Playlist Confessions
Posted on August 29, 2010 Posted by Kate Baker 74 Comments
In anticipation of my upcoming trip to DragonCon, I had to update my iPod’s playlist for traveling. As I searched the almost 40GB of music, I cringed. I don’t remember adding the entire Spice Girls album to my collection or “Ice Ice Baby”. In an effort to cull the list to prevent embarrassment, I found others like:
- Quad City DJs – “Space Jam”
- McHammer – “Hammertime”
- Extreme – “More than Words”
I’m sure there are more in there that I haven’t found.
Granted, I have no idea why I am now singing each of these songs. I guess I’ll just file them away in the “guilty pleasures” file.
So tell me, I dare you, what do you have on that player that you don’t want anyone to know about? Come on, I won’t tell anyone. I promise…
Morris Day & The Time – Jungle Love
Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
E.U. – Da Butt
Sammy Johns – Chevy Van
I would love to claim that they were unknowingly part of some compilation, but the double digit numbers in the “played” column would prove me a liar.
The entire Carpenter’s Singles Collection.
I listen to Classic and Progressive Rock, Heavy Metal, and Punk so this 70’s pop clearly doesn’t belong with the rest of my iTunes library. I used to sing along to all of these songs with my dad, I still know all the words to all the songs, and “some can even make me cry”.
Yes, that was a quote from “Yesterday Once More” by the Carpenters.
I’m going to go bang my head and listen to some Rammstein now.
I probably should be ashamed than I am of the Tim Curry Greatest Hits, including “I Do The Rock”. How about Bruce Willis’ R&B album The Return of Bruno?
I think my embarrassment artists would be:
Amy Winehouse
The Plasmatics
Eddy Grant
INXS
Metallica
Psychedelic Furs
Duran Duran, “A View to a Kill”. It’s just so catchy.
My embarrassment would be that I don’t have a digital music player or collection at all.
McHammer sounds like McDonald’s construction division. Or, obviously, a tough-nosed TV detective.
I am actually not that embarrassed by anything in my collection. Ottmar Liebert is probably the biggest gap vs. my taste. Not my thing.
What Joel@6 said.
Besides that what’s to be embarassed about? In fact I suspect that somewhere in the definition of pop music is “music you like today but will deny that you liked it in the future.”
Disco and glam rock being two examples. Millions of albums sold then suddenly nobody will admit they liked it. Somebody was buying it.
album of embarrassment:
tears for fears – songs from the big chair
+++++++
songs of embarrassment:
’til tuesday – voices carry
expose – seasons change
journey – separate ways
wham – careless whisper
miami sound machine – words get in the way
shut up. i said i was embarrassed. :)
I really don’t have songs like that on my iPod because songs don’t go on my iPod unless I really mean it.
That said, there are some tracks that if I had company in the car, I would probably skip past to spare my passenger, since they probably won’t derive the pleasure I do from them. The entirety of Provision by Scritti Politti, for example, isn’t going to evoke happy memories of being nineteen and full of possibility the way it does for me. There are also some tracks by Macha and David Sylvian that are a bit on the discordant side and not too pleasant if you’re not expecting them.
I also have just about every single Duran Duran song I own on my iPod and I refuse to apologize for that. Just be glad I only have two tracks from Thank You on it.
What’s so wrong about Duran Duran? After all, how can anyone object to a band that’s named after a character in a sci-fi film?
Oh… Wait… Nevermind.
Meco’s “Close Encounters of Every Kind.”
Yes, *that* Meco.
In my defense, it’s some of the best long-haul driving music I’ve ever heard.
Styx: Greatest Hits
But, you know why? Because, what a music foul to buy a greatest hits album. Buy the original albums, man. Styx rocks the house down.
I feel the same way about my Essential ELO album.
My secret shame is my love of anything pop-punk. Blink-182, Fall Out Boy… I just downloaded a bunch of Sum-41 yesterday. I just can’t resist it.
