List Week Day Three: Top Ten Guilty Pleasure in My Music Collection
I might as well spend the entire week on music, so today I present my top ten guilty pleasures that I currently have and regularly listen to in my music collection. I'll hope you still respect me after I rattle these off:
I inherited this album when I married my wife, but I still listen to the album. Sure it has one of Billy Joel's most hated (and most popular) songs: We Didn't Start The Fire, but it also has some very good songs include Shameless, And So It Goes, and one of my favorites I Go To Extremes.
Sure, Bruce Willis never had the musical success like your other Hollywood actors like Eddie Murphy or Don Johnson, but I still listen to this CD quite a bit. I like Willis' harmonica playing, and the gusto he attacks several covers and a few originals. Yeah his cover of The Drifter's Under the Boardwalk falls flat, but he really does a good job with Respect Yourself, Secret Agent Man, and Down in Hollywood.
Ok I'm not a huge fan of Whitesnake, but no matter how many times I hear it, I always love "Here I Go Again". I know it's strange. As a bonus I also get to enjoy, "Is This Love", "Still of the Night", and "Slow an' Easy". Still it is Whitesnake who are, to this day, still more well known for the model, Tawny Kitaen gyrating on a car than for the Here I Go Again music video.
The follow-up to George Michael's and Andrew Ridgley's debut was less than stellar, but still there are diamonds to be found in the rough. Yes this album has what I consider to be the worst of the eighties, Wham Rap! '86. However, I love" I'm Your Man", "A Different Corner" especially when George yells outs "But I Don't Daaaaaaaaaaaare!".
Heart found new success in the 80's but some would say they lost that spark that made them artists in the 70's. Still I lover this album, which features a few of my favorites Heart songs: What About Love?, Nothin' At All, and of course These Dreams.
In the eighties I was such a sucker for sappy love songs, and Peter with Chicago was my lord and master. When Cetera left Chicago and headed out on his own, I fell in love with this CD. With hits like Glory of Love, Next Time I Fall this album still finds play on my iPod.
Extreme was kind of adopted by my Christian friends by the time Hole Hearted came out, so I was excited when Extreme then came out with a concept album that examines themes of war, racism, and God, with a hope that God can redeem this world in spite of our fallenness. I latched on to this album, not only for the hair metal vibe but the lyrical content.
This is one of my most recent purchases, and a very guilty pleasure. For me, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" is up their with Guns N Roses, "Patience". I love the song, and while the band sort of epitomized all that was wrong with hair metal, I'm a sucker for the cheesy goodness of "Unskinny Bop" and "Something to Believe In". I actually listen to this more than the Surgeon General recommends I should.
This "ultimate" greatest hits collection is quite good, and starts things right off the bat with their HUGE hit, Eye of the Tiger. It's still a good song, but for me I just can't get enough of the songs that come from the album Vital Signs: I Can't Hold Back, The Search is Over, First Night, and High on You. I love this collection, and listen to this album quite a bit. It's been on my iPod for well over a year. When it comes to power ballads, to me, they reign supreme.
When I just want to sing without regard to who is listening, I'll throw in Neil Diamond and wail like I'm auditioning for American Idol. I'm a little surprised that I don't have more Neil in my music collection, but these collection of 12 of his best songs provides my lungs and my heart with just enough joy I can possibly muster. Sweet Caroline always, ALWAYS ends too soon for me. I curse that fade-out because I want more. I am...I Said makes a fool out of me, because I always need to be standing to sing along to it, with gesture that make me look like a King pronouncing my Kinghood before my loyal subjects. Neil Diamond makes me feel so good....just as long as no one is listening.
So what are YOUR musical guilty pleasures?
Comments
Ah yeah, totally with you on Survivor and Peter Cetera. I'd add to that Phil Collins and Journey. Yeah I can put on the Clash and Bowie with the best of 'em, but sometimes you need a little cheese. I read somewhere that all the "guilty pleasures" in life tend to be things we heard/saw around 13 years old and can't view objectively. I'd never ever say I liked N Sync for instance even guiltily, but then I didn't grow up with them either.
Posted by: Nik | September 12, 2007 10:22 AM
I thought about adding Phil Collins, in fact in hindsight he should have been my number ten instead of Billy Joel.
Posted by: Chris "Lefty" Brown | September 12, 2007 10:41 AM
I have a number of Billy Joel albums, including that one, but it's not my favorite; have some Phil Collins, too, and Heart.
Tomorrow's Peter Cetera's birthday; why do I know that? Check tomorrow's post.
More than once, I've thought to get a Neil Diamond GH album, and it always slips my mind. I don't know specifically about your collection, but those early songs were GREAT -Thank the Lord for the Nighttime is one of my all-time favorite songs. No need for embarrassment there.
Bruce Willis, though - it's like the Commitments; it's not that it's BAD, it's that it's been done SO much better.
(and a few Philollins)
Posted by: Roger Green | September 12, 2007 11:04 AM
I have the same Poison disc and it's perfect for running. That's and a little Bon Jovi been my guilty little secret for a while now.
There is an ick factor associated with Neil Diamond that will never go away for me after seeing him sing "White Christmas" on Phil Donahue many, many years ago. It completely negated anything else he had ever done well for me.
And Bruce Willis and his current band recently played at the Space Center. It was a little tempting.
Posted by: Sam | September 12, 2007 11:44 AM
terrible. positively terrible.
except for the last one.
you have to sit by steve tonight at the show. i can't let your bad music genes rub off on me.
btw, i'm currently pimpin arcade fire, as well as r.l. burnside.
Posted by: ed | September 12, 2007 05:02 PM
Tom T Hall. Carpenters Gold. This is almost a theme for a mix.
Posted by: eddie mitchell | September 12, 2007 06:04 PM
Uhhh... Ed, is that "last one" as in number or order of presentation???
Anyways, I am with you, Chris, on the Extreme album. I just listened to it yesterday and it is good to the point that I don't feel guilty for liking it, even though it has hair metal elements to it. However, in many ways it goes beyond, or just plain isn't hair metal. And yet, it does get a little, just a little, heavy handed with the sentimentality in its religious expression, but overall it is a really good album. And Nuno Bettencourt is an absolutely amazing guitarist. Plus, in the making of this album I think I read that they had a theological/spiritual consultant, which is cool.
As far as guilty pleasures is concerned, I have to acknowledge my 70s silk-shirt wearing self, and say that I like the Bee Gees "Heaven No More". And so, on that note, I leave you the following:
Nobody gets too much heaven no more
It's much harder to come by
I'm waiting in line
Nobody gets too much love anymore
It's as high as a mountain
And harder to climb
Posted by: Anthony | September 12, 2007 06:07 PM
Chris,
your unabashed love of the camembert is always appreciated! The Neil Diamond stuff is cool and Survivor did have some great ballady stuff with the new lead singer. Now, if we could just find Sigue Sigue Sputnik!!!
Posted by: paul | September 12, 2007 07:24 PM