Guilty Pleasures

Let’s talk guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasure music is the best. You know what makes it even better though? Not feeling guilty about it. Most of my personal “guilty pleasures” fall in the Whiney-Wannabe-Punk Of The Early 00’s genre- and that’s just fine with me. Everybody (or so I speculate) loves the sweet simplicity of the songs they listened to in middle school. There’s no shame in having safety-blanket songs that titillate the senses in a totally different way than “good music” or “cool music” does. Guilty pleasures surrender all pretense and release the spirit of the person you used to be when you were at your most innocent (and naïve). Feast now upon the songs that topped the charts in the early 00’s, and frequented the Orchard Lake Middle School morning announcements and/or every little Jewish kid’s Bar Mitzvah. 

OCEAN AVENUE- YELLOWCARD

I think “Ocean Avenue” has a decent set of guitar chords. It’s still a little mainstream and California to be taken too seriously though.

GET THE PARTY STARTED- PINK

It’s lively, it’s bouncy, it’s got easy rhymes; it gets the party started. Pink tried her hardest to break away from the Brittney and Christina bubblegum image that people kept grouping her into, but A: your songs are poppy, that doesn’t mean you have to dress or act a certain way, but just embrace it. B: Christina Aguilera has a wonderful voice and her most recent album drew from old time swing and R&B sounds, don’t underestimate her.

SK8ER BOI- AVRIL LAVIGNE

Yeah, I went there.

THE ROCK SHOW- BLINK 182

I love Blink 182. I absolutely would’ve gone to their concert this year except that, in Michigan, they played with Fall Out Boy instead of Weezer- I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, in “The Rock Show” (or as it was incorrectly entitled on my itunes until five seconds ago, “Girl At The Rock Show”) the chugga-chugga-chugga guitar sound starts and a good time is had by all. One of the worst lyrics ever: “Fell in love with the girl at the rock show / she said ‘what?’ and I told her that I didn’t know.”

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS- GREEN DAY

At the end, in the background, is a guitar going “DUN…dun…DUN…dun.” The impending doom of teen existence is implied.

HANGING BY A MOMENT- LIFEHOUSE

Great belt-out-in-the-car song. Not as good as  “Life on Mars” or anything by Bowie, but I’ll take it.

MISS YOU- BLINK 182

“Halloween on Christmas.”

HANDS DOWN (ACOUSTIC)- DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL

This is my go-to feeling sorry for myself song. It is the whiniest, most melodramatic piece of shit on the planet. Its starts off so cautionary and subdued and it ends up yelling all high pitched and, well, angsty. It’s the baby’s desperate waaaaaaah of all songs. 

THE ANTHEM- GOOD CHARLOTTE

Good Charlotte was basically Simple Plan but “more hardcore.” Translation- they wore more guyliner. I wasn’t allowed to go to a Good Charlotte concert, but I was allowed to go to a Simple Plan concert. Good Charlotte were a little more goth, with songs like “Bloody Valentine,” but they’re still a teeny-bopper staple for me. In “The Anthem,” the line “I don’t ever want to be like you” sounds juuuust like “na-na-na-na-boo-boo.” Instead of coming off as deep social commentary, it sounds like playground folly.

I'M JUST A KID- SIMPLE PLAN

This song rivals “S8er Boi” in its simplicity. Cause it’s simply AWESOME. His voice sounds like the little nasally dork who gets picked last in gym class. He’s not actually a kid. It’s like a metaphor, for the child who still cowers inside of us all. 

MR. BRIGHTSIDE- THE KILLERS

It’s kind of like that handclap, Ms. Suzie Had a Steamboat, you know where it sounds like you’re about to say a dirty word but then you don’t. Yeah, that shit killed in middle school. Got to love a band that sings with a British accent even though they’re from Las Vegas. You say phony, I say “Fucking top!”  

PUNK ROCK PRINCESS- SOMETHING CORPORATE

An example of how saying “punk rock” in a song doesn’t make a song punk rock. If you want to be punk rock, shout like you mean it!

FLAVOR OF THE WEAK- AMERICAN HI-FI

“Flavor Of The Weak” has such a tease of metal in the intro. Luckily, I don’t like metal, so I don’t mind. Then kicks in the same whiney voice we’ve been hearing throughout this entire playlist. The sequence of three-syllable stop-lines in the chorus are so everybody-sing-a-long-now that this song could never be mistaken for metal.

