Guilty Pleasures

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I was looking att he latest issue of Q yesterday int he library and reading through their list of '50 Guiltiest Pleasures'. And it got me to thinking - is the idea of a 'guilty pleasure' inherently rockist? Most of the songs I 'like but shouldn't like' are songs I wouldn't normally listen to except because of association/nostalgic reasons because they're a bit rubbish. But not liking ELO's Living Thing just because the rock canon doesn't like them? And don't even get me started on Macarthur Park...

So does poptimism recognise the concept of the guilty pleasure, or - as it should be - music is music and whether it's the gaspings of a tortured soul or the wall of sound rebuilt in Duplo, what matters is whether it's ANY GOOD AT ALL?

There should be a poll on this, maybe, but I don't have the issue to hand.

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a thread about this on The Other Place?

I think this is one of those questions that goes to the heart of "What is Poptimism?" I'm not sure I feel any guilt about music that I like anymore.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I know not of The Other Place, but what's hackneyed to you is still interesting to me, so it seemed worth a post.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Poptimists is All Grown Up!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Dunno about the concept: but I know I feel a bit guilty for liking, well Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers is the example that springs to mind. It's just it feels a bit too much like aural comfort food -- warm and familiar. Whether this is actually a case of indie guilt would be for a qualified professional to diagnose.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Hmm... now that you say this, I wonder if I should reconsider my answer. I guess of late my "guilty pleasures" are things that are sonically comforting. "Lazy listening" would be a better term, perhaps. For, say, the last Beth Orton album, which I listen to but hardly wows me. (No gibes, please!)

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I can relate to this - I have Radio 2 on a lot for the same reason...nice to drift in an MOR rush. We're all listening to Nove on the sly, eh?

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I have a few things that I know I shouldn't like, but do...

* Just The Way You are - Milky
* Lean on Me - Red Box
* Trip To Trumpton - some faceless dance people whose names I can't remember
* Words - FR David
* and wrongmos would say Prefab Sprout, but they are wrongmos.

Thing is, this article had Baker Street in it, and naff as it generally is, that record's got a heart, and an aching one at that. It makes it work as pop music, y'know?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Why on earth shouldn't you like Red Box? Or Trip to Trumpton? Or Prefab Sprout?

If I were k-punk I might try and think something up about 'the other' and how we have internalised social voices in our head which say 'that's a bit lame' or 'only X sort of people like Y music' or 'you ought to be more cutting edge' or 'you ought to be more pop / less indie' or whatever. But I think for me it's more about setting wierd little rules for myself which I feel bad about breaking e.g. at some point I have said 'you should leave your comfort zone and try new things!'

[i.e. I would like to be an autonomous (setting the law for myself) rather than a heteronomous (receiving the law from outside) creature. Whether that's possible would have to remain in question i.e. can I tell when I am thinking for myself rather than doing something I've picked up from elsewhere? (Perhaps I can't, but I can try and prove it by insisting on it to myself, and feeling bad?)]

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I have another version of this, which is stuff that I really liked, and still enjoy, but I just listen to it too much EG the only album I've listened to for the first three days this week was Aimee Mann's Whatever. These are probably worse than "Guilty Pleasures", since at least those have a mental hangnail that keeps you involved in considering why you do and don't like it etc etc.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I feel no guilt whatsoever about owning 3 Skunk Anansie albums.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Some would argue that you should...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Ans so far seems to be:

poptimism = refusing to acknowledge 'social' guilt i.e. there are no guilty pleasures based on what other people think about music (refusal of the cool / naff dichotomy in all its multi-variate and shifting forms (i.e. it's essentially relational not a general social norm)).

but are we going to use poptimism in the dubdobdee sense of 'lazy listening' in which case bothering to set a rule for yourself is sukrat territory c.f. 'concrete so as to dubdobdee'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

When nosily google blogsearching on 'poptimism' to see if anyone I didn't know had mentioned Saturday's club, I found someone tut-tutting about how 'poptimists' (not us) seemed to "defend anything".

I quite like this! It's not true exactly though. But I like trying to find the use in a record.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I'm showing my ignorance here, I know, but...sukrat?

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I would say, yes, the concept of "guilty pleasure" is rockist. I have no guilty pleasures, I see nothing wrong with being excited about the release of "Bat Out of Hell III".

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

But would you feel guilty if you were anticipating the new Sandi Thom download? Or the latest Molinee 12"? Or the new No Neck Blues Band CDR?

[celentari.livejournal.com]

What about liking Gary Glitter's music? Morals/music/guilt conflict thinger.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I thought it was interesting that a Glitter track did end up in the Q Top 50. Cos this generally isn't what the rhetoric about "guilty pleasures" refers to - it's more "naughty but nice" than "horrible but bangin'".

Similarly, the various contortions liberal dancehall fans get themselves into over homophobia tend not to have the phrase 'guilty pleasures' attached, a sign that there's no *actual* guilt intended in GPs, or that the 'guilt' of ELO love is a performance.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was discusisng this with someone when I worked in local radio - I was told that if MJ was convicted his records wouldn't be played on air. This seemed bizarre to me. I still think Rock and Roll is a great record, and is anyone going to see Glitter as a role model these days?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Poptimism = being open-minded about a bit of music, at least until you've heard it/given it a chance to grow on you. That's all, surely? It's only because this would imply an unfeasible policy of listening to EVERYTHING that we tend to take on board recommendations (both positive and negative), to ensure we make the best use of our listening time.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

So Lex cannot be a poptimist? This seems wrong somehow.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

I find the whole guilty pleasures thing a bit confusing really - as if there is music that we're not meant to like, music that's illegal. Apparently I'm meant to be guilty about liking Jet (song, not band), Wired For Sound, Bat Out Of Hell...whyyy? They're good tunes! Especially Bat Out Of Hell!

I have to confess that I did originally listen to stuff like that because I found it funny, but eventually I realised that I enjoyed it because I liked it and thought it was good stuff. Same with a lot of current and current-ish pop music, really.

No such thing as...

[giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

The film critic Robin Wood likes to say that there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure - ie it isn't pleasure if there's guilt involved

The magazine Film Comment used to run a 'Guilty Pleasures' column (I think it's where the term first caught on) which allowed toney auteurs and critics to admit that they liked all kinds of rub. When it came to John Waters, his 'guilty pleasures' were all art movies by Bresson, Bergman, Chantal Akkerman etc - END OF FEATURE

Re: No such thing as...

[mippy.livejournal.com]

And why not? A lot of art movies are often emperor's new clothes. Same with records, often. I dislike a lot of canonical things and would take Bennie and the Jets anyday.

Context

[(Anonymous)]

I don't buy the guilty pleasures notion, but to test it properly you have choose something that rubs up against your ideology. So obviously around here nobody is going to get uptight about liking ELO. But what if you found yourself humming along to Jurassic 5 or Conor Oberst?