A long time ago in a galaxy far away I worked on a clinical adolescent psychiatric floor in a local hospital with The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle.
We both often worked overnights and being ardent fans of music, the two of us found ourselves engaged in conversations around that subject as there is little to do on a psych floor (outside of 15 minute patient safety checks) in the twilight hours of the day.
Most of the time we discussed new bands/songs we'd recently discovered, his extreme disdain for Bono and why house music would probably one day rule the world.
One night we were in a particularly fevered back-and-forth regarding the merits of boy bands. The floor was fully stocked with young females diagnosed with some wicked eating disorders so the topic was sparked by all of the CD's laying around the patient lounge.
I will never forget his response to my voiced displeasure at these pre-teens' selection of tunes.
"Tony, these girls are excited about music. It's not the kind of music that you or I listen to often but it's music. It's exciting and hopeful to me for these girls who have very little to be excited about, to be excited about music".
He went on to explain that if God is good, then these girls would branch out from these boy bands into other similar genres of music and discover the wonders of 60's R&B, or 80's New Wave, or even 90's alternative.
In that one talk, Mr Darnielle had converted me from hater to hoper and showed me that indeed every musical cloud does have a very thick silver lining.
That being said, I love One Direction....this song is catchy as F__K.
TLDR? There is no such thing as a musical guilty pleasure.
Fun Fact #1 - I own C&C Music Factory's entire catalog.
7 Minutes Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry & Louis Free
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
TT