I’m not sure I have anything in particular that I’d be embarrassed about. That being said, I love cheesy Christmas music. I have a Liberace Christmas album and an Elvis Christmas Album. My absolute favorite Christmas album, though is called The Most Fabulous Christmas Album Ever . Also, Paul and Storm’s albums I wouldn’t necessarily play for everyone –likewise my Monty Python Sings collection.
I’m not embarrassed by any music on my iPod, but that’s mostly because it’s all equally unexpected. My musical tastes range from Rammstein to Lady Gaga to Hans Zimmer to the Mamma Mia soundtrack to The Beatles to Avril Lavigne to The Barenaked Ladies to Michael Buble. Stare at my iPod music and you’ll go, “wtf?”
I am right now listening to Will Smith’s Lost and Found Cd. What can I say – it’s very catchy but I only play it about once a year.
I’m a radical feminist into musicals. People would not expect this on my playlist!
Here goes:
– Madonna’s True Blue album, which I only have because it was labeled as Boston’s debut album. (But I do admit to listening to it at times.)
– Bobby McFerrin’s Simple Pleasures (No comment)
– Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack
– Fleetwood Mac’s The Dance
– Herb Alpert, Henry Mancini, Chuck Mangione and Al Jarreau (Guilty pleasures, each).
okay. want another embarrassing little musical tidbit? i’m massively entertained by the badger song and the hamster dance music (the original hamster dance not the garbage passing for it these days). i have both of those on my ipod.
and I AM NOT ASHAMED!
okay i am a little ashamed. but you won’t tell, right?
Okay, let’s see what’s embarrassing on my main player right now:
The Bangles: Walk Like An Egyptian
Enya: Lots. (Good god, I’ve got a whole hour of Enya on this thing. There goes my manly savoir-faire.)
There’s a bunch of Weird Al, Monty Python, Tom Lehrer, Jonathon Coulton and videogame music on there as well, but I gave up being embarrassed about being a geek forty years ago.
Never apologise, never explain.
Yes, that *is* Adam and the Ants on my iPod. And yes, I *do* get down with my bad self to it.
Any questions?
um…Al Stewart
I like Al Stewart, if it’s the Year of the Cat Al Stewart.
Worst for me is Kenny G’s version of A Wonderful World. For some reason it hitched a ride with a bunch of Louis Armstrong songs.
I’m having a field day youtubing this stuff. Gimmie more!
On the border.
“Cool Water” by Sons of the Pioneers; “Maria” and “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” by Andy Williams; and “Coming Clean” by Hilary Duff.
To be fair, I always pair the Duff song with Trent Reznor, but still.
Time to Change, by the Brady Bunch kids. I also have their version of American Pie, along with Madonna’s and Don McLean’s.
Oh, and the theme song to Facts of Life. And McGyver. And Love American Style.
I don’t apologize for music or consider any of the pleasures we manage to enjoy in this vale of tears guilty, but I’m sure various folks I know would wonder why I have two versions each of “The Internationale” and the “Hymn of the Soviet Republics” on my iPod.
I would then scroll over to the vintage “Panzermarsch” cut I found gods-know-where for use on the cardio machines (along w/. the above) and tell them I have something for both sides of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
I’d probably then put on some Klaus Nomi and return to said cardio machine. “Cold Song” FTW!
@#25 James A. Owens: I’ve got the Bar D Wranglers’ version of “Cool Water.” My family used to sing along to it on our summer car trips. Thanks for the smile.
I’m not embarrassed by any of the music on my pod. I like what I like, and I’m not going to apologize. But that said, when my friends are in the car I usually skip over most of the musicals, Sarah Brightman, and Robbie Williams. Just to prevent them from throwing themselves out of a moving vehicle, of course.
I’m not embarrassed by anything on my iPod, but there are some things I realize might not be widely accepted.
Like the Halo video game soundtracks.
Or the theme from Castle Crashers.
John H@18: No need to feel guilty about Alpert, Mangione, and Jarreau. (and I’m willing to look the other way on Mancini.)
