Thursday Thunderdome: Guilty Pleasures

You all know how this works; two things enter, one thing leaves.

We'll start off with something easy: Godawful music.

I think everybody enjoys music -- but the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of people out there who only really enjoy it on a surface level. That is, they base their preferences off things like -- How do the lyrics make me feel? Does this song has a good beat or not? Can I go to jail for acting like a groupie with the three whiteboys with afros singing the Disney song even though I'm 30 years older than they are?

Thinking that tends to drive the rest of us batty trying to figure out how some of these ultra-popular songs actually end up that way.

Add to that sprinklings of other factors like "being a musician" or "wanting good music to actually feel authentic and special" and it's easy sometimes to think that you're the only one on the planet who has the clarity of vision to clearly see that Jimmy Buffet is indeed the devil, and that anyone who listens to his music and enjoys it is clearly being influenced by agents of evil.

See, there comes a point in life where those of us who choose to elevate our love of music into an unhealthy obsession passion separate ourselves from those who simply let their emotional responses tell them what they like and what they don't.

In other words, you aren't born a music snob -- You have to grow into it.

Which means at some point or another you were just another little kid cabbage patching to every song with a beat that came out of the stereo in your mom's living room.

Honestly, we've all liked bad music at some point in our lives. What's more -- living in this modern world means that not only you, but most of the people you've ever known and loved have grown up enduring endless albums, movie soundtracks, ladies nights, and school dances featuring music from what might just be the worst couple of decades of bad music that history has ever known:

The Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties.

Disco. Rap Metal. Pop Country. Hair Bands. Screamo. White Rappers. Tori Amos. The list goes on and on. Even some of the music that you yourself love ends up being the type that other music snobs hate. It's a vicious circle of over-animated singing, self-indulgent guitar solos, lame political commentary, and fake teen angst that we all must navigate on our way to the musical promise lands we seek.

But the sad thing is, no matter how "evolved" your musical tastes become -- you'll always be a victim of your times.

In other words, you can be the world's foremost expert and connoisseur of 18th Century Opera and it still won't do you a lick of good at Karaoke night, where every asshole in the place is just dying to be the one to jump up on stage and belt out Billy Joel's "Piano Man" or anything Neil Diamond ever wrote. Songs you can't stand, but still somehow know the chord changes and lyrical hooks to.

Bad Music exists.

Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. You can feel it's force all around you; here, between you, me, the tree, and the rock -- and sometimes, regardless of how much you want to resist -- it sticks to you. We call these songs guilty pleasures. The songs you like that you really wish you didn't. The ones you'll sing in the car, but only when you're driving alone.

But as we all know -- sometimes a popular song is a force too strong to resist. Sometimes you're put in situations where you have no choice but to get used to a crappy song. A long elevator ride. A job with piped-in muzak. A sexy blonde who really likes a particular band, and even though you might hate them -- going to that concert might just be the ticket that gets you somewhere else.

Horniness leads to dancing. Dancing leads to the impression that you
kinda like this song too. That impression leads to a phone number.

A phone number leads you to front row seats at the friggin' Dave Matthews Band!?

So the question before you is this: Which of the two songs listed below would make you more likely to pretend you didn't know me? Which awful song from my past that I used to kinda like (and probably still have on a CD or mixtape somewhere in my collection) is so utterly horrible to your ears that you'd rather claim temporary friendship amnesia than be associated with the dork who actually knows all the words to these songs??

Jane Child: Don't Want to Fall In Love



Dokken: Dream Warriors

Here are the rules: First, you can only pick one song. If you hate them both, you have to pick the one that you hate the most. If you kinda actually like one of them, feel free to say so -- but understand that you'll be standing up on that wall with me when the axe comes down.

But don't worry -- we won't be going alone.

Because the final and by far most important rule of the game is this: In order for your vote to be counted, you must also name one of your own awful horrible songs first. That is, when you comment on what a complete loser I am for liking "____________" you have to give us the name one of your guilty pleasure songs too.

It's gonna be like group therapy, Yakusa style. There's gonna be a lot of shouting, sake drinking, and then we'll all slice the shame of liking these bad songs away like pinkie fingers lopped off in dishonor.

Bring the pain, bitches.

[Listening to:  Social Distortion – "Bad Luck" ]