So we all know the deal. Your friends are due round in five minutes yet you’re bouncing around your bedroom, belting your heart out into a hairbrush as you sing…. One Direction?! Mika?!! ABBA?!!!! We all have that music we love but can’t admit to loving for fear of social humiliation. Despite all your senses warning you of these crimes against music – nay, humanity – this secret passion makes you guilty of, you can’t help but be drawn into its infectious euphoria. Here, The Indiependent writers admit to their secret Guilty Pleasures, the songs they simply can’t help but love…
Dilemma // Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYHDfJDPDc&w=740&h=422]
Regardless of the shame, whenever I listen to this song alone in my room, it never fails to put a grin on my face. Whether I’m feeling nonchalant or hectic, ‘Dilemma’ lifts my spirits with its rich nostalgia. A certain anecdote makes this song my ultimate guilty pleasure: picture yourself in a pool on a hot summer’s morning, bacon sandwich in hand as you aimlessly float around on a rubber ring. The sun beats down as Nelly spits his rhymes with a few of his signature “uhs” thrown in. Then, in slides that famous chorus and you simultaneously bite your mighty bacon sandwich as every “OH!” repeats beneath the groovy echoes.
Not only is this song reminiscent of a time in which it was acceptable to call someone “boo”, it also acts as a reminder that there are actually good people out there who “aren’t the type to break up a happy home”. Instead of sympathising with the billet-doux confessions of Kelly, we rather take a step back and appreciate the subtle nobility of Nelly’s reserve.
You can cringe at the image of the duo embracing on the streets in baggy basketball attire and snakeskin kitten heels, or regard it simply as an R’n’B hieroglyph. Yet it remains a sentimental gem from the awful 2000s, a musical era guilty in itself.
Words by Alicia Carpenter
Don’t Stop Movin’ // S Club 7
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm262cXxRrU&w=740&h=422]
What do you think when you think of the early noughties? You think cargo pants and belt skirts, hair gel, Nokia bricks, MSN and of course, most importantly, wonderfully dire pop groups – the best of whom was S Club 7.
What makes S Club 7’s ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ so memorable is the nostalgia attached to it. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since I first heard it, ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ still gives me that rush of childhood excitement. It’s pretty much as cheesy as you can possibly get without turning to macaroni, but that doesn’t matter; the high octane pop beat is a guaranteed dancefloor hit whatever the occasion. When you’re not focusing on trying to recreate that iconic chorus dance routine, you’ll be thinking of times spent buying albums in Woolworths, nudging people on MSN and trying to work out what it was that they were saying in The Ketchup Song. But that’s what makes ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ so special: the nostalgia. As much as there are things we’d love to forget about the noughties (I know we’re all regretting everything we ever wore), S Club 7 and ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ are not one of them.
Words by Corrine Corrodus
Africa // Toto
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY&w=740&h=422]
I don’t think there’s much doubt that Toto’s ‘Africa’ would have to be considered a ‘guilty pleasure’, and is certainly one of mine anyway. But looking past the song’s classically cheesy reputation on the musical side of it, while also taking into account the prominence of groups akin to Toto throughout the decade of its release, ‘Africa’ is actually a cleverly complete piece of musicianship that still has relevance to this day.
The song’s lyrical content especially is something that appears to be constantly overlooked as it’s not typically something you’d regularly think of adding to a revision playlist or for a long journey etc. However, contrasting in a way to songs like Men At Work’s ‘Down Under’ – which follows an Aussie traveller’s encounters with various people around the globe and their apparent awareness of his nation’s culture – ‘Africa’ is written from the point-of-view of a white boy trying to write about the continent based purely on hearsay and what he’s seen on TV.
With that said, incidentally the moment that resonates most in my mind, associated with the song, is during the ‘My Way Home’ episode of Scrubs, where J.D starts singing along to it in the bath. So frankly, if it’s good enough for Zach Braff, it should be good enough for all of us.