Uhhh… this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsbjdIvh_00
It’s the theme song to an anime series, and it sounds like a cross between embarrassing J-pop and the sort of awesome Hot Topic emo stuff that I will freely admit I like (My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, etc). I can’t play it around any of my friends and really, wouldn’t even want people I don’t know to bust me listening to it. And yet, for whatever reason, I LOVE IT. I’m not usually one for believing in the idea of “guilty pleasures,” but there’s no denying that the pleasure I derive from this song is totally guilty.
I don’t have anything embarrassing on my Sansa, but I’d like to point something out in passing. Many people make the mistake of having only things that they really, really love!!! on their players. Yes, mistake. You’re going to play it to death and discover you don’t like it any more.
I have things on there that I skip 50% of the time when they come up (I always listen to “random play all”). I do this for the same reason I don’t use online or electronic dictionaries or thesauruses, or rate the movies Blockbuster sends me in the mail, or rate books at Amazon.
If you limit yourself to the things you think you like, or to what you think your looking for, you limit serendipity, and serendipity is one of life’s finest moments.
Levi
I do have just about every Duran Duran song on mine, but I don’t think that’s anything to be embarrassed about. I also have Rick Springfield, Cutting Crew, Crowded House, and others of my faves from back then, who are still making music and getting better with time. What I’d be embarrassed about is telling people I have classical music on mine since that makes me sound like the nerd I am. I used to have every one of Beethoven’s symphonies, but reduced that to just the 9th, since I usually set it on shuffle to work out and the classical didn’t really have a beat to it! : )
Manilow. Lots of Manilow.
And if I had a copy of my sister’s KC and the Sunshine Band CD, I’d have that on there, too. LOL!
I have a playlist of Limp Bizkit tunes that I’m ambivalent about. On one hand, it’s on my iPod so obviously I like it. On the other hand, the playlist is called “Walk of Shame.”
My player includes music from the old NES Ducktales game.
Everything Alyssa Milano ever recorded.
My mp3 folders currently mass to 140Gb and 28,000 tunes. I’m not ashamed of any of them but there’s a lot of them I just don’t play very often. Once in a while a trawl of random files will pull up a forgetten nugget – such a pleasure.
I browsed through and I actually have a Paris Hilton song! Pretty sure there’s a special level of hell reserved for that. :(
Are there things on there that would make others scratch their heads?
YUP!
Would some of my selections cause my family and friends petition to have me committed to an insane asylum?
YUP!
But am I embarrassed?
HELL NO!!
Journey
Autograph
Taylor Swift
Snow
Europe
Kenny Rogers
Susan Tedesci (sp?)
Bad Brains
Public Image Limited
Each of these at some point has caused someone to ask me “HUH?!”
To name just a few.
I enjoy it all with zero guilt. That’s why they come with those little earbugs – so you do not have to share it.
This from a guy who grew up with classic Rock from my sister, county/folk/bluegrass from my old man, and show tunes from my mom. Then in the 80’s I started with early 80’s pop, then hair metal & early rap, finally to alternative/modern rock pre-nirvana.
By the time I was out of high school in ’89 my tastes were all over the map and it remains that way to this day.
Praise the gods!
I have a whole mix of guilty pleasures (aka the “Cheesy Poofs” mix). It has “The Final Countdown” by Europe, “Heat of the Moment’ by Asia, “Baby Got Back”, “Purple Rain,” “Electric Avenue,” etc. I need to update it now that I’ve discovered Lady Gaga.
There’s also an oldies mix (aka “Cheesy Poofs II”) with the earworms of my youth, stuff like “Sooner or Later” by the Grass Roots, “Yellow River”, by Christie, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass, and many many more.
Fire up one of these mixes and people roll their eyes…then they sing along. With gusto.
@Eridani Yes. Yes there is. I no longer feel bad about my collection of Fall Out Boy and Sum-41.
I’m actually not at all embarrassed by any of the music in my stash. Helen Reddy, Johnny Horton, The Carpenters, David Soul, Fleetwood Mac, etc. Laugh at me if you want… I will continue to sing along to all the songs I’ve ever loved. :-)
Evanescence – my kids got me to listen to a couple songs, and now it’s my guilty, gothy pleasure.
