Introduction to Bad Music

No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.

– Oscar Wilde

As you may know, I’m a very obsessive person when it comes to the subject of mix tapes. And anyone who is probably knows the problem of Bad Music. Say you’re making a mixtape and it’s going great but then you have one transition that doesn’t quite work. You want to follow that Velvet Underground song with, surely, The Jesus and Mary Chain, or Gang of Four. Something cool. But the problem is that the end of that Velvet Underground song does synch perfectly with a song, but it’s Heart’s "These Dreams." Now obviously you can’t put that there. What kind of fag lets a synthgoopy ballad with terrible hair any place near the adored Lou Reed and Company?

I ran into this problem every so often making mixtapes. Then there was the problem of sitting in Burger King and what should come on the air but "Heaven is a Place on Earth." And you think, if only I could have a mix where this song would be acceptable. Just as a joke, I suppose. Even though that hook is a motherfucker.

Normal people call this "Guilty Pleasure Music", and one thing is for sure, you better not try to enjoy it sober. Sure it’s fine for your 80’s party and it’s alright if girls listen to it. But the idea is that no music lover worth his salt should ever suggest that listening to "Total Eclipse of The Heart" is more fun than listening to Captain Beefheart.

Bad Music for me started as a whim. Just a quick mixtape thrown together full of dorky music to listen to at work in between all of the Tom Waits and Buzzcocks. Wouldn’t it be nice, I figured, to be able to listen to those corny songs over speakers instead of low in the headphones. So Bad Music was born.

Then a curious thing happened when I played it at work, within the ears of coworkers. Surely, they would start tearing me apart from the opening horns of "The Final Countdown." But that didn’t happen. Instead the mix was beloved, most surprisingly of all by me. I, like many snarky, ironic Gen X-Yers have certainly made fun of my share of cheesy tunes. And thus all mixtapes were cool to a fault. What was great about Bad Music was that it wasn’t "so uncool it’s cool" or "cool in a dorky way." Bad Music removed cool from the occasion altogether, and established that it was alright to make a mixtape without borders.

In a way, the Bad Music series can actually be called my most conceptual and political mixtapes. Instead of hiding behind cool they are designed to flaunt and frolic in unrestrained fun. They challenge "cool" and all of its puritan trappings that get in the way of our natural inclination to sing along to cheesy songs.  Predictably, perhaps, this makes them my most democratic mixes. Instead of being made to impress the cool kids, the Bad Music series is for everyone.

Of course, these few songs I’ve referenced so far don’t really give you an accurate picture of what I define as Bad Music. I think of them as pop songs that are in some way artistically compromised which still succeed as catchy, memorable, even loveable music. Bad Music can occur in any genre. Even TV theme songs can count. The only real bottom line is that no piece of music can ever be considered "too uncool" to be on a Bad Music mix. If anything, that just means it should be on there even more. As long as you don’t mind humming the tune or tapping along, it has a right to exist on the mix if it’s the right song to use.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that as a new feature/thing to do here, I will be posting the Bad Music series in its entirety here (or as complete as Grooveshark’s library will allow) along with detailed commentary for every mix for your listening/reading consideration, and hopefully pleasure. You can listen with headphones if you like, but I think you might be surprised to find who around you also secretly loves the Mortal Kombat theme. And if they don’t, you can always say "it’s okay, it’s only bad music."