TAKE ME AWAY- CHRISTINA VIDAL

You’re going to poo your pants because the origin of this song is just that ridiculous. Therefore, I had to include it. If you’re as delightfully tacky as me, you already know that this song is from the 2003 movie adaptation of Freaky Friday, starring Lindsay Lohan. You can’t get more shallow-teen-cries-out-for-help than Lindsay Lohan.

EXISTENTIALISM ON PROM NIGHT- STRAYLIGHT RUN

The classy piano in the intro gives way to a tragic, desperate voice that overshadows the rest, just like prom night. They definitely get brownie points for singing the line “out of key” out of key; it’s like a seal of authenticity. This song inspires major interpretive dancing around my filthy room.

90's Alternative Rock

In the 90’s, alternative music became the norm, the popular. Teen angst was at its peak in the music industry. I’m not a sociologist or an anthropologist, so I have no idea why, but all of a sudden, popular rock was edgy. It was slower or harder or louder and therefore much much better (raise your hand if you need to grow up like me, because that sentence sounded way too much like sexual innuendo).

CANNONBALL- THE BREEDERS

This is probably the most powerful bass line since “My Generation” by The Who. I love a band with a strong bass. It plucks the heartstrings and whatnot. Not to mention the intro is siiick. It’s like religious meditation, and then something clicks in your mind with the clicks of the drumsticks (I don’t know exactly what clicks, that’s personal I guess). All the elements come together in exciting and surprising ways and yet the song sounds exactly the way it’s supposed to sound, the only way it could.

CRIMINAL- FIONA APPLE

Fiona Apple was like 18 when this song came out and she sounds like a smooth and sophisticated 25-year-old jazz singer. She has so much soul and her low voice is absolutely effortless. The music is like being on acid at carnival (I presume) as the piano and some kind of wind instrument combine to create a shady scene in the mind.

IRIS- GOO GOO DOLLS

The short string section really makes this woe-is-me tune socially acceptable and almost classy. Why not use the techniques that make people cry at a symphony orchestra to make people cry in an alt rock song? This kind of synthesis is why rock and roll is ever-evolving.

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT- NIRVANA

The biggest song to burst out of the Seattle scene, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” is a celebration of destruction. Like punk rock before it, grunge rock and it’s leaders exploded on to the scene and then burned out. This kind of blind passion is great for the audience that gets to feed off of it, but not so great for the musicians who end up dead. The soft-to-loud technique of the guitar and the drums is most likely stolen from the pre-grunge band, Pixies, but is extremely effective nonetheless. Nirvana often repeats words, and I hate repetition, but I certainly don’t hate Nirvana. When Nirvana repeats words it’s as strong as the emphasis and reinforcement that blues singers produce when they duplicate the first line of a song in the second. Repetition becomes powerful instead of annoying when it’s repeated with a purpose, with strained emotion, rather than a loss of words and the need to fill a melody.  

SEMI-CHARMED LIFE- THIRD EYE BLIND

Much popier than rockier, “Semi-Charmed Life” belongs on this list for it’s irritated undertones. Between the easy rhythms and “do-do-do-do”s there’s a quiet but determined double strike of the electric guitar. Lyrically, nothing is subtle- unless you’re 8 years old. I thought that this was the most pleasant pop song on the planet until about 2007 when it was pointed out to me that what they’re saying in those quick rhyming lines is stuff like “Smiling in the pictures you would take, doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break.”

BASKET CASE- GREEN DAY

With the lack of intro, loud voice, quick, quiet guitar building up to soft cymbals, and then heavy drums and bass at once, the song is a bit reminiscent of The Ramones and similar punk rock sounds. 

EVENFLOW- PEARL JAM

I fucking hate Pearl Jam, and so did Kurt Cobain!! Pearl Jam wants to be Nirvana, but their hair is too long and their sound is either too metal-head-banger or wayyy too Nickelback to be appealing. This song I like. It employs the speed-talk lyric style that many 90’s songs embrace, like Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” or Savage Garden’s “I Want You.” It’s funky. And it’s just like a racing mind. And it doesn’t sound like Nickleback.

LOSER- BECK

Not to be confused with Radiohead’s “Creep, ” “Loser” isn’t an unhappy song. It’s a “that’s the way it is” song. Beck breaks down borders, throwing some spontaneous Spanish and German lyrics into the mix. “Loser” sends an international message. That guitar riff sounds like a saloon in the wild wild west and it’s like SHOWDOWN: Beck versus the world; This town aint big enough for the both of us; I’m a loser and I kind of sound like Kermit the frog, but that’s okay, either shoot me or go away. Crap. I'm watching "100 Greatest Songs of the 90's" for the billionth time and it turns out that Beck is a devout scientologist. I just lost all respect.   

