Appalling Music - Your Guilty Pleasure

[Sylph]

Christina Aguilera Genie in a Bottle.

[Sylph]

Geri Halliwell - Mi Chico Latino

[EricMontreal22]

Such a ridiculously blatant rip off of La Isla Bonita but I admit I kinda love it too... It also makes me think of my year in the UK (as does the aforementioned Alice DJ song)

Of course there's NO excuse for liking THIS Geri UK hit--starring AMC"s Aiden--it's songs like this, or the insanely successful band Steps that make you realize pop music in the UK--mainstream pop music--exists in a whole different universe than N America where camp liek this doesn't leave gay bars. (yes, I own the CD single )

[Sylph]

So true, but did you know it hit no. 1 on the top list?!

LMAO!

[EricMontreal22]

Oh I was there when it hit no 1! I was really into buying cheap UK CD singles when I was living there, so bought nearly all fo the top ones, even ones I never had much intention to play (Westlife were just starting their scary run of the UK charts then for example) more as a souvenir (yes I'm weird abotu collecting CDs) so I have it. I wanna say Mel C's first solo single Going Down hit number one right around the same time cuz I remember a huge media watch about which ex Spice would have the bigger hit... (Not sure if it hit one--Mel C's album took off a bit later--what with Turn to You and Northern Star being big hits there)

When i first got to the UK I really didn't realize how campy pop music often was there--it just blew my mind turning on the music stations wher enearly all the hits were club songs (like the great Moloko Sing it Back) or very unsophisticated, mindless catchy pop--and then of course every so often a "real" band like Travis--But I guess around then 98-2001 was a really pop based period for them. Now I think American R&B and rap is starting to have more of a presence--sadly although at least they still have my fave Girls Aloud

[cct]

LOL, there is some funny s*** on this thread. The instrumental with the guy driving around in the Jeep, I forget the name of that one? LOL, and I think I have it on my iPod...

There is a fine line between really good dance song and cheesy good dance song. The fact that Eric brought up SAW makes me laugh my pants off.

Hair metal is probably my guilty pleasure. That and the fact I would be embarassed to hell if anyone found all of the 80s freestyle stuff on my iPod. Covergirls, Sweet Sensation, Seduction...

[Sylph]

But isn't this true for their classical music, too? Partially? Like Elgar, Delius (although I love Delius, he was, after all, a German student), Vaughn Williams... It all has a certain corniness to itself. Perhaps it's just me. 

[EricMontreal22]

Hey now, this is meant to be a GUILTY PLEASURES thread (though some of the better SAW songs are starting to get more respect now that they've held up--but yeah most of their stuff was clone-like churned out pap--that in the right mind I love )

The jeep song was Alice DJ--Better off Alone. I remember when I first got to London it literlaly would be blasting out of EVERY car driving down the street--then 6 months later when I never wanted to hear it again it was all over Canadian radio...

Sylph it's true that Europe--and England is a weird mix of kinda snobbism and love for cornball--in terms of their arts in general (Continental Europe might be weirder--I was in Italy much more recently and the crap coming out of car radios--just beyond cheesy pop style techno music--was so bizarre). I mean I dunno--I don't think that argument would hold up for, say, Handel or some of the old composers--but I don't listen to much Handel--and Elgar has some amazing cello pieces (well specifically his one great Concerto--the only piece by him I really know that I love), but... yeah I kinda get what you're saying. I actually kidna admire that they seem shameless in some of their love for cheese--when Americans (N Americans? Canada's not too different) like to act like their pop music, etc, is somehow more credible...

Then again don't get me started on British musicals-as much as I like Lloyd Webber when I'm in the mood--they definetly embrace much more out there pop musicals

[Sylph]

Well, there is a term called Euro-Pop, one of the cheesiest genres in music that ever existed. I am quite amazed when I see their top lists or stuff like that, it often just makes no sense. Although, over time, I've come to accepting it.

Well, Händel's not English. As much as they want it and as much as they try to anglicise his name, he's just German. And he is one of my top 10 favourite composers.

But I can't quite define it, British music has a sort of quaintness to it, it's all so cute, so British.

The same can be said of the Scandinavian masters, Sibelius e.g. Or Grieg. I don't know which one of these composers' music Debussy called "pink pills" or something like that. Hilarious.

[Cat]

The Spice Girls. Of course!

Chicago. If you leave me now. I searched all over Amazon for that single and finally got a used copy sold to me. I heard it on a Sex and the City episode (Final season -- the gay prom?) and its cheesy melancholy sort of makes me want to cry. In a good way.

The mid to late-90s had some great poptastic corn. Including Armand Van Helden - You Don't Know Me, but that's actually great and not appalling-great.

Oh! I know one which I love but all my friends despise -- Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner, the club version. Toot toot toot toot...

Does Kylie count as a guilty pleasure? I'm thinking Especially for you.

[YRBB]

I go back to all kinds of crap...

Britney

Christina Aguilera

Mandy Moore

Jessica Simpson

Spice Girls--God, I get all giggly everytime I hear Wannabe and Spice Up Your Life

Backstreet Boys

*NSYNC

It's all so much mindless, fantastic fun!

[EricMontreal22]

Especially for You is definetly a guilty pleasure--I'm a huge Kylie defender but I mean anything involving Jason Donovan... (it was also, surprisingly, her biggest hit in the UK during her Stock Aitken Waterman years--which I already mentioned in my guilty pleasure post on page one but they did her first four albums--but also reiterates my point about the Ukers loving their cheeze ).

I guess it's all relative--though If You Leave Me now is a sappy guilty pleasure for me too--I frist hear dit as a teen in the 90s when a Quebec female singer had a minor hit with a cover version... It's not as ove rthe top as the Jim Stienman productions I think I already listed as guilty pleasures anyway so...

[EricMontreal22]

Pshaw Handel counts (even if you spell himt hat goofy way)--he himself went on and on about how proud he was to be British, help with the British music, etc. But yeah I get your point there--Debussy could be hysterical when he was complainign about some of his contemporaries, though I love his music so much he could say it . But I do kinda know what you mean--re quaint.

My point was that sometimes I find the way Europe embraces cheeze endearing was in N America people seem to try to pretend it's something it isn't, or you have people liek Hillary Duff and Miley going on about how they wrote their own songs--for the most part with commercial pop, they don't really care about all that pretense in Europe. they just accept it as silly fun--another reason why Kylie will never be mainstream here the way she is there--for better and worse (also there seems to be a phenomenom that there can only be one or two mainstream dance music top 10 hits in the US charts a year--so we get cheezy random hits like that DJ Sammy cover of Heaven which was massive, or Kylie's Outa My Head, but they have a hard time getting through)

Yeah Euro Pop covers a lot of that--and has since at leats the 70s I guess (I admit I watch the Eurovision contests with delighted fascination--they're just sooo bizarre)

Girls Aloud!

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[Sylph]

Strings are great, though.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Xt2FL5PplgY

[alphanguy74]

This is a cute thread...I like ALOT of really cheesy stuff, but baby... I'm not ashamed, I OWN IT . I love alot of SAW stuff, depends on what it is, of course. Allmyshadows, I did like ONE Spice Girls song, "Viva Forever". I first head it without knowing who it was, and I thought it sounded a bit Abba-like. But I like many things most people would be embarrassed to admit to, like this:

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And this: