Friday 8 April 2011

A Top Five of Guilty Musical Pleasures

A little while back I did a blog post about some of my most favourite bands. It proved popular, so because it's Friday and I'm feeling fun this time I decided to tackle the guilty end of the spectrum - the five artists/bands that I confess to being a teensy bit embarrassed about *giggles*. In no particular order!

1) The Darkness

These guys brought back bare chests, bad teeth and big hair to the rock arena! Their lyrics were daft, the falsetto voice of the lead singer was ridiculous to the point of pain from laughing, and their hit singles were entirely overplayed on the radio. Yet... I love them. Bombastic music, brilliant guitar solos, thoroughly entertaining. This is one of my favourite tracks (and, yes, it is about genital lice...):




2) Def Leppard
Hey hey, look at the stonewashed jeans! How cool and trendy! Actually, Def Leppard have been a long time love of mine. Their early albums - On Through the Night, High and Dry etc - were pretty rocking. Now they're best known really for being the band that has the drummer with only one arm - which also makes them cool, in many ways. How many bands would have decided to continue with the original drummer, and work with him to develop a unique drumkit that allowed him more pedal control? By necessity, they've become softer in their old age and do a great turn in rock ballads. One of my favourite songs of theirs is totally cheesy and feelgood and embarrassing to admit *grins*



Oh hell...... Just watching that back makes me cringe just a little inside!


3) Britney Spears

Hella yeah! And not the Toxic version, no way - we're talking Hit Me Baby, One More Time! I was at university when this song came out, and it takes me straight back there - watching my male room-mates pretending not to drool over Britney in her little schoolgirl outfit :o) The god-awful miming in the music video was particular gigglesome. I don't dare link to pictures or videos on my blog just in case I get odd visitors!

4) Dire Straits

Old man music, surely? Lift music. Easy listening. These are some of the descriptions of Dire Straits my friends have expressed when driving in my car while I play it LOUD! So I have some embarrassment about them - but, honestly, Mark Knopfler is an AMAZING guitarist, and they've written some truly iconic songs. Here is one of my favourites (and a proper 80s music video, no less!):




5) Bonnie Tyler

*blushes* Yep. I have a complete weakness for Holding Out for a Hero - and, in fact, the very greatest use of that song in film (in Short Circuit 2, as Johnny 5 races to the rescue.....) I can sense tumbleweeds across my blog, as you all desert me in droves. Why did I decide to reveal these, again?


Clearly the way to my musical heart is to have RIDICULOUS hair!

Go on, I dare you, tell me your guiltiest musical pleasure!

12 comments:

  1. Omg Bonnie Tyler! Hah! "Total Eclipse of the Heart," baby - hysterical! :)

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  2. My top five:

    1) Lordi - their albums are really good...honest
    2) Alestorm - a Scottish folk/pirate metal band, what's not to love?
    3) Jethro Tull - This is my parents fault, damned hippies :)
    4) Tom Jones - Everyone has to have a karaoke epic they can call upon
    5) Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine - the name says it all really

    I love them all. Perhaps even a little too much?

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  3. Greatest guilty little musical pleasure? I still listen to, and sing along with, the Spice Girls. And considering that most of my musical tastes consist of harder things, like goth-rock, that's definitely high on the list of guilty pleasures!

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  4. Aw. I've always loved Def Leppard. Hysteria was the first CD I ever owned. Never thought of them (even now) as a 'guilty pleasure.'

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  5. I will tell the world that I like Survivor. I LIKE SURVIVOR!

    And while this isn't quite a guilty pleasure, I don't understand the uberhate that gets heaped on Starship's "we Built This City." How can anyone label it "worst pop song ever" in a universe where Four Non Blondes or Roxette has existed?

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  6. I like The Darkness too, but it's their christmas song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-eslNwGXrI) I love the most :)

    I think my biggest guilty please has to be Meatloaf. He's unbelievably cheesy, but I don't care! My favourite song of his: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37GrbCUvZEM

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  7. After I list these, people will think I am schizophrenic but here goes:

    1. Judas Priest: Yes, it is cheesey, leather laden over the top metal. And I love it.

    2. C.W. McCall: I love Convoy, but I also love his other stuff that no one has ever heard of like Wolf Creek Pass, Classified, and The Old Home Fill'er Up and Keep On a Truckin' Cafe.

    3. Kiss: Yes, they are cheesier than Judas Priest.

    4. Meat Loaf: Listening to Meat Loaf is like listening to a bad broadway musical. Without the story or coherence. Yet it is still awesome.

    5. Jefferson Starship: Not the rebellious "Volunteers of America" Jefferson Airplane, but the overproduced syrupy purveyors of Seventies soft pop like Runaway and Count on Me. I could listen to them for hours.

    Aaron (Dreaming About Other Worlds).

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  8. I was born in 1974, and grew up in the 80s. I'll just say Pat Sharp and Ronnie the Runner on Sky Channel and leave it at that...

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  9. Don't listen to the naysayers, Dire Straights are a cracking band! (Well apart from the last album anyway...)

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  10. Great choices! All of those songs have made appearances in my compilations CD's at some point.
    I love a wide variety of music and most of it I will happliy admit to with no embarrassment, but I do like a bit of cheesy pop from time to time and therefore Steps and Girls Aloud are my (very) guilty pleasures!!

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  11. I LOVE Bonnie Tyler!! :D

    Turn arooooooouuuuuund.....

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  12. I have a strange weakness for Def Leppard too, but my guilty pleasure is "Let's Get Rocked". By my absolute guilty pleasure got to be *whisper*Pet Shop Boys*whisper*. If you repeat that I will deny it ;)

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