Infernal – From Paris to Berlin – too catchy.. I blame this one on an online friend – she was trying to distract me from a game and it worked!
It’s not on there…yet…but I plan to spend some time the next couple of pre-Dragon*con nights seeing if I can find some of the Taylor Swift + Def Leppard concerts available in some kind of mp3 format.
In the already guilty category…
Yeah there’s Enya…and Erasure…and Linda Rondstadt…and yes, I too am a member of the Duran Duran club, but I *puffy heart* love them.
@22, 23
Don’t be embarrassed by Al. Be sad for those who don’t know him.
That said, I clean the house with the Numa Numa song. The original, not the cut version from the Numa Numa guy.
sigh.. I hate to admit it, but there is ABBA on my playlist.
Dave H@30: I’m not so much embarrassed by them (including Mancini — sometimes you just need to hear The Pink Panther or Baby Elephant Walk or Peter Gunn) as I am reluctant to tell people they’re in my iTunes…
Sooooo, I’m the only one who likes Hanson’s MMMM-Bop, I guess? Actually, I don’t like it either. Who said i did?
Forget I mentioned it.
I don’t have Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” on my iPod, but it requires a strong effort of will not to buy a copy.
Riverdance. I tried to tell someone I was listening to it, and they didn’t believe me.
Not embarrassing so much as odd/rare. I have listened to the bonus CD from Graeme Base’s Worst Band in the Universe at least once a month for the last several years.
Shawn Cassidy. I actually own his “greatest hits” album (the only one you can still get) and I have three of those songs on my iPod. Like many others, I’m not exactly ashamed of it, but it’s sort of like admiting that you like the blue box macaroni and cheese (with the powder, not even the goopy packet) more than homemade, or 7-11 hot dogs or something. And I do like 7-11 hot dogs…
I not only have Ice, Ice, Baby on my iPod, I have several versions of it. Including an acoustic version of me singing along with my ukulele.
The one thing I don’t want my mother knowing that I have on there is several Michael Buble tracks. Yes, I like him. Yes, I don’t mind y’all knowing. If she found out? I’d never hear the end of it.
Gorsh, let’s see: Abba, Seasons in the Sun (part of top 100 of the 70’s compliation), that Big Butt song (Shrek soundtrack), Billy, Don’t Be a Hero (’70’s collection), a Denni Levato (sp?) song (daughter uses iPhone in car), Phineas & Ferb soundtrack: Squirrels in my Pants (it’s a really good song).
Thankfully, daughter’s b-day’s another month and she gets her own iPod. At least I’ll miss out on the ‘noughts bubblegum pop as provided by Disney Channel.
I don’t have any; they are all my wife’s. No, it’s true. Really,… No, you don’t need to look….
I see nothing wrong with either the Carpenters or Manilow. Karen Carpenter’s voice was spectacular, and Manilow’s tunes are guaranteed earworms.
Why yes, I do have both artists’ songs in my library. Of course.
Yeah, and the check is in your mouth.
I’m not falling for that one. No way you get my playlist.
Nyah.
“Watch Me Shine” from the Legally Blonde soundtrack has not left my iPod since I bought it. It’s now on my iPhone.
Why yes, I *am* a gay man. However could you tell?
I don’t have either on my MP3 player, but I do own Black Lace Party Hits and The Best of the Power Rangers. I will admit to purchasing the former (when I was in university and in desperate need of something to play very loudly against My Heart Will Go On And On And On And On And On And On Because Some Idiot Stuck It On Repeat and my copy of Welcome to the Jungle [which, admittedly was much better for drowning out Celine Deon] was 200 miles away) while the latter was a gag gift.
That said, as I’m the person who deliberately went looking for (found and downloaded) Star Trekin’, The Laughing Gnome, I Bet You They Won’t Play This **** Song On The Radio and The Chicken Song (not to be confused with the Birdie Song/Dance)…I think it’s safe to say I’m pretty damn shameless!
