please login to something to say on the subject

Wildblood confesses to some guilty pleasures

Tune!

Kate Wildblood

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

As a certain lady with curls once sang “we’ve got nothing to be guilty of”. Oh how I love a guilty pleasure. Stuff that doesn’t go with the image, never runs true to your so-called form and definitely never delivers what you say on your tin.

This never-ending winter may look like it's finally turning towards spring but coping mechanisms are still needed. For me it’s always guilty pleasures. If you hack into my iTunes you’ll probably find that it’s not the house music, Sunday Sundae play lists or achingly cool Nu Disco that gets played most. It’s my guilty pleasure play list. 84 tunes long – and always growing - it’s a soundtrack my neighbours have long got used to. Fleetwood Mac, Will Young, The Cramps, This Mortal Coil, endless Daft Punk bootlegs, Robbie Williams, Joy Division, Rufus Wainwright, Take That, 10CC, Etta James, Duran Duran, Arsenal’s Hot Stuff “ you’re telling us we’re boring, we’ll just keep on scoring”, Girls Aloud, The Smiths, Gloria Gaynor (no not that one!), Jennifer Hudson, Paul Weller in all his incarnations, The Supremes and of course Ms Streisand.

But as for the reason my guilt finds pleasure with this particular mix? Maybe it’s the strings or maybe it’s the undeniable sing-along quality. The joy in the misery that comes when Morrissey and Marr combine or the misery in the joy found as Rufus takes on Judy Garland. I’m not sure. All I know is it helps me get by. It makes Tuesday bearable and Mondays manageable. They sound great in the car – although Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way’ loses it’s F1 feel stuck in an A23 traffic jam. They sound great in the iPod as you try not to sing out loud on the Number 81 and at home they always encourage the fiercest of living be it alongside work, rest or play. (Or a particularly intense session with the Dyson.)

Or maybe it’s the memories. Choice, sweet – bitter or honeyed - and always there, these tunes and the emotions attached to them do it for me every time. So when it comes to these suspect musical pleasures I’m guilty as charged. How about you?