Guilty Pleasures (again?)
I know there was once a thread here about guilty pleasures, but I can’t seem to find it. If I recall correctly, there were two main responses:
1. Here’s something shitty I like
2. I don’t feel guilty about anything I like because that would be hipstery to be ashamed of liking a song.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember what I wrote, but it was either #2 or maybe some silly 90’s tracks. But man, have I got a good one. See, the thing is… I love this track. Love it to the point where I’ve been listening to it regularly for about a month and enjoying it so much that I have to turn it way the fuck up and rock out in my chair. But simply admitting I’m aware of it is perhaps a bigger dork than anyone might have guessed. Admitting I can’t get enough of it? Yeah.
So here it is: Simon Viklund’s house/trance remix of Bionic Commando (an old Nintendo game)’s Power Plant stage done for the re-release of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPtHTroVWPM
Top that.
Comments
There was a post about this but for the life of me I can’t find it or remember what it specifically was. And in fact reading this I’m reminded that my response was some variation of wanting to see what everyone else responded with because I didn’t want to confess to liking Hanson’s Mmmbopp or something similar and have you come along and respond that your guilty pleasure was some avant garde Terry Riley or Steve Reich work because it all seems so quaint to you now.
And if you’re trying to pass this off as a guilty pleasure then you’re doing just that. This is too ridiculously odd and off the beaten path to be a guilty pleasure.
Maybe I just underestimated how much people hate house music and how nerdy it is to really, genuinely want to listen to video game music. But as I was listening to it, I realized that my Chat status (which all my work people see all day) had the song I was listening to listed and I suddenly got really embarrassed. I can’t say that that’s really ever happened before.
I mean, it’s not like I need an excuse to brag about some awesome shit I’m listening to. I do that all day anyhow. I just noticed myself get embarrassed and thought the best course of action was to embrace it.
To me the only thing that makes things embarrassing is when the majority of people who are fully into it are people who you’d be ashamed to keep the company of. I can’t imagine that thing has enough of an audience to even count as a group of people to be ashamed of having as your cohorts.
Like I know a dude with otherwise impeccable taste who enjoys the occassional Nickelback song. That’s a guilty pleasure. I know another person with otherwise unimpeachable inclinations in music who flat out love’s Miley Cyrus’s “Party In The USA” song.
Those are guilty pleasures.
I honestly don’t feel guilty about anything I like because it doesn’t effect anyone except for me. If I secretly got-off on genocide then maybe it’d be a guilty pleasure.
You of all people know I don’t give a crap about liking bad music (or anything else for that matter), haha!
The closest I can come is that I watch the new 90210 like clockwork and actually get angry at the storylines.
You can’t feel that guilty about it, as I also saw you post this on Facebook. Via Twitter, no less. I think that makes it less of a guilty pleasure and more of a “Hey everyone! Look how odd my music tastes are!”
Evan said:You can’t feel that guilty about it, as I also saw you post this on Facebook, via twitter I believe. I think that makes it less of a guilty pleasure and more of a “Hey everyone! Look how odd my music tastes are!”
This.
The nail has been hit on the head so many times here. Hilarious.
Kevin said:To me the only thing that makes things embarrassing is when the majority of people who are fully into it are people who you’d be ashamed to keep the company of. I can’t imagine that thing has enough of an audience to even count as a group of people to be ashamed of having as your cohorts.
One piece that I would add to this definition, that really is only an extension/implication of what you stated, is something that you’d be embarrassed to have blaring out of your car while you’re driving around. There are several things that I turn the volume down on when I’m going through the security gates at work, Owen Pallett being one of them, but I’d never call him a guilty pleasure in the traditional sense.
1. You guys clearly haven’t met enough of the nerds who listen to this stuff. One D&D night at the Mantua house is enough to make you ashamed (and is partly why I have a hard time listening to Blind Guardian).
2. I tweeted/posted it to see if someone could come up with something better/worse. Nickleback would certainly be worse, but I don’t actually know anyone who likes them.
You guys are wrong simply because I’ve never shown any problem bragging about how odd my tastes are, so why would I hide my motives?
John said:
You guys are wrong simply because I’ve never shown any problem bragging about how odd my tastes are, so why would I hide my motives?
We didn’t say you didn’t do it all the time. Just that this was more an example of you doing it than it is an example of a guilty pleasure.
hahahahah touche, jerk.
Ima steal your kid.
Let me help you all out here.
If you like…
- Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”
- Drowning Pool’s “Let The Bodies Hit The Floor”
- Crazytown’s “Butterfly”
…then you’ve got yourself a guilty pleasure because those are the worst 3 songs in history.
Funny this might be easier in reverse. Let’s come to a Scrabbled-consensus on some songs you should be ashamed to like, and that person will then have a guilty pleasure to submit.
