Episode 3: It’s just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby

My stance on pop music is simple: if it was good enough for the Beatles, it’s good enough for me.

I could pretend it’s more complicated than that, but it’s not, not really. When did popular become a slur? When did making people happy become a problem? I’m not exactly sure - maybe it’s always been that way - but I don’t like it. Because I just don’t understand why making something that a lot of people like, or that’s accessible, should be considered anything but good. Dress it up all you like in electronic chill and experimental jazz, but even Kid A is, at its core, just a pop record. And you know what? It sold like one, too. So why not celebrate it?

FIRSTS AND SECONDS

What was the first record you ever bought? Was it something really cool? A landmark? A touchstone of artistic triumph? Or was it Mariah Carey‘s Daydream? Because mine was.

I was only 10 years old, and here was this woman on the TV, shaking her hips and singing pretty sounds, and I had a birthday coming up, with Christmas right around the corner. So I put together my list for my parents, and along with all the toys and sports equipment was Daydream, and sure enough, I got it. I practically wore that CD out, singing along in the living room with headphones on while my family was still there. I didn’t care, I loved that album so much, and years later, I can still sing the entirety of “Fantasy,” as well as large chunks of “One Sweet Day,” “Open Arms” and “Always Be My Baby,” even if, in a fit of adolescent self consciousness, it never made it over to my digital collection.

Hell, I even bought Butterfly, because that video with the Jet-Skis blew my goddamn mind.

My second album? Alanis Morissette‘s Jagged Little Pill, because my beloved babysitter Candace broke through my cold, petulant boyheart and got me to love every damn song on it, ten thousand spoons and all. Finding a friend whose sister convinced him to love the album, it felt like being part of a secret club, the boys who liked the girly pop album. And even though the first album I actually bought was Oasis‘ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, marking my induction into the world of guitar rock, those first two albums left their indelible mark on my pop soul. And bless my parents, they indulged every bit of my pop love, playing me the records they loved, from Jim Croce to Huey Lewis and the News.

I’M JUST A TEENAGE DIRTBAG

But of course, weren’t we all? Childhood innocence lost, victim to the need to be cool, I fell away from that kind of pure love. Certain artists and bands became too lame to love, and I so desperately wanted to fit in. So at school, I stuck my thumb at the starlets and the boy bands and the girly boys in Hanson. All the things that made the 90s the greatest decade (that’s a story for another day, so fight me about it then), I pretended to hate. And I’d say as much, vocally. Sometimes, I even convinced myself I believed it.

But at home? At home, I was free to bask in the light of MuchMusic on the TV screen, to devour every inch of the charts. I sung the chorus to “No Diggity”, imitated the vocorder on “California Love” and loved every second of “Backstreet’s Back.” I owned the Spice Girls‘ first album and knew every word.

Noticing a pattern?

Of course, I wouldn’t have admitted this at the time. I didn’t want to be teased any more than I already was, so I bottled up my pop love and called it a guilty pleasure. I eventually discovered Radiohead, which opened my ears to a whole other kind of music, which I was more than happy to gorge myself on. But I never stopped loving Hanson, even if I did it secretly.

HEY MISTER DJ, PUT A RECORD ON (I WANT IT THAT WAY)

And you know what? That was absolutely exhausting. It’s fucking hard hiding what you love, and eventually I’d had enough. Luckily, that was around the time “ironically” liking songs was in vogue and nobody noticed I was being sincere about “Toxic” until it was too late. By then, I’d already adopted my own mantra, there are no guilty pleasures, and I couldn’t be stopped.

Some friends picked up on it and responded in kind. I think it’s safe to say that, judging from the amount of Ke$ha on this site, Brandon feels the same way. So does my friend Taylor, with whom I regularly control the jukebox at our local neighborhood pub, Uncle Glenn’s, playing Miley Cyrus‘ “Party in the USA”, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Journey until the metal men and waitresses alike are sick of it. But we nod our heads like yeah, move our hips like yeah, and we sing until the night ends.

Of course, not everyone shares this joy. I had a coworker who, being very concerned with liking the right bands, was absolutely aghast that Taylor and I would do this. But while she was trying to explain which obscure bass player she was dressed as for Halloween, I kept dancing.

AND I’M FREE, FREE FALLIN’

Because a good pop song takes talent. It’s hard to make an earworm, hard to make something so ubiquitous and catchy that it’ll be more than a dick measuring tool years later. Even if the singer can’t take the credit, someone can. Even if it’s not “real music,” the people who think that still can’t get the songs out of their heads, just like everybody else. They might even, in their darkest moments, sing along. And that’s the mark of a successful song.

Dammit, I don’t want to pretend that I don’t like Lady Gaga. I don’t want to go back to pretending I don’t know which Spice Girl or Hanson brother is which. I, like so many girls, just want to have fun. And teenage me can go fuck himself if he doesn’t like it, the little scrub.