Words by Alex Graham
All the Things She Said // t.A.T.u
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mGBaXPlri8&w=740&h=422]
Let’s go back to the early 2000s which were, let’s face it, still the 90s. The hair was 90s, the fashion was 90s but, most importantly, the music was 90s. The Top 40 was brimming with 90’s influenced-classics, with one hit wonder after one hit wonder. One of those gems was ‘All the Things She Said’ by the Russian girl group, t.A.T.u. This song has ended up being one of those songs that induces a nostalgia trip, both for how much I loved the song as a kid and remembering the controversy that it created. Reading up on it now, I had no idea the extent of damage that the music video caused to mainstream TV, which has satisfied my long-standing curiosity as to why I only saw the music video a couple of times before it was banned on pretty much every channel. But listening to the song now in my wiser years, it really isn’t half bad. It’s a decent song that has stood the test of time.
Or, maybe that’s just the nostalgia talking.
Words by Sophie McEvoy
All Star // Smash Mouth
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E&w=740&h=422]
Since this track theme-tuned Shrek back in 2001, it has surely become the most-loved track that nobody knows the name of. It is impossible to listen to this upbeat track without reminiscing about the green ogre dancing around his swamp, accompanying Steve Harwell’s cracking vocals.
Smash Mouth manage to encapsulate everything that was fun about being young in 2001: box-office smashing animation and goatee’d pop-punk groups. Unlike many child-friendly Rock songs, ‘All Star’ is surprisingly well written, with lyrics flowing together seamlessly. The words to this song read like a smorgasbord of charming rhymes that I never understood as a child, but, as the years have progressed, I have also come to love as a music enthusiast: “the media men beg to differ, judging by the hole in the satellite picture”- perfectly written.
Like most of their pop-punk compatriots, Smash Mouth will probably not be a name for the ages, but thanks to Shrek and a catchy-as-hell tune, 90’s kids will be humming this for decades to come.
Words by Matt Ganfield
Take On Me // a-ha
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&w=740&h=422]
When I think of musical guilty pleasures, one genre in particular springs to mind, and that is synth pop. So for my choice, we’re travelling back to the heyday of this style, the 1980s. It seems I have my parents to thank for the development of this embarrassingly unhealthy obsession, as some of my earliest memories consist of dancing around the kitchen as an album of their choice blared from the stereo. The song which has stuck with me from such fond recollections comes from Norway’s finest, a-ha. That’s why ‘Take On Me’, the first track from their 1985 debut album – released a whole twelve years before I was born – is my guilty pleasure.
For me, it’s the perfect marriage of childhood nostalgia and cheesy synth pop. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, lead singer Morten Harket’s ridiculously high pitched falsetto pleas for love make it the ultimate karaoke choice.
Words by Rebecca Rhodes
Lollipop // Mika
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6md5RSnVUuo&w=740&h=422]
Mika’s 2007 sickly sweet single ‘Lollipop’ conjures up images of childhood sing-alongs with friends to the entire track list of the latest ‘NOW!’ CD. That being said, whatever the song lacks in artistic credibility, it makes up for in catchiness. The hook “sucking too hard on your lollipop oh love’s going to get you down” is quite frankly infectious. After a few plays the melody becomes embedded into the listener’s brain. Whether they like it or not. Forever. One begins to find comfort in Mika’s amazingly versatile voice. ‘Lollipop’ represents everything that pop music should be: catchy, fun and unpretentious. Mika’s memorable and quirky lyrics hold the song together and capture a carelessness like no other. A worthy inclusion on any guilty pleasures playlist.
Words by Frances
Bye Bye Bye – NSYNC
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-KmOd3i7s&w=740&h=422]
NSYNC. The band that helped me through the stages of being a four year old, never knowing if one day a fairy would turn up and tell me I’m secretly a princess. ‘Bye Bye Bye’ has and always will be a song that makes me want to get up and dance. The solemn violin at the beginning; the big bang into the ultimate teen pop anthem – this is why it’s my guilty pleasure. I would spend hours trying to learn the dance and by the end of the day I would become the 6th member of NSYNC. Justin Timberlake’s beautiful “oooossss” and the ultimate boy band harmonies make this song so catchy. “But it aint no lie baby bye bye bye bye bye” will always remain stuck in my head. This song has to be my main guilty pleasure because, sadly, it isn’t socially acceptable to walk around Manchester singing ‘Bye Bye Bye’ without getting verbally abused. Long live NSYNC and long live this song.
(Sorry if any of you readers are now humming along to the song).
Word by Brigid Harrison-Draper
[Feature compiled by Juliette Rowsell]