Guilty Pleasure

One of the subjects I've had to write about in this Sound Sex Project thesis is shame. Sexual shame, bodily shame, but of greatest note, musical shame. I have had to wonder, would anyone admit to liking really 'bad' music, let alone admit to having sex to it? Is there a line between ‘bad’ music that is acceptable due to its camp value or ironic hipster credit, versus songs that are pure abominations? Are people unwilling to share their questionable musical tastes? Do people have sex to their sonic guilty pleasures? Would someone be self-aware, or self-conscious enough to get up from a physical engagement and turn the speakers off if an embarrassing song came on?

While working on this project, I remembered one of my earliest sexual experiences colliding with my musical tastes. I was having a casual fling with a guy I had met online. We were in his apartment, engaging in some sexual activity, and his computer’s music player was on random. Suddenly, Chantal Kreviazuk’s cover of John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane came on. I paused our fun and ran to the computer to change the song, explaining that I found it impossible to fool around to what I considered a sappy cover song that had appeared in a Bruce Willis/Ben Affleck blockbuster.

I've just finished reading Carl Wilson's "Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste," in which he tackles with perhaps the most uncool music we know of, that of Celine Dion. But can music be inherently 'bad'? If every person, child, music critic, and musician you know says that Celine is the worst of the worst, how did she sell out shows in Las Vegas for four years in a row? Perhaps this seems like a facile question, but Wilson's book is incredibly well-written, self-reflexive, interesting and thought-provoking. Are Celine's epic love songs the equivalent of the metal power ballad, but on estrogen? Because her identity as Quebecois is not recognized in the States, is she an invisible 'other'? What is so wrong with liking songs about love that aren't all tears, nihilism, emo, and end of the world? Do our musical preferences have more to do with class structures, rather than sonic palates? The answer may very well be at the end of taste, and as such, I highly recommend Wilson's book, which is part of the 33 1/3 series.

One might say that even Celine escapes the possibility of being liked in an ironic/and/or/hip way. Nor does she have the lengthy shelf-life to permit her to return to the scene with kitsch value. While Neil Diamond can make his way into hipster culture, Dion cannot. But who is monitoring the tastes of the hipster elite? I have just the answer for your.

http://thetragicallyunhip.wordpress.com

If you've ever been uncool as a Celine fan, are interested in purchasing hair-dye for pubic hair, or want to know more about the art of naming furniture at Ikea, this site based out of Montreal is ripe with musings, self-deprecating humour, failed romantic endeavours, and the never-ending curse of being uncool.