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

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Well, you shouldn't! But there's a kind of unspoken naffness to it, something that would make me a little reluctant to mention it to people at parties (that is, if I went to the kind of parties where people had heard of Prefab Sprout...)

I think the idea of 'being indie' or 'being pop' etc.etc. loses currency after the age of seventeen. And occasionally I realise I don't listen to enough rap, or enough girlie pop, things like that, and then wonder if I'd be listenign to broaden my horizons or out of the same impulse that gets people to force-feed themselves vegetables they wouldn't normally eat. OK, that's perhaps a bad analogy - both vegetables and pop are good for you.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

if I went to the kind of parties where people had heard of Prefab Sprout

I bet if you sang the Jumping Frog song at them they'd know it.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

They really wouldn't. I hang out with a lot of people into light opera, or, if in London, Bright Eyes.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I won a cassette of Jordan the Comeback when it was released back in, looks like 1990, and I really like that one. Plus I was familiar with some of their earlier stuff.

I tend not to hang with the light opera crowd. But I have a lot of friends who are into singing choral music and so on.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of friends back Up North whom I love dearly but we really don't have much in common, culturally speaking. also, there's a lot of heavy christianity going on...mind you, Paddy McAloon did go to a seminary...