Nice to see other folks copping to cheesy 70s stuff that i have on my mp3 player (not an overpriced iPod, thankyewverramuch). But I think I can out-cheese everyone here and then some:
All five Archies albums.
Yes, they recorded five albums. Yes, I have them on my player. Yes, I enjoy the heck outta them. They’re representative of happier times in my childhood and have helped me prevent panic attacks in the past. True story.
What you won’t catch me copping to is having ALL of Leonard Nimoy’s recordings. Nope, not mine, must’ve been added by some mp3 virus or something. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I don’t have an mp3 player and I bet I’m older than most of you. I do however have three external hard drives & a few thousand CDs. There is nothing on them that I am embarassed about. There are a great many tunes that I would not particularly share with certain fam & friends. for instance I absolutely love Yma Sumac. Long ago in the world of vinyl a roommy destroyed one of my favorite albums of hers. Live, learn & enjoy the diversity
From my high school days, I have Young MC “Bust a Move” and Tone-Loc “Funky Cold Medina” playing right next Hanson “Mmm Bop”. I know, it makes your head explode just thinking about it.
Jeez, I almost forgot: Little River Band.
Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. In its entirety. With the pauses. As Lyndsay Buckingham intended it to be heard.
I can’t believe I am the first to mention Debbie Gibson.
Rather eclectic mix, not embarrassed by a single thing, they make me happy when I hear them.
But since it might amuse some:
Beatles, Blues Traveler, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Enya – alot of Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Elton John, Robert Shaw Chorale, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, John Tesh, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica, Foriegner, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffett – LOTS of Buffett, James Galway, Jethro Tull, AC/DC, G&R, Eagles, Don McClean, Gordon Lightfoot, Beethoven, Bach, Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sting, Tom Petty, Harry Chapin, Yo Yo Ma, Joshua Bell…oh, and Theme Songs from SciFi Shows-yeah, you know you know them all!
I recognize that many people would dislike a lot of the music on my mp3 player (Barry Manilow singing Islands in the Stream, for example), but I heartily own it all.
Having said that, though, it is amusing when it goes from the Statler Brothers to Stigmata by Ministry.
There are a few here that would make me wince for others to see… “Amie” by Pure Prairie League, “Another Auld Lang Syne” by Dan Fogelberg, “Night Moves” by Marilyn Martin, and last but not least “Hearbeat” by Don Johnson, but that last one is somewhat redeemed by the blistering Dweezil Zappa guitar solo than by the flat vocal stylings of Sonny Crockett.
Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi of the Young Guns soundtrack.
I was young, I didn’t know better.
I’m only embarrassed by the envy I feel for the playlists I saw listed above. Because those lists fucking rock.
As a former metalhead/punker there are few things in this world that embarass me. But my music collection has gone eclectic over the past few years. Here’s a sample:
A-Ha
Swing Kids soundtrack
Supertramp
Les Mis Complete Symphonic album
Candlebox
Corey Hart ‘Sunglasses at Night’
David Lee Roth ‘California Girls’
…now I must go strap on the combat boots, crank the X/Dead Kennedys/Anthrax mix tape and go slam-dance in my garage to bury my shame. (Also, it scares the *hell* out of the neighbors.)
Scrolled through my iTunes library – I have surprisingly little music that I’m ashamed of having:
Britney Spears, “Piece of Me” (actually an awesome song, with funny and poignant lyrics)
The Dead Milkman, “Instant Club Hit” (mostly this is embarrassing because the phrase ‘art fag’ features prominently, which didn’t bother me when the song came out, but does now)
I do have the William Shatner cover of Pulp’s “Common People,” but I’m proud of that.
I actually am more embarrassed by all the great artists for which I only have one or a couple of songs, instead of a larger collection.
Incidentally, the music streaming service Last.fm tracks (‘scrobbles’) all the songs you listen to. They also make it possible (although non-obvious) to delete scrobbles, which they used to create a list of “Most Unwanted Scrobbles”:
http://playground.last.fm/unwanted
which is a good aggregate list of what people are ashamed of listening to.
Her music was extremely renowned, individuals about me loves her and her music. I hope she was back to be large again