Melissa Mousley
Imagine: you just got home after a long, stressful day. Maybe the heating wasn’t working in that one lecture theatre. Or you started making your morning coffee, only to realise that you ran out of milk the day before. Dragging your feet, you make it to the privacy of your room, where there’s no family or friends to question you or to offload your problems to. In a bit of a tizz and mentally drained, you flop dramatically onto your bed Disney-princess style. As you reach for your phone–your landline and lifeline in this technological age–what songs do begin to blare? With no one else to hear, care or judge, what songs do you finally hit the play button on?
Guilty pleasure songs are reserved for these times of need. For example, when you’re driving alone in a car and need something nostalgic to keep you company. These songs are the ones that you are somewhat embarrassed to like but live rent-free in the back of your mind. Sometimes they play themselves on repeat until you can’t help humming along to a tune that no one else can hear. Maybe they’re the ones that you skip immediately when listening to a playlist with your mates. They could be ones that you liked when you were younger or in that one phase you never truly grew out of. Or they could just be songs you secretly liked when everyone else seemed to have a vendetta against them or their artist.
The strange thing about guilty pleasures is that not everyone will agree about what songs fits into this category. Think about all those tough guys on social media making parody videos to Taylor Swift. Do you think they would judge you for singing along to You belong with me? That group of friends sat in the booths of Monica Partridge would probably love it if you started singing your heart out to Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid. Do you think your parents mind hearing a bit of punk rock busting through the gap beneath your bedroom door? You probably inherited your music taste from them!
For me, I’m happy to admit that my guilty pleasure music is anything Disney. It is something that I can sing, act and dance along to. Singing my heart out to a classic Disney tune can always brighten my day. Plus, some of those songs are song writing masterpieces! I could listen to I See the Light from Tangled on repeat; it frustrates me how underrated it is! Also, one of my favourite lonely pastimes is singing along to The Princess and the Frog’s Almost There whilst pretending that I don’t sound like nails on a chalk board.
The songs you seek comfort in are nothing to be ashamed of
If you search the web for examples of guilty pleasure songs, the first results are songs you would probably hear at a disco. From the Spice Girls’ Wannabe to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, even to Rednex’s Cotton Eye Joe, these are the songs that graced all school disco halls. But under these well-known hits, there are the songs by unfashionable artists. Whether they’ve never had a big hit, or they’re somewhat controversial, these artists aren’t winning any popularity contests.
At the end of the day, the songs you seek comfort in are nothing to be ashamed of. But obviously that doesn’t mean you need to shout out your musical guilty pleasures from the roof tops. They’re the things that you should reserve listening to until you’re all by yourself. And if someone you know lets you listen to their guilty pleasure songs, feel honoured! There’s no better window into someone’s soul than through their music taste.
Melissa Mousley
Featured image courtesy of Mark Cruz via Unsplash. Image use license found here . The size of the image is cropped.
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