Ahh... the media again. I came across this one on the usually okay 6 Music. Sean Rowley and his Guilty Pleasures.
A guilty pleasure here is defined as something you like but probably shouldn't - Sean liked the Alessi Brothers' 'Oh Lori' at the same time as he was buying Ramones records and hid the former from his school mates.
That doesn't sound much like eating a whole Fruit and Nut bar and not offering a bit of it to anyone around. It sounds like someone getting old enough to throw off peer pressure and just get on with things.
'Oh Lori' was a big hit if I remember rightly - so what does Sean make of all the people who bought it guilt-free? Are they guilt seekers? I didn't like that record, but I do know what Sean is talking about.
At 13 I was well into Abba - in fact I bought all their records up to the point when I bought (I think) Dancing Queen for my sister for her birthday, and she played it to death. Abba suddenly became something I hated because it was played so much. I couldn't hear cheesy classical flourishes combined with quite sophisticated syncopation and sexy Swedish accents, all I could hear was my sister singing it and that was bad. So then Tina Charles became out of bounds (safe move in peer pressure terms), but later Come Into The Open by Penetration almost got the same treatment - but fortunately I left home around then, and came to my senses.
Now that's just the story of a teenage nerd not being able to handle his sisters taste - I'm not sure if that one ever did get resolved, but I don't daily have to bother with that now - it's my own kids with Evanescence and Busted, and I can handle it fine thanks. I've had a look at Sean's site and I did have a soft spot for quite a few of those songs, but I still don't see why they are guilty pleasures. Sean talks of punk's year zero, well to me that meant putting Yes, Genesis and Deep Purple aside. I was 15 in 1977 (let's not kid about here, I had no idea punk existed in 1976) and I didn't wear any safety pins, nor even get rid of my flares until nearly 1978. At that time Television and Elvis Costello were what Sean is calling guilty pleasures. Anyone could like pop - I went to see ELO and loved it, but punk was 'filth' (that's my Dad's description), and I was warned against it.
I was not a particularly rebelious child, but as far as I can see, the only affect this had on me was to stop me ever buying Never Mind The Bollocks (I still don't have it - what a bizarre gap in my collection). See what Sean is missing is that what defines your guilty pleasure is your peer group. In a small town, being even slightly odd can give you all sorts of guilty pleasures. So when I left home, I was guilty of liking Echo & The Bunnymen, but when I got to Uni, I was guilty of even knowing what The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was.
In recent years I have tried to put aside all that nonsense - who cares if your mates don't like the records you buy - they can spend their money on what they like. I have bought some Yes CDs (with guilt) and found them to be quite good - but I draw the line at Rush and Genesis because I liked them to fit in, it seems to me. Guilty dislike...?
But Pop! Pop from the Reynolds Girls to Busted; from Mel & Kim to Beyonce, from Abba but never Zappa, that stuff is no guilty pleasure - it's fun!
So we don't need Sunday Supplement articles telling us that some songs that a small group of people like feel weird about it, we should just get up and dance!
As Kylie said: Put your hand on your heart and tell me, you're in love, ooooooh
- Neal 18/09/04