Guilty Pleasures

I like Billy Joel.  There it is, in black and white out in the open for all to see.  My husband will attest to this fact given the number of times he’s witnessed my reaction to hearing one of his greatest hits albums played in its entirety at our local pub.  I would never play the album in public myself, but imagine the quiet glee I feel when I get to hear every song!  I try not to sing along to We Didn’t Start the Fire, but it’s a struggle. 

My friend Jon has a playlist on his iPod that he calls his “guilty pleasures”.  It’s full of those songs that he loves but wouldn’t necessarily brag about.  Last time I checked, Jon’s playlist had Spice Girls, Kanye, Guns n’ Roses, Beyonce among others.  I presume it’s constantly updated and would expect to find Adam Levine there now.  To me, that’s going too far musically, but to be honest, I am in no position to judge. 

It likely will not surprise those who know me to learn that I too have a Guilty Pleasures playlist.  What may surprise them is its content.  The Cult, Van Halen (you can take the girl out of the Soo...), George Michael, Prince, Kelly Clarkson, and yes, my good friend the Piano Man (hey, he released it the year I was born).  Billy Joel is a bit of an enigma.  He was inspired by The Beatles and committed his life full-time to music after seeing them on the Ed Sullivan Show.  He’s not the best looking guy, yet he managed to marry Christie Brinkley and apparently he dated Elle Macpherson for a time.  He’s a talented guy.  He wrote all his own songs – it’s sad that this needs to be said, but with so many mass-produced electro-techno-pop-tarts saturating the music industry right now, it’s a rare compliment.  The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) lists him as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling recording solo artist.  And yet he still falls into my guilty pleasures category.  Sorry Billy.

 

Seriously though, I defy you to get through this song without dancing just a little bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eAQa4MOGkE

Billy Joel is clearly the master of satire (look at that hair!), however I don’t think his back-up band is in on the joke. 

It is important to note that I do not part with this level of detail about myself freely, but surely the internet will neither judge nor betray my musical indiscretions.  I think that if all just admitted to our musical guilty pleasures, surely the world would be a better place, as the lines that divide the music snobs from the music geeks would disappear and we could be free to ... oh I don’t know.  Just admit it people, you love AC/DC and we all know it.  See?  Doesn’t that feel better?

In the timeless words of Billy Joel, “Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock and roll to me”.  I couldn’t have said it better myself Billy.