GIVE IT AWAY- RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are so funky. Fun fact: my dad used to jam with Chad, the drummer, and he held me as a baby in L.A. Their first album was much lesser-known than those that followed, and I think it’s because it was basically straight hip hop. But really white, and lame. Later on, like in the song “Give It Away” they took the hip-hop / early rap and fused it with funk, rock, and reggae. The bass and drums are heavier and the pauses and shouts make for a more raging sound.

NARCOLEPSY- THIRD EYE BLIND

Darker and more obvious in it’s message than “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Narcolepsy” sounds like narcolepsy and being really pissed off. The electric guitar starts sleepily and gets angrier and more pensive as the song progresses. The sound builds up to a boiling point, and then ends where and how it began, hopeless.

COLORBLIND- COUNTING CROWS

This is probably the saddest and most beautiful song I’ve ever heard in my life. The repetition of the line “I am ready” and the literally shaking voice on the word “shook” makes me chilly.

LOSING MY RELIGION- R.E.M.

This is a superpopular song and it features a mandolin- how cool is that? It just goes to show how 90’s alternative made it’s way into the mainstream in an unparalleled way.

UNDONE (THE SWEATER SONG)- WEEZER

This was emo before emo was emo. Weezer were a bunch of nerds with instruments. Nowadays emo music is about greasy choppy ratty hair and many tears. "Undone (The Sweater Song)" uses keynote sounds like amp feedback and pre-show chatter to transport you to another space in the mind, to really paint the picture of a rock concert. The nee-nee-nee tune implies a scoundrel of some kind, stealthily sneaking up behind you to pull at your strings. 

DUMB- NIRVANA

Different from Nirvana’s radio hits, “Dumb” has a defeatist attitude in the chords and the voice that portrays more of a passive self-loathing than an active self-destruction. People argue that such “depressing” music causes kids to act like rock stars, doing heroin and committing suicide, but I’d rebut with the theory that the music is the effect, not the cause. Kids are plenty fucked up without Kurt Cobain’s help, he just gives them a public figure to identify with, helping, spreading the message of “you’re not alone.”

WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT?- NIRVANA

This is a cover of an old grassroots song by Lead Belly. It could (and probably has) been said that grunge rock brought back for the first time the anguish and soul that folk and blues used to convey. In this rendition, Kurt substitutes the original line “black girl” for “my girl,” probably to eliminate any suspicions of racism. Other than that small adaptation, the resemblance between his cover and the original song is uncanny. Both singers belt out such a rough groan it makes me cough up phlegm. Somehow the sound doesn’t seem uncomfortable, it sounds like truth. The acoustic guitar and barely-audible drums are so eerie. Here, the band again employs the soft-to-loud dynamic that frequents their original songs. At the end, Kurt literally screeches out the last syllables like he’ll die if he can’t get them out. That’s really the difference between pop and rock. Rock music, grunge rock in particular, has a raw quality that pop music never will (nor want to) achieve. 

The 80's, The English, and Irony

The 80’s; history’s little hiccup. It’s the 80’s in America and everything is BIG: The clothes, the hair, the art, the merry pop music. Luckily we (by which I mean “they,” as I was yet to be conceived) had the Brits to show us the way. Welcome to a playlist and a lifestyle that I like to call The British Invasion: PART DEUX.

As we all know, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and all those other Classic Rock gods crossed the pond oh so many moons ago and changed the face of music forever. In the early 1980’s those sneaky redcoat-wearing motherfuckers marched back for round number two. We may have won our independence, but you just know that those fickle forefathers of ours had a morning-after moment of regret: “Damn it man! What were we thinking? What’s a couple of taxes here and there in exchange for a lifetime of cool?”

Luckily, music has no boundaries, and we’ve reaped the benefits of British super-awesomeness again. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, British underground music took the popular above-ground beats and warped them into a more sophisticated sound, a rebellious fusion, an indirect parody, if you will. Take the best of punk, pop, indie, goth, and rock, and there you have the second British invasion. They decided to take those preppy, posh, popular kids and kick ‘em in the nads. The bands and songs that follow this unnecessary rant unequivocally beat pop music at it’s own game. They took the simple, repetitive, happy beats and mixed them with hard voices to suggest the pain that goes on beneath every person’s surface (no matter how big their smile is, how cheesy their dance moves are, or how blindingly neon their shirt appears to be.)

