8 votes

~music Weekly Music Share Thread #2 - Guilty Pleasures

This week let's share some of those favorite tracks that you don't usually advertise to other people - the guilty pleasures. The ones that tend to make music critics and other music lovers cringe, and garner raised eyebrows from your friends and family. We've all got them hiding in our playlists.

Thanks @ainar-g for the topic suggestion. Feel free to suggest topics for upcoming threads in the comments, and happy listening. :)

Last week's thread on uplifting earworms.

8 comments

  1. [4]
    Heichou
    Link
    Oof, let's do this. My number one guilty pleasure will always be Owl City. The 13 year old me that loved the silly, saccharine, nonsensical lyrics of Adam Young never truly left. Cave In ls one of...

    Oof, let's do this.

    My number one guilty pleasure will always be Owl City. The 13 year old me that loved the silly, saccharine, nonsensical lyrics of Adam Young never truly left. Cave In ls one of my favorite songs by him off of one of my favorite albums, Ocean Eyes. Kamikaze is great as well. I'm pretty sure no other guy over the age of 15 likes him anymore but dammit I love the instrumentals and how unlike anything else it is. Rainbow Veins is absolutely diabetes inducing.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      No need to feel guilty on this one. I'm considerably older than you, and I loved Owl City. He's fully integrated into the music industry now, so it's easy to begrudge him his success, but at the...

      No need to feel guilty on this one. I'm considerably older than you, and I loved Owl City.

      He's fully integrated into the music industry now, so it's easy to begrudge him his success, but at the time Adam Young started making music he was a one-man show. He did everything on his own, making and releasing tracks simply because he wanted to. He garnered a small following and then was able to leverage that into a full, quite successful music career. I bought his first EP (Of June) and his first album (Maybe I'm Dreaming) off of CDBaby, and I'm pretty sure (though my memory might be failing me) they were just regular burned discs with no artwork and a hand-printed cover. Now he's writing music for feature films. That speaks to how far he's come from his humble beginnings.

      At the time I first heard his songs, I remember digging the electronic arrangements he made. I was big into chiptune music, and his weren't quite there, but they were sort of "chiptune adjacent."

      Furthermore, there was a relatability in Young's craft. He didn't try to hide his autotune. His lyrics were clumsy yet earnest. His arrangements were fully synthetic, with not a single real instrument to be found. It very much sounded like the kind of thing that a kid would make in his basement while toying around with recording software (which is, well, exactly what he did).

      His arrangements have a kinetic, meandering quality that contrasts with his sharp, singular vocal delivery, giving him a very distinctive sound. He also has a knack for singable melodies, and nearly every one of his early tracks comes across as a deliberate attempt to write an earworm. It also probably didn't hurt that he was somewhat evocative of The Postal Service, who made it big with a similar sound that had then gone largely unemulated in the years since Give Up was released.

      Someone clearly noticed all of the potential he was bringing to the table and signed him, resulting in Ocean Eyes, which took the most radio-friendly stuff from his early work and added in "Fireflies"--a near-perfect lead single. It is quintessential Owl City: a lush yet unapologetically synthetic arrangement, charmingly awkward lyrics, a delightful melody, an eminently singable chorus. It, like most of his other tracks, is an unabashed feel-good song.

      This is actually a skill of his that I think is undersold. You know, "happiness writes white", "True Art Is Angsty", and all that. It's hard to create something celebratory or uplifting and not have it come across as trivial or trite. Rather than fight this, he leans directly into it. His songs are for the most part undeniably, forcefully hopeful. They're syrupy sweet. It can read as naive, sure, but when so much of the other music out there is serious and depressing, his tracks have a place as a great palate cleanser. After all, how many other bright, uplifting musical acts can you name? He found a mostly unoccupied niche and made it his domain.

