Top Five Guilty Pleasure Songs
by Marc Hirsh
never published
1) "Radar Love," Golden Earring. Good God, man. Cannot be played enough. The drums are killer, especially after the guitar solo. The spy riff right before the final verse is perfectly timed. The chorus is sublimely melodic. Not bad for a song about answering a booty call. Could be better produced, though.
2) "Tom Sawyer," Rush. Maybe even the whole band's canon, but this is the one that gets played the most, and deservedly so. Pay attention to just the drums the next time out. Unbelievable, even if I don't have the patience to declare Neil Peart a percussion god.
3) "Crimson and Clover," Tommy James and the Shondells. Of all the TJ&tS songs, this is the most ludicrous ("I Think We're Alone Now" is also stupid and brilliant but easier to justify). The lyrics are trite (what's it about? Crimson and clover? Red and green? Is this a Christmas song?), the tremelo's goofy and the "rock out" section is pitifully lame. Put together, it's a masterpiece.
4) "The Power Of Love," Celine Dion. She is awful and evil and repugnant and is fucking her manager and has an enormous nose. This is the one song she's laid her hands on (it's a cover, naturally) that not only recognizes all of the above but puts it to excellent use. Frankly, by the final chorus, you need to have all sorts of vocal histrionics or it just wouldn't work.
5) "Come Down," Bush. Despite the fact that this band was genetically designed for people who haven't heard enough music, this is another example of pinpointing one's faults and working with and around them (see #4, above). It's certainly not perfect; the words are inane, Gavin's singing is a bit overzealously dramatic and the bassline is torn straight from "Livin' On A Prayer." What works is mostly technical: a tempo and melody that actually fits the band's sound (by letting the buzzing guitars actually buzz, rather than plowing through them) and an arrangement that teases the listener with hints of things to come before finally announcing its intentions in a final verse that lets rip with a full-bodied version of the riff that was a ghost in earlier verses. It would've made a great closing track to a CD. Bush were, of course, too dumb to realize it and stuck it in the middle. Idiots.
(#6 is "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain. For those days when
you want to be proud to have a penis.)