Guilty Pleasures

Sam had us both make mixes of our guilty pleasure songs for the road. I had a pretty hard time with this because I mainly listen to good music. Seriously though, I'm not really ashamed of anything I enjoy (at least as far as music is concerned), but I managed to make one. I'm sorry if anyone has a completely unabashed love of any of it; I seriously enjoy all of these songs.

I had to interpret the concept of "guilt" pretty liberally. For example, Wesley Willis--it's not an "oh my god, that's so lame" sort of thing, since it's kind of hip to appreciate Wesley Willis, if ironically. But that's just it: I feel a little bad about what a laugh I get out of this guy's mental illness. "Birdman Kicked My Ass" legitimately gets stuck in my head pretty often though.

Chris McGovern is a friend of mine from the open mic at The Space in Hamden, CT. My guilt here is that it took me so long to listen to his CD in the first place, and also that I've pretty much lost touch with that crowd.

The Black Lips make some genuinely good music that I can feel proud to listen to, but "Dirty Hands" is so obnoxiously "we recorded this when drunk and we don't give a fuck" that I kind of wish I didn't like it.

A lot of the other choices are just things that I don't think people would expect me to like, which I'll admit strays from the "guilt" requirement, but there are only so many ways that a guy without shame can make a guilty pleasures mix.

Okay, here it is:

STEVE'S GUILTY PLEASURES MIX

1. Gates of Redemtion[sic] - Rob Abilly (open mic-er who burned his own CD's, don't bother searching)
2. Hate to Say I Told You So - The Hives
3. Elevation - U2
4. Don't Panic - Coldplay
5. Vicious Circle - Chris McGovern
6. Only love can break your heart - Saint Etienne
7. Modern Moonlight - The Dresden Dolls
8. The Sound Of Settling - Death Cab for Cutie
9. Birdman Kicked My Ass - Wesley Willis
10. We Are All On Drugs - Weezer
11. One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head
12. Kid A - John Mayer
13. Something Isn't Right Here - The Juliana Theory
14. Fields Of Gold - Sting
15. The Ballad of El Goodo - Big Star
16. Just My Imagination - The Cranberries
17. Will You Love Me Tomorrow? - Carole King
18. I Don't Know - Punchline
19. No Soy Bo Diddley - Fito & Fitipaldis
20. Dirty Hands - The Black Lips
21. Are We The Waiting - Green Day
22. Get Free - The Vines
23. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me - George Michael feat. Elton John

Soon to come: Sam's guilty pleasures mix.