Re: Rolling Stone's Top 25 Undisputed Guilty Pleasure Bands

1. Rush
2. E.L.O.
3. Journey
4. ABBA
5. Chicago
6. Boston
7. Foreigner
8. Bread
9. Bon Jovi
10. New Edition
11. The Monkees
12. Motley Crue
13. STYX
14. Eddie Money
15. Simply Red
16. Kelly Clarkson
17. America
18. Wham
19. R.E.O. Speedwagon
20. Poison
21. Lionel Richie
22. Kansas
23. Air Supply
24. Hall & Oates
25. Britney Spears

I'll dispute the list. I don't consider ABBA, the Monkees or Hall & Oates (or hell, Simply Red, either) to be guilty pleasures. A guilty pleasure would be someone you know (or suspect) actually sucks but you like them anyway. However, ABBA, the Monkees and Hall & Oates are all people who were genuinely good at what they were attempting to do, and what they were attempting to do - create good, catchy pop music - is a perfectly honorable thing to do. Only people with a misplaced sense of cool would feel guilty for liking them.

Now, if someone just actually thinks they suck, that's another story.



Post Edited (04-14-07 09:20)

People find pleasure listening to Rush?

I wouldn't consider finding pleasure in ELO's cocaine and UFO brand of Beatlesmania that bad, or anything worth feeling guilty about.

Good list for proving that time and critical revision is a funny thing.

For example : Motley Crue listed as a guilty pleasure, when the same list could not have possibly included a similarly critically drubbed band of the era like Iron Maiden because, through their mere existence and a somewhat sustained fan base, they're a "legitimate pleasure" or something like that.

Who listens to Eddie Money anyway?

Eddie Money struck me as odd, also. I think he somehow managed to sneak into the spot reserved for Meat Loaf.

Eddie Money, REO, there are a lot of odd choices on there.

And where are all the "New Wave" bands? Human League? Flock of Seagulls? Early Duran Duran? Those are my guilty pleasures.

I wouldn't "dispute" the list, but I wouldn't take it seriously either. At least seven of those artists (including Rush) are regulars on my iPod. I don't feel any guilt whatsoever in that, nor do I feel embarrassment when anyone finds out I like them.

Oh, and I definitely second scratchie's comment about the New Wave artists. Or rather, I would second it, if I felt any guilt about enjoying them.



Post Edited (04-14-07 16:23)

i like Eddie Money. And where is Bryan Adams -- I've been taking shit about liking him since, well, almost since 1969!

ira wrote:

> i like Eddie Money. And where is Bryan Adams -- I've been
> taking shit about liking him since, well, almost since 1969!

Who are you, and how did you hack Ira Robbins' account??

Geek Love
By Ira Robbins
1998 / published in CMJ Monthly

Bryan Adams

The music editor at Rolling Stone thought I was kidding when I pitched a cover story on him. The guy at the Sunday New York Times sneered and said they wouldn’t spill their august ink on such an inconsequential pop figure, not when there was another Mesopotamian flute quartet to chronicle. My writer friends think it’s willful perversion, like my lack of love for Gram Parsons and Jon Spencer. My bandmates indulge me, but my co-workers won’t stop teasing me. You’d think I picked Karen Carpenter over Keith Moon as rock’s greatest drummer. Tough shit. I don’t care what they think, and neither does Bryan Adams. “I can have a fabulous career and not get any press attention at all,” he says with true indifference. “I don’t think it’s necessary. For me it’s not about having some sort of image. Music does the talking.”

My band Utensil performed a sloppy “Summer of ’69” (without the bridge—I never could work out those chords) at my birthday party a few years back. I once made out during a Bryan Adams concert, and we expressly asked ex-Psychedelic Fur Joe McGinty to tinkle a lovely lounge version of “Heaven” at my wedding. (We did, however, demur on the judge’s suggestion that “Everything I Do [I Do It for You]” would be a beautiful nuptial accompaniment. I’m a fan, not a patsy.)

Bryan Adams was nine in the summer of ’69, which means he probably didn’t get his first real six-string at the five-and-dime in the age of Aquarius. (Silly me—it turns out the reference was metaphoric, using a sex act to connote Bryan’s personal summer of love. That makes the “fingers bled” image a little more colorful, doesn’t it?) But a little chronological subterfuge is fair trade for such a sturdy rock and roll gem, a chunky road cruiser no self-respecting bar band should leave home without.

For all his contrived duets (who else could connect Barbra Streisand, Pavarotti, Sting, Anne Murray and Motley Crue?) and melodramatic ballads—hitbound schmaltz which is still solidly crafted and emotionally pure—Bryan Adams has all the essential qualities of centerfield rock and roll tradition. He’s a small, un-pretty Canadian with problem hair, bad skin, English teeth and few pretensions—an underdog who was lucky to find something he was good at. His dad was a diplomat, so he could have been Vancouver’s own Joe Strummer. He’s even recorded “I Fought the Law.”

But instead of the romance of revolution, he opted for the revolution of romance, the sedition of mainstream pop. Blame it on a childhood diet of Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Jackson Browne and Elton John rather than the Stones and Stooges. He proudly recalls seeing Bowie on the Diamond Dogs tour in Ottawa in 1974, but I would be hard-pressed to find the velvet goldmine in “There Will Never Be Another Tonight.”