THIS CHARMING MAN- THE SMITHS

It is my humble opinion that nobody can wail like Morrissey. What can I say? I just love the melodramatic, self-serving sonofabitch. I went to a Morrissey concert with my dad a year or two ago and the guy ripped his shirt off on stage (Morrissey, not my dad.) Dudes like FIFTY! Kind of gross, but also quite endearing. Other highlights, freaky super-fans infiltrating the stage, this gothic kid dressed up like a priest; needless to say it was a good night. The Smiths have a sound that no other Pop-punk, Indie, New Wave, or Rock and Roll band can master. With the brutal lyrics and the bouncy sound, they represent the epitome of irony in the 80’s. Fun fact: The producers of the show on which this video clip takes place insisted that the song be lip-sung. Refusing to deceive the public like that, Morrissey then insisted on “singing” into a bouquet of flowers instead of a microphone.

SIX DIFFERENT WAYS- THE CURE

This song and every song on this playlist are a big slap in the face to the world, a “You’re all big phonies” commentary. Me, every time I hear this song I think of the beginning of The Rules of Attraction. We begin with everything literally moving backwards and going to shit, but then the opening notes of “Six Different Ways” chime in. Outwardly, it’s a sunny day on a college campus. Actually, we’ve reached the beginning of the tale, a pretty precipice from which to plunge…  I find myself whistling this song biweekly. It’s so cheerful on the surface; the keyboard scale sounds like Care Bears sliding down rainbows. Robert Smith’s vocals, however, dutifully transport us back to reality. The sense of defeat, the stutter and drawl on the word “more.” Hauntingly beautiful.

FOOL'S GOLD- STONE ROSES

Again, there’s a repetitive, easily digestible beat contrasted with a pain-filled voice. In this song, however, we can hear a funkier wakka-wakka guitar sound. I think it gives the pop base another extra edge.

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART- JOY DIVISION

The drums are heavy and the vocals are really different this time. Ian Curtis sounds both indifferent and definite. He sounds like death itself. Funny story: Curtis was epileptic, overdosed on sedatives, lived, and then hung himself. While it’s impossible to rate and compare people’s pain, I think it’s fair to say that Curtis’ was real. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was released posthumously in June of 1980. These “real”/“real-world” tragedies that people try so hard to gloss over are exactly what Joy Division and the bands that followed left exposed.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS- JOY DIVISION

A slower solemnity. It might be a little darker than Jane Doe is used to, but that’s what you get when you listen to a band whose name means Nazis Raping Jews. The band isn’t anti-Semitic, just eternally fucked up.

BLUE MONDAY- NEW ORDER

Basically Joy Division – Ian Curtis and + extra synthesizer. 

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE- HAPPY MONDAYS

Get it? The band name itself is ironic. There’s no such thing as happy Mondays! Mondays BLOW, like life. I feel like we’re getting the post-disco feel more so than usual here, also the post-punk: a perfect combination. The angry-super-British-jerky-moan of a voice and the manufactured dance beat make a lovely baby. You get the best of both worlds (which, regrettably, will never be a normal phrase again thanks to one Miley Cyrus).

Note: I highly recommend the movie 24 Hour Party People. It’s about Factory Records (Joy Division, New Order, and Happy Mondays label) in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s funny and it’s supercool.

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE- DEPECHE MODE

I hate Depeche Mode. I put them on this list only to exploit the fact that they do not belong on this list, contrary to popular belief. They’ve got the 80’s pop vibe going, pre-recorded beats and synthesizer in hand, but the irony doesn’t shine through to me. This is way too stereotypically 80’s for my taste. Their rhyming sounds are just as petty and predictable as the music. Their melodies and words are consistently shallow. They might be New Wave but they’re nothing new; they sound like every 80’s one hit wonder to grace the charts, only difference being that they somehow dragged that fame past one hit and another, and through three decades.

*I think we’ve beaten this unruly horse to death. For the sake of meeting my requirements of 15 songs per playlist, I shall now shower more singles by The Smiths upon you. I choose these tunes because of their obvious concordance with the theme of the list and their powerfully pseudo-sarcastic and wholly-incredible lyrics- that’s right- LYRICS. Even in a class about musical soundscapes, it’s impossible to ignore the poetics and supreme importance of a good batch of words.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, LET ME GET WHAT I WANT

ASK

BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN

GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA

SHEILA TAKE A BOW

HEAVEN KNOWS I'M MISERABLE NOW

I STARTED SOMETHING I COULDN'T FINISH