Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures come in all shapes and sizes. The term can bring to mind sweet treats like eclairs, or Ben and Jerry's ice cream or it can make you think of some kind of sexual kink like a shoe fetish. However, the kind of guilty pleasure that I'm talking about has to do with music.

I was at a divey bar in Belingham drinking a Screwdriver, as was my drink of choice at the time. My friend, *Richard, put a bunch of songs on the jukebox and came back to the table. The first few bars of "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac wafted out over the speakers and mixed with the blue smoke that the sickly smoke eater wasn't sucking up. Richard looked over at me and said, "Yeah, Fleetwood Mac is one of my guilty pleasures."

Then I started thinking about some of my own guilty musical pleasures...and I realized that there are many.

My first guilty pleasure is dance music. And I don't mean salsa or merengue here, people. I'm talking about the kind of dance music they play on C89.5 FM. (check them out at www.c895fm.com) If you're like my friends (hipster indie rockers), you've never heard of any of the artists on C89. I'm talking about artists like Darude, Ian Van Dahl, Iio and Tatu. I don't know who these bands/artists are either, I just know their songs have a lot of that oom-cha oom-cha sound. I love to listen to dance music in my car and when I'm getting ready to go out. It reminds me of going to clubs when I lived in Germany in high school.

The other main genre that I like that has a bit more hipster cred is hard rock. My all time favorite hard rock band is AC/DC - hands down. Give me some "You shook me all night long" and a little bit of "Back in Black" and I'm a happy girl. I like to fish around on the radio here in Seattle and see what's playing on KISW or KZOK and see if "Hot for Teacher" or "Don't Fear the Reaper" (I need more cowbell!) is playing. Then I rock out in my car and do a drum solo on the steering wheel.

The last group of artists/bands that I consider a guilty pleasure don't all fall into the same genre, but still make me feel guilty, nonetheless. Here, you've got your Hall and Oates (private eyes are watching you), your ABBA (who else besides me has tried to do a dance routine to "Waterloo" like in "Priscilla Queen of the Desert"?), Sir Mix-a-lot (What can I say? I like big butts and I cannot lie) and Niel Diamond (I am, I said...whatever that means).

So now you know my dirty secrets regarding music. I like good music, too, like the Postal Service and Spoon and the Killers. But you've got the kind folks at Pitchfork to write about them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. Turn around, bright eyes.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.