It takes a little sifting through the Adams canon, but his best tunes have compact, concise guitar licks, choruses that feel good to sing, down-the-pipe beats and adequate old-school lyrics about chicks and life. And chicks. And stuff. Some of his ballads are, to borrow his word, sweet. And hummable melodies, which is Adams’ religion, still count, no matter how un-Belle and Sebastien-stylish they might be.

If songs like “18 Til I Die” and “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” lack the dramatic desperation of a terminal case like Johnny Thunders, at least Adams means it, maaaan. “I like the idea that we’re here now and this is it, and let’s make the best of it,” he says with an edge of conviction. “There’s a lot of people that always dream that things are going to get better, but life is about right now.“ That’s agnostic enough for me!

He has the throwaway personal pose down pat, nicely juggled with a commercial consciousness that’s by no means subtle. “I’m not really interested in being a star. I quite like the idea of my music getting out there, and the fact that every once in a while I can have a hit record. That suits me. A lot of people know my name, but they wouldn’t know me if I fell on them. That suits me as well. I’ve always been a bit of an anti-star.”

So let me jam on the auto-repeat and sing along with “Cuts Like a Knife,” “This Time,” “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” and the cheating classic “Run to You” until the cat is howling and my throat sounds as raspy as his. I’d never put him up against the great innovators of our time, the Dylans, Elvises, Townshends, Jesus and Mary Chains, My Bloody Valentines, Cheap Tricks, T-V Personalities and Replacements, but there’s a whole lot of wiggle room between godlike and just average. And Bryan Adams makes average brilliant.



Post Edited (04-15-07 22:34)

I had completely forgotten how big Bryan Adams was in the 80s until a couple of years ago when I transferred a batch of cassettes from Live Aid '85 and the big 1986 Amnesty International concert to digital (the fact that I basically stopped listening to the radio and watching MTV when I went to college in 1983 probably helped).

Adams is considered a bit hipper in the UK and Ireland (esp. the latter, where hs still plays to huge crowds). I actually liked that duet with Sporty Spice that he did.

So Ira, the question has to be: What did you think of Adams' live version of Behind Blue Eyes with the Who at Royal Albert Hall? It's like Ira's worlds collided for a moment on that one.

I thought the Jones kid from Stereophonics knocked Substitute out of the park.

Okay, now let's see who this guy really is. (Shaggy and Velma pull the mask off)

JANN WENNER?!?

(I was gonna say Ira Kaplan, but that's too obvious.)

[www.wcl.american.edu]

i knew it!

at this point in time isn 't Rolling Stone itself a guilty pleasure.

Anyone care to speculate on how many of those 25 acts will someday be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

Delvin wrote:

> Anyone care to speculate on how many of those 25 acts will
> someday be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

My guess:

3. Journey
4. ABBA
5. Chicago
6. Boston
7. Foreigner
9. Bon Jovi (maybe)
21. Lionel Richie (maybe, if the loosen the definition of "rock & roll", which they probably will)
24. Hall & Oates
25. Britney Spears (ditto)

One of my big ones is Flash and the Pan.

here are a few but im not sure if they really are a guilty pleasure .
1. rick springfield- i first started listening to his music because all the 16year old girls i went out with in the 80s were into him and he was one of the few that were tolerable. his music is pure rock n roll and he can play and write a great power pop song.
he put out a cd about 2-3 years ago called shock denial accpetance which has a much harder edge loud guitars and really rocks. i have played it for various friends and not told them who it was and everybody thought it was great. also some of his older stuff stands the test of time .

2.billy joel- i wouild guess on a mainstream magazine he wouldnt be a gulity pleasure at all but im mixed about him. on one hand some of his songs are schlock and lightweight and on another hand his songs have great musicianship and there is nobody who can write a pop song that is a standard [just the way you are} and play piano like he does.
there is no modern day billy joel and we sure can use one. we could use a modern day nick lowe more but id settle for billy.

3.tom jones- a lot of what he does is schtick but hes got soul and can sing with the best of them.
4. peter frampton-gets a bad rap cause of frampton comes alive but he is one of the most brillant guitarists- put out a new cd of all instrumentals last year . ranks up there with becks blow by blow.

5. the gogos- great pop music with lots of infectous riffs and they looked hot in towels as well.

6.asia- always liked the idea of a more poppish version of the bands that they were in elp,yes etc. 4 minute songs with melody and solos that arent too long. definitely dated one of the few bands i listen to and say to myself 9th grade.

7.bette m,idler, linda rondtadt, - i admit it im somewhat a homophobe and wouldnt admit to liking this music. allright you found me out.

<<7.bette m,idler, linda rondtadt, - i admit it im somewhat a homophobe and wouldnt admit to liking this music. allright you found me out.>>

?????????

they're both heterosexuals, and neither of their music is specifically gay-aimed. midler once had a big gay following, but if that impacts your taste in music, then i don't know what to say.

>
> 6.asia- always liked the idea of a more poppish version of the
> bands that they were in elp,yes etc. 4 minute songs with melody

Yeah, melody would have been great. Unfortunately, we got "And now you find yourself in eighty-two!"

Hansen, Carpenters, Bee-Gees,Ambrosia,Cher, cheeseball 60's Moog albums, cornball 60's country,early STYX. I can't stand any of the bands on the 1st list except for ELO and the Monkees.