Guilty Pleasure Music

There's probably some music that you and your circle of friends will laugh at. If they catch you listening to it, they'll jeer and make fun of you until you concede that the music is bad and shouldn't anybody listen to it. I know we have that music in the circles that I run in.

For me, it generally falls into 2 categories. There's that angsty, man-hating, Lilith Fair sounding music from the 90s that no straight guy listened to. Then there was that late 90s and early 2000's pop led by Britney and Christina and the others that were in their late teens and early 20s at the time. It wasn't that we weren't into girls or anything. Heck, it was just the opposite. But the music that a lot of the women were producing at the time just seemed... Well it wasn't rock and roll, and we just weren't going to listen to it. It wasn't even until the Continuum album that any of us would listen to John Mayer. 

And now, 20 or 25 years after that music was coming out, we continue to to make fun of it and anybody that listens to it.

Starting 2 or 3 years ago, I made a playlist on Amazon that includes a bunch of the stuff that we make fun of. And I've discovered that some of it is really good! And, to take it a step further, I've played some of it on the sly to some of my buddies, and it's been kind of fun, when they make a comment about "that's a great song" to give them a wry grin and say "yeah that's your girl Britney Spears" and watch them die just a little bit inside.

And I'm still discovering some of that music. Just a couple of weeks ago, for the first time, I listened to Jagged Little Pill for the first time. I officially apologize for all the ridicule I've sent Alanis Morissette's way over the years. That is a great album! And it's well deserving of all the praise it got back when it came out in the 90s.

Were all those Lilith Fair ladies all the man-hating, angsty, girl-power women that we said they were back in 1999? I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that the music that they were making wasn't actually all that bad. To me, the music of Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, and Jewel will never be that of Collective Soul, but they were putting out some good stuff.

Some of the music like Genie in a Bottle will probably always remain on that Guilty Pleasures playlist, but some of it what's on there has slowly been getting added to some other playlists.

The question I've been asking myself the last few years is why I consider that music "guilty pleasure." Is it because of the perceived stigma that a straight guy shouldn't be listening to it? Is it because it's not really that good? Well, since I've been finding out that some of that music is good, it's begun to occur to me that the music that I don't consider good is still fun to listen to (that Pink Britney Aguilera school of music). I guess that means the answer is the first part...that perceived stigma.

Here's your takeaway for today. Go out and find some of that music that you always have said is bad for whatever reason. That reason might be that you actually listened but it didn't grab you. Or it might've been a bias against the music that originally kept you from listening. Pick it up now and listen to it with an open mind. If it's not good or if it's not fun to listen to, then file it back in the drawer to not pick up again. But with fresh ears, you might like it. Or it might make you tap your toe and shake your tailfeather. You never know. You just might find out that it's not as bad as you originally thought.