There are three different kinds of guilty pleasures. The first is the fake guilty pleasure. This is the one where you've taken the temperature of the room and you know for a fact that dropping your love of Hall and Oates into conversation is going to score you points. Actually liking Hall and Oates is optional. We've all done this. Moving on.The next kind of guilty pleasure is more sincere as it requires actual guilt. It's when a song or artist really does fit right into your otherwise unimpeachable taste, they just aren't considered cool. If you like Annie, then it isn't crazy that you also like Britney. Deal with it.
Finally there is the guiltly pleasure that truly is an odd duck in your personal canon. You can smoke them out by asking yourself, "Ok, I'm enjoying THIS, but what if something exactly like it came along?" If the answer is "Hell no!" then you have what I consider a guilty pleasure of the purest kind, that true spasm of the security gates of the mind that lets the wrong thing through the door.
Which brings me to Howard Jones and the song "No one is to blame." I can't really say much about this song, because I honestly can't tell you why I like it. Unlike it's funkier cousin "Things Can Only Get Better" which might actually inspire some solo boogie-down with the shades drawn, "No One Is To Blame" is a mid-tempo slog. Jones has put on his mid-80s Phil Collins bald wig and is spraying fretless bass and lousy lyrics over footage of some aging boomers dry-humping on a neon-washed beach. Perhaps I like this song because it's one stop shopping for overblown 80s production, but I'm sure if I tried I could think of a better example. At any rate there's only room for one slab of schmaltz this thick in my ipod, and it might as well be this.
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