Guardian of good taste

At work today Matt the designer complained because even though he had thousands of songs on his iTunes account, he couldn't find one he wanted to listen to. I offered to send him one, at which point he resoundly mocked my musical taste based on my liking the Scissor Sisters (as he has done before). This from a man who admits to having a Hanson album on his iTunes. When, I asked, were they ever cool?

Anyway, having shut him up with that, I sent him the song. And a couple of hours later discovered he'd posted it on his blog as "the best love song i've ever heard"*. Not only did he not credit me, but he surreptitiously posted it in work time too. Dodgy geezer. Still it makes a change for Matt to be thieving blog material off me because usually it's Lorenzo who does that.

And what was the song? Well, it's called Your Personal Penguin. It's the song of a book by cartoon genius Sandra Boynton which I bought for Cath in America, sung by Davy Jones of Monkees fame. Listen to/download it here!

*pedants like Tez be aware this is a direct quote, hence the lower case I

Weekend shame

It was only when my office compadre Matt challenged me that I was “going a bit nancy” that I realised I shouldn’t leave my CDs lying around after I’ve ripped them onto my desktop. The CD in question is a guilty pleasure that I indulged in last weekend. Yes, that’s right… I now own I don’t feel like dancin’ by Scissor Sisters. It wasn’t the only disc I bought at the weekend. I also bought the double-CD best of Van Halen (who I’ve mentioned before), but I got a few comments about that too!

It made me think. I actually do have a pretty shameful musical palate, of which the mightily fey Scissor Sisters are only the tip of the iceberg. So, here’s my run-down of secret guilty audio pleasures. I challenge anyone else to be brave enough to admit liking songs/bands that are as universally derided as these…

Ace of Base: Happy Nation (someone ‘borrowed’ my album years ago and I’ve always mourned the loss, much to Cath’s disgust)
Ant & Dec: The Cult of Ant & Dec (no, seriously, it was a couple of quid)
U2: Zooropa – you know, the album nobody ever talks about, not even U2. I love it.
Belinda Carlisle: We dream the same dreams (I know it's actually called something else) – I don’t own it, but I always sing along if it’s on the radio
Tiffany – I think we’re alone now – ditto, it's a singalong one
I own every Midnight Oil album, and I know every Thousand Yard Stare song (not the band from Arizona – the one from Slough)
I always sing along to Tom Jones and I love the single he just released with Chicane

I’m sure there’s more I could add to this list, or my close friends could add for me…