Thursday, August 10, 2006

Guilty pleasures

Last Week Q magazine got a lot of publicity for its feature on guilty pleasures - the records you like but feel that you shouldn't. Being a sucker for this sort of thing I bought that issue.

What is a guilty pleasure? Q never quite gets round to defining it, but for me it has to be a pretentious record that does not quite justify its pretentions, yet leaves you thinking that if you listen to it once more it just might.

Q gives its top 50 albums and singles in the genre, and here are the top 10 singles:
  1. ELO - Livin' Thing
  2. Boston - More Than A Feeling
  3. S Club 7 - Don't Stop Movin'
  4. 10cc - I'm Not In Love
  5. Gary Glitter - Rock'n'Roll Part 2
  6. Foreigner - Cold As Ice
  7. Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
  8. Status Quo - Whatever You Want
  9. Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
  10. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
Livin' Thing is a perfect example, but some will not do. Baker Street is a good record (or at least it meant a lot to me at the time, which probably means I am not able to judge it objectively), while the Gary Glitter, like most glamrock, is just plain bad. I'm Not in Love is a dirge and was played to death at the time.

So here are my 10 guilty pleasures in no particular order:
  • Eloise - Barry Ryan
  • Africa - Toto
  • We're gonna change the world - Matt Monro
  • Forever young - Alphaville
  • I'm Mandy fly me - 10CC
  • Drowning in Berlin - Mobiles
  • The show must go on - Leo Sayer
  • Carrie doesn't live here anymore - Cliff Richard
  • Careless whisper - George Michael
  • The logical song - Supertramp
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5 comments:

  1. Will10 August, 2006 22:16

    I hadn't heard the Barry Ryan original of Eloise until last week, but it's pretty good. Nothing to be guilty about.

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  2. Anonymous11 August, 2006 09:55

    There's never anything to feel guilty about. :)

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  3. Tristan11 August, 2006 17:07

    I suppose 'guitly secrets' are those songs/musicians you're vaguely ashamed to admit to liking...
    These will change depending on who I'm talking to...
    Some people think I'm mad for mentioning Funkadelic, others Chic, others Meatloaf and some Iron Maiden. Some even think I'm mad for being a Miles Davis fan (okay, so I do quite like Doo-Bop, his last album, 'serious' jazz fans tend to view that as unforgivable...)

    To be honest, there's nothing worth being 'guilty' about liking (unless there's illegal music...). People like music they like, for varying reasons, there's no such thing as good taste.

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  4. Liberal Neil14 August, 2006 21:00

    Nobody should feel guilty about the music they like.

    I like your list. Toto IV was one of the first albums I ever bought, and Supertramp can't have been far behind.

    Tristan has a point. Personally I revel in wearing my Metallica T-shirts to Fairport Convention gigs and vice-versa.

    Saying that at Fairport's Cropredy Convention this weekend I lost count of the number of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Motorhead and System of a Down T-shirts people were wearing. Many people have broad tastes.

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  5. cymrumark20 August, 2006 17:25

    Neil......but were there any Black Vomit t-shirts :)

    ReplyDelete