GUILTY PLEASURES

(this blog previously appeared in the magazine IO Pages)

Guilty pleasures. Everyone has them. A precise Dutch term does not come to mind for a moment, but it certainly stands for the secret pleasure that people experience (or have experienced) with certain songs. And rightly so, as will become clear from the coming paragraphs.

So I also have them, in many shapes and sizes. As you may know, because I've talked about it more often, I had my own top 40 in my youth. That sometimes got out of hand, there have been months when it even became a top 100 that 'appeared' every week. That is, I typed it out and then waited five days for the next episode to be made again. It was a time-consuming hobby, and it should come as no surprise that my homework tends to fail. You have to set your priorities, huh. I continued that hobby until 1972. When I started making records myself, there was a clear conflict of interests. Setting myself to 1, that was no longer justifiable.

In that own hit parade there were of course not only masterpieces and classics with eternal value. The fact that ' Varga Sto Gialo' by Trio Hellenique once reached my top 10 is more than shameful, I admit it. Napoleon XIV with 'They're Coming To Take Me Away ' was also fun at the time, but I would rather not be reminded that he even reached the number 1 position in the famous TS top 50. One of the last big bangers in that own list was ' Yamasuki' by the Yamasukis . Look it up, on Youtube: you're really ashamed of yourself. But quite nice. The funny thing was that this kind of simple entertainment in my personal hit parade was effortlessly interspersed with high-level pop music: Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Move, the Kinks, the Who and so on.

Now that I am coming out of the closet: I still find it beautiful, for example, 'Move Over Darling' by Doris Day. * Melt *. Princess Stephanie (yes, the one) with 'Ouragan' ('Irresistable') also touches my sensitive strings for some reason, although it is obvious that she cannot really sing. Yes, that is a shock! Walking on Sunshine by Katherina & The Waves , I can't hear it often enough. Hello? Is anyone still reading? If not, I will continue for a while.

Not quite comparable, but one of the last real pop albums that could evoke my great enthusiasm was 'Let Go' by Avril Lavigne (already 15 years ago anyway), especially the song 'I'm With You' . I didn't really belong to the target group (think 'Sk8er Boy'), but I didn't care. Catchy songs, great production. Ideal car music. ' Irgendwo, Irgendwann, Irgend… after yes, weiss ich fell, Kim und Nena , ditto ditto. If I happen to arrive somewhere while such a song is on the radio and rushing through the cabin of my voiture at full speed, I really wait until the last second. It is not possible to switch off the radio prematurely.

My car is the place where I listen to most music anyway. In fact, I always check my own mixes in the car. Nice, those studio monitors of 500 euros each. If it sounds good in my car, I only trust it!

There are many, often now 'accepted' and appreciated mainstream acts such as Abba, which were previously not the intention that you liked as a serious prog musician - but more and more colleagues are coming out: we are all guilty as hell !