Coming Up: Royal Wood
It’s a
pretty popular question: what are your guilty pleasures? In music par lance
this usually includes ABBA, James Taylor, Garth Brooks
or any other artist extremely popular with people you assume you would loathe.
Unlike
say hot dogs or MTV’s The Real World, musical guilty pleasures are often kept
very secret for fear of letting people know you have common tastes. To think
you may prefer Brittany Spears to Burning Spear is pretty much unthinkable. You
may as well just turn in your American Apparel hoodie and call it a day.
But
today I’m coming clean. Here I go: I like that Owl City
song “Fireflies.” The first time I heard it this sweet, synth pop song I felt
all filled with happiness and dreamy possibilities. I soon found out I was
wrong. Any good feelings I had about this song were misguided and that I really
wanted to like synth pop I needed to listen to The Postal Service where
apparently Adam Young aka Owl City stole all of his ideas.
Never
have I seen so much negative press about a gentle little pop ditty; you’d think
Adam was Satan (he’s actually a Christian and that’s been brought up as an
issue, too).
I
refuse to give in however. I like me some Postal Service and its daddy Death
Cab for Cutie. I liked the new Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and Flaming
Lips. But I like “fireflies” too. And I don’t feel the least bit guilty about
it.
How
about you: care to take the ‘guilty’ out of your pleasures? Go ahead, liberate
yourself.
I’ll be
asking my guest Royal Wood to do the same today. Don’t make us feel alone!
[Photo by Dustin Rabin]
