Thursday, November 04, 2010

Guilty pleasures

The first time we heard this phrase was when our daughter Jemma came out with it the other week in England. We understood what it meant but wondered where it had come from.

A little bit of research reveals that it stemmed from a revolution in the London music scene where people are no longer being shy about admitting that they actually enjoy cheesy music. The concept has become a phenomena with CD compilations of those tunes that you would never admit to liking. It is now OK to admit to enjoying Hall and Oates, 10cc, Toto and ELO. Blimey if this continues then we can all confess that we actually did like Abba.

Moving on, the phrase seems to have been applied to the whole of life - there is even a film with the title about a group of people involved in the world of Mills and Boon books. Everyone from celebrities to ordinary folk are confessing to their own “guilty pleasures”, those things that they enjoy but deep down feel that they shouldn’t – fish and chips in newspaper, page 3 girls etc.

So which artists have I got in my CD collection that might be my “guilty pleasure”. Well Abba for sure but there are also CDs by Erasure and Jimmy Summerville that I really enjoy. Possibly worse than that, I liked Cameo with the outrageous John Kellogg and his red cod piece.

1 comment:

Pete said...

Blimey Keith - there's no shame in loving Abba! The songs are great, the performances fabulous and the production a delight. Benny and Bjorn are complete studio geeks, and even back in 1981 'The Visitors' was digitally recorded.

Now as for guilty pleasures...I read at least four Mills & Boon a year and I have an album by the Brotherhood of Man. :)