I’m not joking. I really do like the Spice Girls. I sent an email to a lot of my friends and one of them wrote back “Haha, that’s a good one” (that’s the entirety of his email) as though I was joking…but I’m not. The Spice Girls are what I grew up with. I really do love their music.
It’s not the deepest emotional music or the best instrumentalism or even the best vocal talents, but it’s FUN and that’s the point.
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want…
…it’s not that.
But I do understand how the things you grow up with get embedded in your psyche. For some reason, only explainable by impressions formed by the context of when and where I heard it, I put Is she really going out with him by Joe Jackson on the first compilation cd I ever burned.
I might, for similar reasons, actually listen to Jesse’s Girl, by Rick Springfield.
In the case of Styx, both. What an interesting band. The absolute best and most banal of 80’s rock. Some of their songs are so incredibly cheesy that I actually feel embarassed when they come on the radio.
Others are really inspired, well done, and all-around butt kicking. I still can’t listen to “Renegade” without the hair standing up on my neck. Same with Aku, Aku. Great White Hope is fun. Mr. Roboto. Blue Collar Man. Powerful stuff.
Then “Lauralye” (or whatever it is) or “Come Sail Away” comes on…good feeling gone.
Seems like mostly their love songs suck cheese; a lot of their other songs are pretty cool. You can probably guess which songs the local “Classic Hits” station plays.