Guilty Pleasure
Somewhere Chuck Klosterman wrote that there is basically no such thing as a guilty pleasure, because people don't actually feel guilty about enjoying the things they label "guilty pleasures." Therefore, they are just "pleasures." Although this is about 99% true, I can offer at least one exception to his theory.
I like Cat Stevens, and it really makes me sick.
I mean, I guess it's sortof defensible now that Wes Anderson is using his old stuff in all his movies. And for a while I would sorta argue that his songs are really tightly constructed and really maudlin, but in a good way. And I used to think it was sort of cool that he gave the music industry a big F-U and converted to Islam at a time when that was completely nonsensical and sort of awesome.
But let's be honest. He's not cool. And his music really sort of sucks. If Jackson Browne got all whacked out on religion and became a Rosicrucian or something, would it make him any cooler? No, he'd still be lame-ass Jackson Browne. And the fact that he supported the fatwa on Salman Rushdie is truly indefensible.
What prompted all this was the little blurb in the Sunday New York Times where he casually drops that he is still selling 1.5 million albums a year. You mean this ass clown swore off all his earthly possessions and "gave up" his old music career to make spoken-word albums about Mohammed and all this time he's been cashing royalty checks for 1.5 million albums per year?
Oh Cat Stevens, why do you have to be my second favorite Cypriot-born British pop star?
I like Cat Stevens, and it really makes me sick.
I mean, I guess it's sortof defensible now that Wes Anderson is using his old stuff in all his movies. And for a while I would sorta argue that his songs are really tightly constructed and really maudlin, but in a good way. And I used to think it was sort of cool that he gave the music industry a big F-U and converted to Islam at a time when that was completely nonsensical and sort of awesome.
But let's be honest. He's not cool. And his music really sort of sucks. If Jackson Browne got all whacked out on religion and became a Rosicrucian or something, would it make him any cooler? No, he'd still be lame-ass Jackson Browne. And the fact that he supported the fatwa on Salman Rushdie is truly indefensible.
What prompted all this was the little blurb in the Sunday New York Times where he casually drops that he is still selling 1.5 million albums a year. You mean this ass clown swore off all his earthly possessions and "gave up" his old music career to make spoken-word albums about Mohammed and all this time he's been cashing royalty checks for 1.5 million albums per year?
Oh Cat Stevens, why do you have to be my second favorite Cypriot-born British pop star?
posted by il Gatto Grande at
2:43 PM
2 Comments:
I gotta admit that I like a few Jackson Browne songs...but yeah, he is pretty fucking lame. I still think "the load out" is one of the coolest songs ever...
there may only be a few true "guilty pleasures", but auto-erotic asphyxiation is one.
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