At least 2 – 3 times per month I receive a formspring question or comment from a reader who feels ashamed for enjoying a particular song or artist, usually as either a result of their own conscience or of shit-talk from friends. Some examples sitting in my inbox right now:
“Is it okay that I really, really love Ke$ha?”
“My girlfriend makes fun of me for listening to Katy Perry”
“I know I shouldn’t love Kreayshawn but I can’t help it. Is that bad?”
“Should I feel guilty for liking Miley Cyrus?”
I thought rather than write a preachy two-thousand word article about how everyone should own their jams and fuck all the haters (okay honestly that essay has been written, it’s sitting in drafts where it’ll stay), how about we all just ‘fess up to the ‘uncool’ music we love and help make these guilt-ridden question-askers feel less alone. Hit us with your worst in the comments section below.
Of course, I don’t expect anyone to publicly tarnish their music cred without doing it myself first. Here’s a list of the most ’embarrassing’ songs found on my iPod, as chosen/determined by the biggest music snob I know. I love all of them.
No Shame
[STREAM THE PLAYLIST HERE]
Tik Tok – Ke$ha
Honey To The Bee – Billie Piper
When The Lights Go Out – 5ive
Why Not – Hilary Duff
Predictable – Good Charlotte
Leave Out All The Rest – Linkin Park
Candy – Mandy Moore
We Got The Party (With Us) – Hannah Montana ft. The Jonas Bros
Step By Step – New Kids On The Block
Rock God – Selena Gomez & The Scene
Pointless Relationship – Tammin Sursok
We’re All In This Together – High School Musical cast
Sk8er Boi – Avril Lavigne
Ninja Rap – Vanilla Ice
You can listen to the playlist here, if you want to? It’s fine if you don’t want to.
What are your guilty pleasures? What do you think makes a certain artist embarrassing and/or uncool? Is it because they don’t write their own music, or because their poster is on your 11-year old niece’s bedroom wall? Is it because they wrote a song for a Twilight soundtrack or because Pitchfork gave their album 3/10, or even 10/10? Why do we rank some of these things as more embarrassing than others?
