On why “guilty pleasure” is a dirty word in my book
I’ve been having a really shitty few days. There have been some decent points and even high points, like goofing off with my friend at his show and helping him sell merch (well, me selling merch while he fooled around mostly). I went and saw my friend’s band play last night along with another band, and concerts usually pick me up, but I was still feeling pretty crap this morning.
Music has always been a huge thing for me, and there have been several bands that are excellent musically and lyrically and that I recommend to everyone and that have really and truly changed my life. I’m a better person today for knowing Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers music, or Something Corporate, Lostprophets, The Rocket Summer, the list goes on.
The thing is that sometimes music doesn’t change your life, it just changes your mood, and that’s totally okay too. Music doesn’t have to be outstandingly skilled and complex and have deeply meaningful and metaphorically resonant lyrics to be worthwhile. No one should ever be made to feel like they have to excuse liking something by calling it a “guilty pleasure” or hiding that they like it because they feel like someone might look down on them for it.
A friend of mine has expressed a few times that she feels kind of weird about taking meaning from One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful. She shouldn’t have to feel that way. She shouldn’t have to feel silly or childish because a cute pop song helps her to feel good sometimes. That’s what music should do, in my opinion, make you feel something. That’s what I consider good music. I don’t care if something is the most technically complicated and well composed song with deeply meaningful lyrics on the planet, if it doesn’t make you feel something, I don’t consider it any better than any One Direction song.
I’ve been listening to Conor Maynard all morning, and I’m listening to R5 now. I’ve been rocking a fair bit of David Guetta recently, which by the way is largely freaking gorgeous musically. All of those things are scrobbling to my Facebook via Spotify right now, and if anyone thinks any less of me for listening to those things, then they can go ahead and de-friend me and I won’t miss them, because I don’t need that kind of judgmental behavior in my life.
I was sitting here debating if I was too old or if it was just weird for me to go to an R5 show at the Fillmore in Maryland, and I’m writing this because that debate made me realize that even though I’m aware of how much bullshit this “guilty pleasure” nonsense is, it’s still influencing me to some extent if I’m wondering whether it’s appropriate for me to go see a band I enjoy. So yeah, I might be the oldest person at the R5 concert, but I’m going to sing and dance and have fun like everyone else there, because life is too damn short to care what other people think about the kind of music you enjoy.