Crazytown’s Butterfly is stupid, but it isn’t bad. The beat is a pretty decent chili peppers song.
But that’s what Im’ talking about — I don’t feel any guilt about liking Butterfly. I feel guilt about liking the Bionic Commando track, regardless of any objective analysis of the quality of the songs. Psychoanalyze that, kev.
You SHOULD feel guilt about liking Butterfly because it’s a horrible song (yes, that one lifted lick might not be offensive, but the beat…the lyrics. Horrible). You shouldn’t feel guilt about liking the Bionic Commando track because it’s just kind of funny and weird and is not something that is widely known and loved by douchebags.
And let’s face it, something that is loved by nerds or geeks is a lot less of a guilty pleasure than something loved by bro types or guidos or general all around douchebag types since without nerds or geeks most of the denizens of the Scrabbled’s music collections would be whittled down by a good 75-90%.
Sam had said this earlier, that the house-trance remix of a Nintendo song is such a small niche of a genre that it seems impossible for it to be a guilty-pleasure.
And yes, I’m writing on the Scrabbled for Sam.
“Teen Mom.” And “I Used to Be Fat.” Also, dunking my pizza crust in my soda. And picking my nose.
Paris said:Sam had said this earlier, that the house-trance remix of a Nintendo song is such a small niche of a genre that it seems impossible for it to be a guilty-pleasure.
And yes, I’m writing on the Scrabbled for Sam.
this.
also, my guilty pleasure is that song “stay” by sugarland. and i’m wiling to be someone else on the scrabbled likes that song/that girl’s voice.
how is dunking your pizza crust in soda a guilty pleasure?
Because it’s gross to watch. I know this because my sister does it too. Therefore, I only do it when I’m at home and there’s no one around to watch.
Yea I can agree that dunking pizza crust in soda is a guilty pleasure.
Are you agreeing that’s it’s pleasurable? Or that one should feel guilty for doing it?
Heidi said:Because it’s gross to watch.
Sounds gross, period.
I’m just going to go ahead and answer.
Rick Ross- I know he gets cred with a lot of people, but he’s a terrible rapper. He rhymes “Ross” with “Boss” about fifty times a song, and I can’t stop listening to him.
Salem- They’re such a terrible group, but I’m obsessed with them right now. I YouTube their live videos all the time (which are comically bad) and the genre, “Witch House” cracks me up even thinking about it.
Cake Boss- So stupid.
Man Vs. Food- I hate the whole premise to this show, but I think I’ve seen almost every episode.
Paris said:Yea I can agree that dunking pizza crust in soda is a guilty pleasure.
John said:Are you agreeing that’s it’s pleasurable? Or that one should feel guilty for doing it?
Hahaha, what the fuck kind of question is that?
this thread goes to show that people don’t know what guilty pleasures are.
christina said:this thread goes to show that people don’t know what guilty pleasures are.
I absolutely love Barry Manilow’s song “Weekend in New England”. I think I know exactly what guilty pleasures are.
You know, I forgot both in this thread and previous ones on the subject, what my most truly guilty pleasure is: The Grateful Dead. Now, yeah with all of these folsky, semi-jammy indie rock bands citing them as an influence it may not seem QUITE so guilty, but 1) For a 40 year old weaned on all things punk, hardcore and metal or punk, hardcore, and metal influenced, there is absolutely no bigger musical or cultural sin than liking the Dead, and 2) I mean all of it. Even the bad stuff. I can almost guarantee most of these young bands dropping the dead as a reference point are strictly your American Beauty/Workingman’s dead, maybe talking to their old hippie uncle about show memory types. When I say it, I’m talking everything. Disco Dead from the late 70’s…..the midi soaked 80’s output……going to at least 30 live shows back in the day….at some point having a 200+ tape show collection. The whole jam. I have less shame over liking a Barry Manilow song than I do liking the Dead.
Did I know that? How did I not know what? And how have you not yet talked to my dad about that yet?
I think I may have mentioned it waaaaaaaay back in the early days.
The year he died, I was supposed to go see my first dead show. Dad bought me the tour shirt and everything. But he died, like, two months before the Philly show. Such a bummer.
I’ll never forget in like 1990 or sometime around then, going to a hardcore matinee at CBGB in the afternoon and then walking over to Madison Square Garden to see a Dead show that evening right from the hardcore show. Weird day. Very weird day.
I remember this post. I think it was tagged:
mcsweeneys plagiarism purplemonkeyblender
hahahahahahhahahah so true
Yeah, so, apparently Simon Viklund googles himself. And found this thread. And emailed me. Now I feel like a huge asshole! The email’s been sitting in my inbox because I don’t know what to say to hin
Wait, what does he say. Why would he have a problem with it. You’re saying you like it.
Also, you should ask him how he feels about dipping pizza crust in soda.