CDs I own onto it. But a cursory push of the button just gave me 3 Eminem songs out of ten. Random, my ass.
4.) Expanding this beyond music, which I totally intend, there's the fact that I am *right now* eating jalapeno poppers for lunch, a food which should only be consumed at a bar with beer, but which that whacky cafeteria does in fact sell, and I don't feel guilty about it one bit. I'll feel a little heartburnish in a couple hours, but not guilty. Furthermore and in a similar vein? The fact that you, Mr Barma, pretty much know when I walk into a sports bar chances are high that I'll order a Magners, and yet you do not cringe (outwardly) at my lightly alcoholic apple juice, does my heart good. Because I don't feel guilty about that, either.
Oh, if we're allowed to go for the guiltiest of the guilty, then I'd have to own up to the vinyl in the closet that includes Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits--though, in my defense, it can't be defined as a guilty pleasure if absolutely no pleasure is derived from it, right? (His video-recorded "Sweet Caroline" at opening day this year was, hands down, the most cringe-worthy spectacle of BAD I think I have ever witnessed, even including every video I've ever seen by Celine Dion).
I think I'll put on Ole ELO...
I gave into the temptation to offer up my vinyl to the preschool yard sale before the vinyl revival had happened. I will not mention any artists. The memory could get us all weepy. No, not 70s greatest hits either. WERE there any greatest hits in the 70s? :p
Yeah, here's the thing: in my universe, things that give you pleasure cannot and will not be classified as guilty; however, things which give you *no* pleasure, like Neil Diamond or any vinyl that you would sell for a nickel, can be legitimately classified as suckage. Though if you get pleasure from selling the vinyl for that nickel, it gets complicated again.
Kitten orgasms for everyone!
Can't forget that classic Shaun of the Dead scene when Ed and Shaun were deciding which albums to throw at the first zombie they encountered in the back garden. "Purple Rain? No. Sign o' the Times? No. The Batman soundtrack? Throw it." (The next bit, about the Sade record being his girlfriends, was pretty funny too).
I had a friend once who had a Bay City Rollers record. I always figured that was the lowest of the low. Definite Zombie ammo for sure.
Okay, even I didn't own the Bay City Rollers, and I was a 13 yo girl in 1976, so I might be excused.
Most horrific thing I ever owned on vinyl, fit only for zombie killing, and which I would rather put those brain-burrowing insects into my ears than listen to? I would say that Boston album, but I think I get a pass on that one, because if I didn't own that my freshman year in high school I would have lost even the tenuous social position that I had. Instead, I give you...Kansas! Point of No Return.
Top that. :-)
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