Guilty Pleasures Week- JGD

Fact: compromise is the cornerstone of every good relationship. Since my girlfriend is a somewhat normal human being, she doesn't particularly enjoy listening to death/grind/black metal every single day - most of the time, she doesn't enjoy listening to it at all. We have several musical staples that we both enjoy a lot (The Pixies, Built to Spill & Dinosaur Jr.), none of which happen to fall under the umbrella of "guilty pleasures" (especially by I.C. standards- you guys are a veritable bog of bad taste). Since we spend a lot of time together in the the car, I started making "compromise" mixes of all of our favorite stuff, which eventually wore out their welcome because there's only so many times you can listen to the same handful of songs every time you take a drive to the coast or whatever.

So I started just throwing a bunch of random songs onto the "compromise mix", blindly assuming that my girlfriend would also definitely like them, based solely on the fact that they didn't contain any double bass, discordant riffs, or bullfrog vocals. Just the most random shit ever. Songs I only sorta liked while growing up in the 80's went directly onto the mix. I'd see a VHS tape of The Goonies and be like "Oh man, I gotta download that 'Good Enough' song by Cyndi Lauper when I get home." I'd see a skate video with a Neil Diamond soundtrack and go home and buy it on Itunes. Someone would send me an adorable link to some pop singer on Sesame Street, and for some reason, I just HAD to have an MP3 it. It all went on the mix, under the guise of creating an enjoyable listening experience for my girlfriend on our way to work.

Turns out that my ever-growing collection of easily palatable 80's soft-pop-rock was more baffling than endearing to my girlfriend, who was at a complete loss as to why I'd think she would enjoy listening to 'You're the Best' several times a day for months on end. My answer is that if you don't get absolutely fucking AMPED when you hear Joe Esposito's 'You're the Best' (made famous during the tournament montage in The Karate Kid), you are basically completely dead inside and should just heave your miserable carcass off the nearest available skyscraper, posthaste. I guess she never actually saw The Karate Kid, though, so she gets a pass from having to kill herself over it.


Look at this fuckin' guy. You seriously think he ever wrote a BAD song?

So instead of picking just one guilty pleasure to focus on, I thought I'd give you a 'best of' youtube collection of all the shitty/awesome stuff that is currently occupying the "compromise mix." It's important that I point out that I actually love all of these songs without a single iota of irony, and have actually removed albums by At The Gates and Dismember in order to have enough room for them on my Ipod. That's right. Cruel Summer takes precedence over Terminal Spirit Disease.


Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
Feist - 1,2,3,4 (Sesame Street Version ONLY)
Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer
Bananarama - Cruel Summer
Neil Diamond - Forever in Blue Jeans
Billy Squire - The Stroke
Cyndi Lauper - Good Enough (from the Goonies)
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
The Doobie Brothers - Give Me the Beat Boys
Joe Esposito - You're the Best

Let me close this post with some of the finest and most inspirational lyrics ever penned:

Try to be best
‘Cause you’re only a man
And a man’s gotta learn to take it

Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it

History repeats itself
Try and you’ll succeed

Never doubt that you’re the one
And you can have your dreams!

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own