Fact: compromise is the cornerstone of every good relationship. Since my girlfriend is a somewhat normal human being, she doesn't particularly enjoy listening to death/grind/black metal every single day - most of the time, she doesn't enjoy listening to it at all. We have several musical staples that we both enjoy a lot (The Pixies, Built to Spill & Dinosaur Jr.), none of which happen to fall under the umbrella of "guilty pleasures" (especially by I.C. standards- you guys are a veritable bog of bad taste). Since we spend a lot of time together in the the car, I started making "compromise" mixes of all of our favorite stuff, which eventually wore out their welcome because there's only so many times you can listen to the same handful of songs every time you take a drive to the coast or whatever.
So I started just throwing a bunch of random songs onto the "compromise mix", blindly assuming that my girlfriend would also definitely like them, based solely on the fact that they didn't contain any double bass, discordant riffs, or bullfrog vocals. Just the most random shit ever. Songs I only sorta liked while growing up in the 80's went directly onto the mix. I'd see a VHS tape of The Goonies and be like "Oh man, I gotta download that 'Good Enough' song by Cyndi Lauper when I get home." I'd see a skate video with a Neil Diamond soundtrack and go home and buy it on Itunes. Someone would send me an adorable link to some pop singer on Sesame Street, and for some reason, I just HAD to have an MP3 it. It all went on the mix, under the guise of creating an enjoyable listening experience for my girlfriend on our way to work.
Turns out that my ever-growing collection of easily palatable 80's soft-pop-rock was more baffling than endearing to my girlfriend, who was at a complete loss as to why I'd think she would enjoy listening to 'You're the Best' several times a day for months on end. My answer is that if you don't get absolutely fucking AMPED when you hear Joe Esposito's 'You're the Best' (made famous during the tournament montage in The Karate Kid), you are basically completely dead inside and should just heave your miserable carcass off the nearest available skyscraper, posthaste. I guess she never actually saw The Karate Kid, though, so she gets a pass from having to kill herself over it.
Look at this fuckin' guy. You seriously think he ever wrote a BAD song?
So instead of picking just one guilty pleasure to focus on, I thought I'd give you a 'best of' youtube collection of all the shitty/awesome stuff that is currently occupying the "compromise mix." It's important that I point out that I actually love all of these songs without a single iota of irony, and have actually removed albums by At The Gates and Dismember in order to have enough room for them on my Ipod. That's right. Cruel Summer takes precedence over Terminal Spirit Disease.
Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
Feist - 1,2,3,4 (Sesame Street Version ONLY)
Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer
Bananarama - Cruel Summer
Neil Diamond - Forever in Blue Jeans
Billy Squire - The Stroke
Cyndi Lauper - Good Enough (from the Goonies)
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
The Doobie Brothers - Give Me the Beat Boys
Joe Esposito - You're the Best
Let me close this post with some of the finest and most inspirational lyrics ever penned:
Try to be best
‘Cause you’re only a man
And a man’s gotta learn to take it
Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it
History repeats itself
Try and you’ll succeed
Never doubt that you’re the one
And you can have your dreams!
You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own
More proof that we were separated at birth. Not only that, but I think our girlfriends were separated at birth too.
ReplyDeleteExhibit A: Our "compromise mixes" are remarkably similar, as Jay and I tend to include those same Joe Esposito and Billy Squier jams on our own long-drive compilations. Jay is especially fond of Billy Squier, not sure why.
Exhibit B: The GF loves Feist, "1, 2, 3, 4". Not me so much, but we both had boners when she appeared on The Colbert Report (her a homo-boner for Feist and I a homo-boner for Colbert).
Exhibit C:
C.a
C.b
(picture was taken before we had a cat, or else she would have probably been in the picture too)
Sesame Street just completely redeemed that song for me. I'd rather hear how many chickens came back from the shore than some some weak love song.
ReplyDeleteIt was four. Four chickens just came back from the shore.
ReplyDeleteWOW. I could have SWORN it was Shelby writing. Seriously. Down to Joe Esposito Jr, as that is a favorite "pump your nads" song that we pump our fists too.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as I only read these hipster metal blogs in order to pretend like I actually spend time listening to wizard slam brutals (or whatever you call it) and not the Glee & Mama Mia soundtracks or whatever else my daughter the tyrant has decided we are going to be tortured with. My only 'contribution' is to occasionally dust off a pointless anecdote about a show I dimly remember from the mid-90's.
ReplyDeleteBut since Mr. Cobras has opened public flagellation week up to the lumpen, I will admit that I own a two CD compilation set entitled 'I Love Dubstep', which consists of this electronic music made by people with names like Caspa and Benga. It sounds just like you've just done a bunch of whip-its. It's the only music which my wife forbids in the car. I actually spent about 30 seconds contemplating actually going to a dubstep concert or show or rave or ritual, only to be reminded (by my wife) that it would be filled with burners
Prime directive: Avoid Burners.
ReplyDeletei have sort of the opposite problem as you guys in that my girlfriend listens to almost nothing but uber-kult black metal and drony drony cut-yer-wrist dooooooom. so our compromise music will usually be stuff like method man or roky erickson, still pretty brutal in their own ways but i can actually, you know, sing along. recently my mind was blown by the fact that i could not find one thin lizzy song on her itunes, sure there's about 80 gigs of nazi metal (she's a jew who likes NSBM, BTW and a WTF?) but no fuckin "whiskey in the jar"? truly a shame, but i love her anyway.
ReplyDeletealso my guilty pleasure music would truly put ALL of you to shame, or lack of, as the case may be.
Seriously though, Shelby, the similarities are astounding. Let's order a DNA test via Maury Povich.
ReplyDeleteThe best Maury Povich line ever was when the one dude was all, "What year is it, Maury?" and then Maury was like, "2010", and then the dude was all, "I AM TWO THOUSAND AND TEN PERCENT SURE I AIN'T THAT BABY'S DADDY!"
ReplyDeleteAnd then poststructuralism is like, you ARE that baby's father.
ReplyDelete