      That said, my singular criticism of Owl City is exactly the same as what I'm praising him for. While he definitely played to his strengths initially, he stayed there for too long and didn't develop much past that. Ocean Eyes on its own runs the risk of sounding too "samey" from track to track, and when you add in a second and third album that are almost identical, his formula gets very, very stale.

      He basically locked himself in a corner creatively. Because he stuck to saccharine songs almost exclusively, he's not really able to step into anything with real emotional depth. His second album features a song called "Hospital Flowers" which attempts to go serious, and it is a deeply uncomfortable misstep. He's at his best when he's bright and optimistic, but he fails to go beyond that, and that one note can only sustain listeners for so long.

      Regardless, when he's right, he's right. I unironically enjoy several of his tracks for the simple nature that they are, in the words of him and Carly, "always a good time."

      5 votes
      1. Heichou
        Link Parent
        Holy hell thank you for this fantastic write-up! I actually love Hospital Flowers and found some of his songs to be capable of expressing sorrow or somber feelings. Silhouette and Meteor Shower...

        Holy hell thank you for this fantastic write-up! I actually love Hospital Flowers and found some of his songs to be capable of expressing sorrow or somber feelings. Silhouette and Meteor Shower are breaks from that saccharine syrup that he knows so well. I do greatly enjoy The Midsummer Station for Take it All Away, Silhouette, and Metropolis.

        He tried to take a more somber tone with his album Mobile Orchestra , but I think him deciding to make that a primarily Christian album may have crippled that album. His newest one, from what I've heard sounds almost like he's trying to evolve his sound, but he's afraid to fully commit. I haven't enjoyed that album as much. Maybe I'm Dreaming through All Things Bright And Beautiful is a near flawless string of albums for me

        1 vote
    2. unknown user
      Link Parent
      They're all right. If any of those tracks came up on radio, I wouldn't change the station. In fact, I kinda liked “Cave In”.

      They're all right. If any of those tracks came up on radio, I wouldn't change the station. In fact, I kinda liked “Cave In”.

      3 votes
  2. unknown user
    Link
    Oh boy, here we go. I unironically enjoy will.i.am's music. This in and of its own is not that bad, but I also think that “#thatPOWER” is his best track so far. And it features Justin God Damn...

    Oh boy, here we go.

    • I unironically enjoy will.i.am's music. This in and of its own is not that bad, but I also think that “#thatPOWER” is his best track so far. And it features Justin God Damn Bieber.

    • I really liked LMFAO and still wish for them to come back. Their music was fun dammit.

    • Back in 00s there was this Russian boys band BiS. I was definitely not their target audience. Their texts were dumb. The music is typical Konstantin Meladze's pop crap. But for some reason, I still enjoy their tracks, e.g. “Katia”, “Korabliki”.

    • I think O-Zone were underrated. Yeah, “Dragostea din Tei” got internet famous and Dan Balan apparently has a semi-successful solo career, but I think they could be bigger.

    • I have a Eurovision playlist with over 30 tracks, mostly from the last ~10 years.

    3 votes
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. unknown user
      Link Parent
      I assume you are already familiar with this piece of musical greatness/cancer? Also, since we're on the topic of music intended for children, I've listened to “Banana Phone” way more often than...

      I assume you are already familiar with this piece of musical greatness/cancer?

      Also, since we're on the topic of music intended for children, I've listened to “Banana Phone” way more often than any sensible adult should.

      1 vote
  4. Staross
    Link
    I like this popular French song even though I think the original track is horrible (this live version is much better).

    I like this popular French song even though I think the original track is horrible (this live version is much better).

    2 votes
  5. Dovey
    Link
    W (Double You) was a Japanese pop duo in the mid-2000s. Their music was extremely cutesy and peppy and at times terribly sweet. I will also unashamedly admit that I love Barry Manilow.

    W (Double You) was a Japanese pop duo in the mid-2000s. Their music was extremely cutesy and peppy and at times terribly sweet.

    I will also unashamedly admit that I love Barry Manilow.

    1 vote