In honour of my birthday on November 4, this weekly mix is kind of a miscellaneous collection of what could be termed "guilty pleasures" from my past and present with a few one hit wonders thrown in. I was also inspired a bit by The Vinyl Villain's Skeletons in My Closet series and 17 Seconds Guilty Pleasures From the Closet. No, it's not cool to like the songs in this mix, but I refuse to hang my head in shame, especially since most of them come from either my childhood or adolescence. They may make others cringe, but many of these songs still tend to make me smile and remind me of some good times, including the rather different mindsets I had as I grew up into who I am now. For a few of these songs, I haven't actually heard them in many years, and in a couple of cases (Treble Charger, Goo Goo Dolls), I feel pretty estranged from the songs - as though they're from some alternate life that I can't relate to at all anymore (the same feeling I get when I look back at old high school notes and tests that I can't remember ever doing). Although in many ways, I suppose Iris was the Chasing Cars of the late 90s, and at the time, I really liked Johnny Reznick's haircut.
This will likely be the first and last time most of these artists will appear on this blog - the truth of it is I don't own any other songs by most of the artists featured in this mix. Glancing over the list now, it appears that I was quite the 80s child and still am. Aside from plenty of one hit wonder 80s tracks (including Baltimora's Tarzan Boy, which made me laugh ever since I first heard it at fourteen and my friend and I used to play it all the time, revelling in its cheesiness), I also have a few late 90s tracks that surfaced through my high school years, including a track off my very first CD purchase - Savage Garden's self-titled debut. I haven't listened to the Savage Garden album in probably about five years, but I decided to put it on while I made this mix, and I really wish I had set all my physics theorems and formulae to these songs - I would still be brilliant at physics. I'm completely gobsmacked at how I can sing along word for word to that album as though in some freakish trance. I warn all young people out there: be careful what you listen to when you're fourteen and fifteen years old. The only recent songs on this mix are the track from Ima Robot and Keane's new single Spiralling, which is an unexpected 80s-inflected pop tune, and there's something compulsive about it for me as much as I would also like to laugh at the same time. (One of my completely useless tangents: to my knowledge, the only artist who has covered the Manic Street Preachers is David Usher - unfortunately, he decided to cover If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next.) This mix is called A Very Happy Unbirthday To Me. Welcome to my nonsensical tea party.
Can You Dig It? - The Mock Turtles
Sugar Sugar - The Archies
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something
Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics
Manic Monday - The Bangles
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Karma Chameleon - Culture Club
I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
Footloose - Kenny Loggins
Faith - George Michael
I Want You - Savage Garden
Spiralling - Keane
Creeps Me Out - Ima Robot
American Psycho - Treble Charger
Jump - Van Halen
Power of Love - Huey Lewis & the News
Tarzan Boy - Baltimora
I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls
(I Just) Died in Your Arms - Cutting Crew
Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
Black Black Heart - David Usher
Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
1 comment:
Dont need to worry. Many of these songs are featured on anyone's guilty pleasures list. And some of them, Van Halen, I wouldn't be ashamed to like.Their first album is really good.
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