I was driving around town yesterday and listening to music on the radio when I realized that music on the radio is crap.
I know, duh. But not just the Top 40 stuff. I reached some sort of perfect storm yesterday when everything playing on the radio was just...bad. And that is when I stumbled across a certain song.
Before I reveal this song, let me first define the term "guilty pleasure." According to wikipedia, the end-all-be-all knowledge source of the web, "A guilty pleasure is something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. The "guilt" involved is sometimes simply fear of others discovering one's lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes."
Nowadays, in the age of hipster, liking something of "lowbrow taste" can be seen as ironic, and thus not embarrassing at all but rather a nugget of hipster street cred. However, a hipster could like something mainstream and feel guilty about it, like secretly enjoying Budweiser more than PBR.
In fact owning up to enjoying a certain song or movie despite it's lowbrow qualities may render it no longer a guilty pleasure. I'm not sure, I only just began exploring the intricacies of this term.
The song that came on the radio made me instantly stop surfing channels and start turning up the volume and singing at the top of my lungs. And that song, embarrassingly enough, was Evanescence's Bring Me to Life. I remembered all the words and couldn't stop my self from singing out loud. I checked the windows to make sure they were securely closed, and tried not to be obvious about my singing enthusiasm when I stopped at a traffic light. It reminded me of middle school. It reminded me how everyone has a dark period in their life. We all experience our own musical dark ages. Mine, like many of my compadres, involved Evanescence and Good Charlotte.
I also began singing along to other songs on the radio. I had opened a flood gate. It was a little like this:
So here I am, sharing my guilty pleasure. What's yours?
I know, duh. But not just the Top 40 stuff. I reached some sort of perfect storm yesterday when everything playing on the radio was just...bad. And that is when I stumbled across a certain song.
Before I reveal this song, let me first define the term "guilty pleasure." According to wikipedia, the end-all-be-all knowledge source of the web, "A guilty pleasure is something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. The "guilt" involved is sometimes simply fear of others discovering one's lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes."
Nowadays, in the age of hipster, liking something of "lowbrow taste" can be seen as ironic, and thus not embarrassing at all but rather a nugget of hipster street cred. However, a hipster could like something mainstream and feel guilty about it, like secretly enjoying Budweiser more than PBR.
In fact owning up to enjoying a certain song or movie despite it's lowbrow qualities may render it no longer a guilty pleasure. I'm not sure, I only just began exploring the intricacies of this term.
The song that came on the radio made me instantly stop surfing channels and start turning up the volume and singing at the top of my lungs. And that song, embarrassingly enough, was Evanescence's Bring Me to Life. I remembered all the words and couldn't stop my self from singing out loud. I checked the windows to make sure they were securely closed, and tried not to be obvious about my singing enthusiasm when I stopped at a traffic light. It reminded me of middle school. It reminded me how everyone has a dark period in their life. We all experience our own musical dark ages. Mine, like many of my compadres, involved Evanescence and Good Charlotte.
I also began singing along to other songs on the radio. I had opened a flood gate. It was a little like this:
So here I am, sharing my guilty pleasure. What's yours?
Journey. That's my guilty pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI loved Easy A.
ReplyDeleteNext time you're singing in your car, roll down the windows and belt it out at the stop light. Who cares what you're listening to, you're having more fun than the people staring at you.