Friday Jukebox: GUILTY!
It was the late-winter/early-spring of 2006. I was moving through a darker period in my life, still struggling through the post-college transition into adulthood and reeling from a breakup with my first real long-term girlfriend that took us 4+ months to finally make a clean break from. As was my tendency at the time, each breakup sent me looking backwards, connecting with prior exes for… well, I don’t really know what for. Which is how I came to be driving down the Merritt Parkway at 11PM on a Friday night to visit Chrissy. I was listening to WFAN, the local sports talk radio channel, when I heard that the third caller would win free tickets to see Bon Jovi at the Meadowlands.
Now, I never call in for such contests. I’m not the biggest life music fan and I always assume the odds to be astronomical. But this time was different. I still had 30 minutes of drive time left… I figured the overlap of people who go to Bon Jovi contests, people who listen to WFAN, and people who are awake at 11PM on a Friday listening to the radio was relatively small… and who better to break someone out of a funk than the Jovi? So I called.
Busy signal.
Called again.
Still busy.
“Oh well. Just as I figured.”
But then I called one more time.
“Congrats! You’re the winner!”
“Um, what?”
“You’re the third caller! You win! Give us your name and address and we’ll mail you the tickets.”
Fast forward a few months. It was the day before the concert. My friend Harry and I were gearing up to go, but I had second thoughts. It had been an exhausting week at work and I was never the hugest Bon Jovi fan and traffic would surely be miserable and blah, blah, blah. I remember talking on the phone with Harry and saying something to the effect of, “I’m kind of 50-50. Do you know who is opening? If it is someone stupid and fun, like Nickelback, maybe I can muster up the energy.”
Lo and behold, who was opening? NICKELBACK!
So we went. And they were awesome. Not like “Amazing stage presence” awesome or “Stupendous energy” awesome or even “Good live performance” awesome. They came out, played their 5 radio-friendly songs, exactly as they sound on the radio so everyone could sing along. They didn’t fuss around with an encore or try to play “new stuff” or even talk. They came out, a quick set of “hits”, and were gone. Just like that. Awesome!
What is so awesome about Nickelback, you ask? Nickelback is one of my guilty pleasure bands. I know they suck. I know they’re doing nothing special or unique or inventive or artistic or edgy. But their songs make me bop my head. And that’s enough for me.
What are your guilty pleasure songs or bands? What song will you turn the volume up for when alone in the car but quickly change the channel if others are with you? What CDs/records/MP3s are you ashamed to own but would never part with?
Umm. I dont have any ‘guilty pleasures’ in relation to music.
I like a lot of stuff. A lot of it good, a lot of it bad. But really, i like what i like and screw what anyone else thinks.
Just please don’t let me sing along *anything*.Report
If I remember correctly, once upon a time we had a long talk about the appropriateness of the term “guilty pleasure”. I’m using it as a placeholder for what we basically understand it to mean… I don’t actually feel guilty about listening to Nickelback, but I simultaneously recognize why everyone hates them yet unabashedly enjoy them. So that’s sort of what I’m going for here.Report
You’re the third caller! You win!
“Hmmm. I guess if I won free tickets to see Bon Jovi, I’d probably go, could be entertai-”
Lo and behold, who was opening? NICKELBACK!
“NGAAAAHHHH!!!” [needle scratch sound effect]
When it comes to music I’m not sure I have a lot of “guilty” pleasures. If I like something unpopular, I will usually construct some elaborate defense of it, explaining why it’s in fact good, to resolve any lingering cognitive dissonance.
Probably the closest I come is that I will, on occasion, half-heartedly defend the Goo Goo Dolls (pre-ubiquity at least) as ersatz, but not terrible (they were essentially a Replacements cover band – a “Replacements replacement”, if you will).
(You won’t? It’s cool, I totally understand.)Report
I already mentioned Journey the other day, but I’ll add that if I hear “Bittersweet Symphony,” I’m going to sing, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.Report
Oh god, that song is impossible to sing well, too!Report
Cra*, now I have an earworm…Report
Bittersweet Symphony isn’t just a 30-second instrumental?Report
No change, I can change, I can change, I can changeReport
I do not have any real guilty pleasures, but whenever I try to listen to any sort of rap or hip hop, I always feel like some sort of pretender. I am a pretty typical nerdy white guy, and I really feel that when listening to something like Outkast.
I do not typically listen to B-52s or Duran Duran with other folks around either.Report
I am a pretty typical nerdy white guy, and I really feel that when listening to something like Outkast.
Having seen Outkast (in the mid-90s) and Big Boi (a year or two ago) live, I can say that this makes you the typical Outkast fan, not a pretender.Report
How was Big Boi live?Report
Awesome! I mean, it was in a parking lot, and we spent a good portion of the show eating tacos from a truck across the way, but it was still a blast.Report
It sure felt like a guilty pleasure to be pumping the speakers full of “Sweet Transvestite” when I was a tiny squirt of eight or nine.
Also, I don’t hate disco. Cuff me.Report
Disco is life.Report
Something we can all get down on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrolhm3CES0Report
My current guilty pleasures are the Led Zep Ripoff Bands that appeared for a minute or three in the late 80’s.
Kingdom Come’s “Get It On” and “What Love Can Be”, Bonham’s (“Hey! He’s allowed!) “Wait For You”, and Great White in general… I realize now that Jack Russell had no idea what he was singing when he was covering “Babe, I’m gonna leave you”. Seriously, at the time? I thought he tapped into it.Report
I am no great fan of Bon Jovi. I think their songs sound too similar to each other.
However, I think seeing them at the Meadowlands would have been a fantastic experience. Bon Jovi, along with the E Street Band, are groups that are Jersey born and bred, and the crowd really appreciates that.
Did you see them in Giants Stadium or Byrne Arena? They are one of the few bands who can support stadium shows.Report
@scarletnumber
I saw them at Giants Stadium. It was the first night of a two night stop. Unfortunately, a huge rainstorm cut the concert short, but he still put on a hell of a show. And I say that as someone who never really got into Jovi.
I heard from some bar friends who went the next night that he did an extra long set to make up for the previous night, which I’m sure was pretty awesome. He tried to play through the storm when I was there but it was just too much. Also, our seats weren’t great. We were in the corner of the opposite endzone, down towards the bottom of the upper bowl.Report